Description

This article is from the Digital Pianos FAQ, by Isako Hoshino rmmpfaq@yahoo.com with numerous contributions by others.

1] What are the differences between "acoustic", "digital", "electric" and "electronic" pianos?

An "acoustic" piano is the traditional piano everybody is familiar
with, that produces sounds by means of hammers striking strings. It
is generally referred to as "the piano." The term "acoustic" is
usually used when specifically making a distinction between other
various forms of piano (digital, electric, etc.)

A "digital" piano is an instrument which does its best to duplicate
the sound and feel of playing an acoustic piano. It typically uses
digitally sampled (recorded) sounds or use physical modeled sound
generators (more on this in a separate section), amplifiers and
speakers instead of strings and hammers to produce the piano-like
sound. They have weighted key action to imitate the action of an
acoustic piano.

An "electric" piano is an electro-acoustic instrument analogous to an
electric guitar. It has a real action, some sort of metal tine or
string which vibrates, and pickups to detect the audio signal for
subsequent amplification.

An "electronic" piano, better referred to as an "electronic keyboard"
is an instrument with a keyboard, but usually without the weighted key
action or velocity sensitivity, and the sound is usually generated
through synthesizers (computer-generated), but unlike digital pianos,
there is not much emphasis on replicating the actual acoustic piano
sound; however, some may have sampled sounds. You see these often for
children's toy keyboards and other uses that do not require "simulate
piano" sound.

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