It seems like it should be pretty simple to just record the sound of a concert grand and play it back on a speaker. In fact, that’s what we do for studio albums. Is it the sustain pedal that causes the main difference in sound between an acoustic and a digital? Or would playing both without the pedal still sound different? I actually own a pretty sophisticated digital piano, the Kawai CA49, and it sounds a lot better than cheaper pianos, but I probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between it and an upright acoustic.
In: Engineering
The sound of an acoustic piano depends on how (hard, fast, …) you hit each key. The simplest digital pianos entirely neglect this (and always play the same sound).
For a bit better digital pianos, some might have a few pre-recorded options to pick from (which isn’t quite the same as the continuous range in a real piano), and the even more advanced models might just model the sound alterations in real time for a full range of adjustments.
With modern digital pianos, a sufficiently advanced model probably starts to be sufficiently indistinguishable for practically all uses. It certainly will perform better than most acoustic pianos. (Which is also why the second-hand value of basic acoustic pianos dropped to zero a decade or so ago where I live.)
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