Hi, I need to buy an electric piano max budget $200.
Would like it to be as pro as possible but also realise $200 is not much.
I had a look online but have 0 experience when it comes to electric pian🥶🫡🤪🤣😀
Any Electric Piano Deals? - Budget $200
vegemite2008 on 30/03/2023 - 10:46
Last edited 30/03/2023 - 11:15 by 1 other user
Last edited 30/03/2023 - 11:15 by 1 other user
Comments
That's a keyboard. OP wants an electric piano.
OP is not going to find an electric piano for $200. Even secondhand, unless someone is just trying to dump one.
Look for old Clavinovas on Facebook Marketplace or something like that, where people are just trying to get rid of them. Yamaha Clavinovas have been around forever, and people try to get rid of them. You're unlikely to see much similar for the other brands (Roland, Kawaii) and Nord is far more specialist and expensive.
Careful of the really old ones (e.g. CLP 1xx models) because they came with a manufacturing defect which has the ends of the keys (the end inside the piano) crumble and crack. These are essentially unfixable unless you have access to original keys (buyable online from one or two US sources).
If your budget is 200 and you need new, then you're looking at low end electric keyboards.
@BewareOfThe Dog: I guess it really depends on what OP is look for. The cheapest one is a non-weighted cut-down electric keyboard. For electric pianos (i.e. weighted keyboard) they go up to $500. Which on the face of it is remarkably, suspiciously cheap! I'm more used to electric pianos starting around 2K but I haven't tracked prices locally.
Was looking into this myself.
You might want a "full size" 88 keys piano (especially if planning to use it long term to learn classical and maybe even mode to traditional pianos).
You will certainly want weighted keys, with "hammer-like" effect.
Your neighbor, partner and cat will appreciate an headphone out.
If planning to learn semi-seriously, you will want the pedals (the sustain pedal at least) or at least the capability for the keyboard to plug in one after.At that price point it might be already hard to find all of these "basic" features even in a used model.
How "good" it sounds and how the keyboard feels will probably be things you will be unable to choose on this budget.Other functions might go from good-to-have to total gimmicks and useless, depending on the planned use of the instrument. What I listed here is a shortlist for a learning instrument that allows transition to better ones down the track.
Disclaimer: not musically trained. I bought a 50$ violin for the enjoyment of my wife as that was the cheapest thing I could find and to punish myself, but if I could (AKA, if my wife would distract herself long enough) I would probably get a piano too…and a trumpet…and a cello…gosh, I so much want a cello…I need to distract the wife now…
You'll need to stretch your budget to at least $500 for a weighted 88 key digital piano, otherwise you'll need to look at keyboards.
Got a Yamaha NP-12 pre-covid for around $250 and that's about the cheapest new digital piano I can find back then, but
- No weighted key
- 66 keys only
- pedal costs extra
For $200 you should just look at Gumtree / Facebook Marketplace for 2nd hand ones. I recently gave away an old Yamaha Clavinova upright digital piano that's broken + a few missing keys, and I guess for $200 you can probably fix it up.
Was this a CLP 1xx model? These have a known problem with the keys, but they are fixable. For a while, Yamaha was running a free key replacement program, but that was literally over a decade ago.
Can't remember the model but had that Clavinova for maybe 20 years — bought second hand as well, and fixed the keys quite a few times. Have a Kawai upright now so hopefully the old Yamaha ended up with someone who knows how to fix & put to good use.
Sound about the right age for the 1 series with the known key fault. Replacement keys were, irrc, about USD5-8 each + international shipping. So quite doable as long as you only had a handful of failed keys (but you needed to keep a big range of spares for future failures and all the keys for different notes were different shaped).
We found that with the old electric pianos and the new ones… the new ones are not really any better. Despite all the marketing fluff, the newer pianos sound and feel similar (or sound worse :/), have the same shitty little speakers mounted in awkward positions in the chipboard cabinet. For 2-5K you're paying for the weighted keyboard, and the rest is cheap garbage- very little circuitry, cheap speakers, huge amounts of empty space in a cheap veneered cabinet.
As long as parts are reliable, imo old electric pianos are just as good as the new ones.
To get something that sounds properly good and is electric, use an external sound engine like Pianoteq and good quality external speakers/amps. Or use a Nord.
Decent second hand digital pianos don't go for anywhere near $200. So either revise your budget up or get a keyboard or hope you can get something cheap second hand.
We were looking at the end of last year as well, but our budget was higher. We were looking long before we needed to buy one.
Luckily we managed to get a Clavinova CLP-550 for free in our local area. It's an oldish model, but has full weighted keys, pedals and all keys worked. It retailed in the 'ks when new. The base/pedals didn't fit in the car so my wife and I had to lug it a couple of streets home.
When I saw the post, I went over pronto because it was nearby and we were looking. The owners had upgraded, and if no one wanted it, they said they'd take it to the tip the next day.
What is the real difference between a digital piano and a digital keyboard?
Mate, doesn't look like you're putting much effort into researching here before committing to an instrument, or this should have already been clear to you.
The core difference is the weighted keyboard (hammer-like effect in traditional pianos).
Generally speaking, they might also be more capable, like being able to reproduce more "voices" at the same time (useful when you'll play your rendition of Rush E for a YouTube comment). The more expensive ones supposedly have also a better sampling of the real thing to give a more authentic output, but as rumblytangara says above might as well be mostly marketing fluff in lots of instances.
Any other difference would likely be totally insignificant to you. Why would you want a piano in the first place? What's your learning objective?
I'd advise more research before spending even "just" $200 on any instrument.
Thanks everyone for the replies.
I did lots of research before posting this.
BUT, the suggestions and comments from you guys are usually the best.
Our child did play piano several years ago.
How important is it to have Bluetooth?
Our child would like to record the music played. Can it easily be done if the piano has usb connection?
Thanks
I think most entry-level digital pianos that have bluetooth only utilise it for playback and not recording.
Most Entry-level pianos also utilise USB just for MIDI.
Imo not important.
I did lots of research before posting this.
If this was true, you wouldn't have asked what the difference is between an electric piano and a keyboard :/
Banging that question into google gives an instant answer.
Not gonna bother typing anymore. I suspect my earlier efforts were a waste of my time.
Good luck with the shopping.
Don't worry about the "tech" bit — USB or Bluetooth. The actual piano bit is far more important — how good the keys are, dynamics of the key-press, whether they feel good to play etc. As of recording, assuming that the elec piano comes with a decent speaker (or plug into an amp + external speaker) — just put your phone next to the speaker, press "Record" in the a sound recording app, and start playing…
Thanks. Makes sense.
You might be better off buying second hand if you want a lot of features with that budget.