If anyone already has a decent action electronic 88, you could do well taking a VERY close look at some laptop software. The last few years, some of those grand piano libraries have got seriously good. I mean, to the point that reviewers are no longer really reviewing the software, they are discussing the pianos that were sampled themselves!

Even the best of them are usually under half a grand US, many great ones are a hundred bucks, or a couple of hundred.

For my taste, I don’t think you can go wrong with Spectrasonic’s Keyscape, which not only has amazing Steinway and Yamaha’s, but also basically every other electromechanical keyboard done just as well… Rhodes, Wurli, Clav’s, Pianet’s, you name it. Exquisitely sampled, superbly playable. Always reviewed very highly.

If you want to tweak and voice your piano, and like me like a little ‘knocked about’ in your sound, Pianoteq7 (or are they on 8 already?) allows an insane degree of getting in there like a piano technician and screwing around with the per string tuning and voicing. Their slightly aged presets are amazing at replicating the sound of a piano that might not have JUST been tuned, but had a bit of time to get played in. I often feel most sampled sets are just a little TOO perfect, like you sat down at it the second the tuner was done!

Few of us get that privilege for long, and most pianos on older recordings were a little ‘aged’. They sure didn’t get the tuner in for each take!

An FP90 running into one of these softwares might get you pretty damn close to sounding real nowadays…

Try this comparison. https://youtu.be/spDOiJcoKgU

This YouTube channel (Merriam Music) is an exhaustive resource for great honest reviews about everything from real pianos, digital stage pianos and software. He knows his stuff, and plays and demos them all beautifully. Can’t recommend the channel too highly! 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼