The History Of The Development Of Portable Digital Pianos

Today's people discuss the "portable digital piano" is a branch of the electronic organ family, strictly speaking, it should be called "digital piano", and people in Taiwan call it "digital piano". In the 21st century, it has been conventionally called "digital piano" as "portable digital piano". Its sound principle is that the integrated circuit calculates the key strength, pedal situation, key speed and other physical conditions, calls the corresponding sampling signal, and plays it back after calculation. All instruments that use digital sampling technology to simulate piano timbre fall into this category. The principle of the general portable digital piano induction key strength is: two induction contacts are placed under the keys, and the keystroke speed is determined by calculating the time difference between the upper and lower sensing points when pressed. Some high-end keyboards have three sensing contacts for more force sensitivity.
Early electric pianos were more specific, with only a few piano or piano-like tones, which could adjust the volume, in addition, the cost was all spent on the feel of the keyboard. The keyboard of portable digital piano has gone through three periods of development.
(1) Tension spring counterweight. The simple spring structure is used to generate keyboard dynamics, and the sense of power is very stiff, and the difference with the acoustic piano is obvious.
Portable digital piano
(2) Counterweight keyboard. The use of complex damping device makes the portable digital piano keyboard not too brittle when pressed, and there is some delay when rebounding, and the feel is quite close to the acoustic piano. According to the preferences of different groups of people for keyboard strength, it is divided into semi-counterweight and full counterweight. On this basis, in order to simulate the difference in striking intensity caused by the thicker strings in the bass area of the acoustic piano than the treble area, a stepwise counterweight keyboard has been developed, and there are slight differences in the weight of different pitches, which are very close to the acoustic piano.