Comparison Artesia PA-88H vs Ringway RP-30

— Stationary. Stationary tools have their own stand and are designed to be installed directly on the floor. At the same time, in accordance with the name, such models are designed for constant stay in one place and are poorly suited for regular movements even within the same room, not to mention longer distances. However, this is not a disadvantage, but only a characteristic feature of such cases. But the unequivocal disadvantage of stationary tools can be called their rather high cost. On the other hand, such models are as similar as possible to real pianos in appearance, layout and equipment: the keyboard, usually, is located at a standard height, and pedals are installed in the lower part of the case (and there are usually as many as three of them, a complete set). And it is much easier to provide high-quality sound and an abundance of features in such an instrument than in a portable one — the manufacturer does not need to pay special attention to compactness and weight reduction.

— Portable. Portable are called digital pianos, made in the form of portable keyboards and devoid of stands; to play such a keyboard, you need to put it on a table or other support. Outwardly, such instruments are similar to synthesizers, and sometimes almost indistinguishable from them. At the same time, unlike synthesizers, portable digital pianos have mostly full-size keyboards with 88 keys, and displays are rarel...y equipped. And in terms of functionality, the differences are that digital pianos are more oriented towards traditional music: they can provide relatively few timbres, often do not support auto-accompaniment (see below), but provide a fairly high sound quality. If we compare portable models with stationary ones, then the key advantage of this option is obvious — the tool can be moved from place to place with relative ease and even carried with you, if you have the appropriate case. The disadvantage also naturally follows from the design — it will be extremely difficult to play such an instrument without additional support, and not every piece of furniture can play the role of such a support. So it is almost impossible for a portable digital piano to do without a stand (see "Packaging").

The presence of built-in pedals in the design of a digital piano.

Pedals are an indispensable element of equipping a classical piano; accordingly, they are often provided in digital counterparts. Actually, this function is practically obligatory for models of a stationary layout (see "Hull"). But in portable ones, on the contrary, built-in pedals are not found — there is simply nowhere to install them, external plug-in pedals are available for such models (see below).

The traditional number of built-in pedals is three; there are practically no other options in a power tool. Note that in many models, the specific functions of the pedals can change depending on the set timbre, or even manually, at the request of the musician.

The number of built-in sounds provided by the Digital Piano.

Despite the name, digital pianos are extremely rarely designed to imitate the sound of only a piano — the electronic hardware allows them to provide other timbres of sound. In addition, even the piano has its own varieties — for example, among the grand pianos there are 6 main classes, from large concert to miniature. So the built-in sounds can cover different kinds of pianos, as well as other instruments and sound effects.

The abundance and variety of timbres in digital pianos as a whole is not as great as in synthesizers, however, in this category there are very “charged” models, with a hundred timbres or more (in the most multifunctional, this number can exceed 900). However, it is worth specifically looking for a “multi-instrumental” model if you do not intend to be limited to the sound of the piano and would like to have more freedom of choice. It is worth remembering that a specific set of timbres can be different.

If the instrument is bought exclusively as a piano, then here, on the contrary, it is worth paying attention primarily to solutions with a small number of timbres. Such models are not only cheaper than "universals" — they can also sound better (due to the fact that there are few timbres and the manufacturer can carefully approach the sound quality of each built-in "instrument").

Auto accompaniment feature on the digital piano.

Auto Accompaniment is a melody of a specific style played by the instrument under user control. Such control is carried out by the left hand: the musician takes certain chords on the left side of the keyboard, and the electronics of the instrument adjusts the auto accompaniment melody to the key of the taken chord. Thus, this function allows you to accompany the main part with a full-fledged accompaniment, while the musician only needs to set the chords.

Among digital pianos, unlike synthesizers, this function is rare. This is due to the general specialization of this class of instruments (not least professional music-making, including as part of an ensemble or orchestra). However, auto accompaniment is available on both relatively simple and high-end digital pianos.

The number of Auto Accompaniment Styles (see above) originally stored in Digital Piano memory.

Different auto accompaniment styles differ from each other in the same way that different melodies differ from each other — in tempo, time signature, rhythmic pattern, set of instruments used, etc. Accordingly, the more styles initially available in the instrument, the wider the choice of the musician and the higher the probability of finding the option that best suits a particular situation. However even numerous styles does not guarantee that among them there will be a suitable one; in addition, we note that with the same number of styles, their specific set in different instruments can also be different. However, custom styles can be provided for this case (see below).

Summarizing, we can say this: if you plan to work intensively with auto accompaniment, in addition to the number of styles, it will not hurt to clarify their specific range.

The range over which the tempo of the sound played by the instrument can change. It can be either a built-in melody or a part recorded on a sequencer, or an auto accompaniment, a tutorial or a metronome. For more information on all of these features, see the corresponding glossary entries. Here we note that a change in tempo is often required in fact — for example, to speed up an initially "sluggish" accompaniment or slow down a training programme that is difficult to master at the original tempo.

Tempo is traditionally indicated in beats per minute. The classical, "academic" range covers options from 40 bpm ("grave", "very slow") to 208 bpm ("prestissimo", "very fast"), however, in modern digital pianos, the working range of tempos is often significantly wider.

The presence of a sequencer in the design of a digital piano.

This function allows you not only to play music on the instrument, but also to record it with the possibility of later playback. However, this is at least; in addition to recording the parts of the instrument itself, the sequencer can provide recording an audio or MIDI signal from the corresponding input, mixing several parts (including recording the music being played over the music being played “on the go”), working with the parameters of individual tracks (volume, tone, timbre), as well as specific functions such as quantization (smoothing uneven tempo). The specific functionality of the sequencer may be different, it's ok to check it before buying. However, anyway, this function can be a good help for the musician; it is especially useful for those who are not limited to the performance of ready-made music and want to compose their own compositions.

Possibility of dividing the keyboard into two parts so that the parts of the left and right hands are played in different timbres. This allows you to simultaneously play two disparate parts on the instrument — for example, accompany a piano melody with chords from a string orchestra or organ sounds. Specific combinations of timbres are most often pre-recorded in memory, however, there are models in which the musician himself can choose timbres for each part of the keyboard.

The presence of an octave shift function in the digital piano.

This function makes it possible to "shift" the sound by a certain number of octaves up or down — for example, in such a way that the bass register sounds on the keys of the first octave, or vice versa, the first octave "slid" lower, into the bass, and notes of the second sounded in its place or even the third octave.

This feature significantly expands the range of the instrument, allowing you to play notes that were not originally covered by the keyboard. This is especially important for instruments with 61 or 73 keys (see "Number of Keys"), but octave shifting is not uncommon in full-sized 88-key models — it can be useful when splitting the keyboard (see above), when available for each hand the range is noticeably reduced, and the batch can be very low or very high. However, there are other options for using transfer — for example, so that when playing an updated version of the melody, you do not have to move from the usual octaves.