I gave it up after two weeks and bought new batteries

Try playing something softly, or at least with your light touch. Turn up the volume, turn up the velocity sensitivity. Play a rocker on the piano, or a funky riff on a Rhodes. Record it.

Now turn down the volume, turn down the velocity sensitivity and curve. Play the same part, and play hard... Record it.

Compare the two. Odds are, they will sound VERY different, rhythmically, emotionally and sonically. Look at the two files in a MIDI sequencer (record them as MIDI first). Look at how different the velocity levels are. Even if you get them both in the same ballpark about average level, the ranges will be totally different.

Now play them to a non-musician. Ask them which version they prefer. 9 out of 10 times, they'll pick the more muscular performance. Rock, funk, and so many other musical styles are all about energy and attitude. You can't tickle your way through them

Of course you can't my friend, but whacking a 25 lb keyboard so hard that it moves on the stand is a tad much...hence the volume control, and, of course, a decent stand.

I can play the 25 lb P85 (or the S900) very aggressively, and I've got big hands, and it doesn't move on the stand...and I'm getting those nice barky sounds out of the Rhodes patches on the piano or the S900 when MIDI'd...

You must be leaping in the air and coming down pretty hard to make an instrument of this kind of weight bounce or slide.

Thankfully your G70 can take the banging but it can't be all that good for the keystrip, and smears and slides are very hard on key mechanisms(of any brand)...just ask any repair guy or techie.

PSR's don't like being glissed or having smears played on them because of the type of contacts used (they don't use a strip like the Tyros or G70) so I tend to treat them a little gentler...of course, restaurant music doesn't lend itself to that technique much in the first place.

I'm very impressed with the action on the Yamaha P85...for an inexpensive digital piano, it is pretty well as nice as you'd want...and, it's not heavy....that part I really love.

Ian

[This message has been edited by ianmcnll (edited 04-03-2009).]

Well, the G1000 took about ten years of my abuse (if you want to paint it so) without the slightest problem with the action. So far, nothing wrong with my G70's action, either. Maybe PSR keyboards don't like certain smear techniques or glisses... Me, I prefer a keyboard that doesn't dictate to ME what I should and shouldn't play!

Let's be clear, here... I don't smack anything around hard enough to make it bounce around all over the place (unless the stand is the culprit), but after growing up playing grand pianos, Hammond's, Rhodes' and CP70's, I have kind of got used to a keyboard that doesn't move a millimeter, no matter WHAT you do to it.

Touch response on electric keyboards only remains consistent if the keybed isn't moving when you hit it. Otherwise, that motion adds or subtracts from the force that you apply. After carefully honing that touch over years, I don't want anything to alter it.

Go play a grand piano standing up wearing rollerskates... Try to stay in one place..! You are imparting force on the keyboard whether you realize it or not.

BTW, what's the difference in touch between the P series, and the CP series Yamaha pianos? That graded action on the CP's seems to bump the weight up to about 40 lbs.+. Is it heavier to the touch?

Of course you don't my friend...we can't have that now, can we?

In my case, I know I chose the right tools for the job...PSR-S900 does the arranger work admirably and my back thanks me at every setup....and for piano, you know that an 88 weighted hammer is the only way to go...no wimpy synth or semi-weighted action for me, and no compromise with the P85...and, I can do all the glissandos I want on it...the occasional gliss won't do any damage to the PSR, but ripping up and down on the keys with abandon every night won't do it any favors either, as it would with any light action instrument....they are not pianos and aren't meant to be played like one.

The CP-300 has a different action, GHE is a teensy bit heavier key feel as opposed to the GHS in the P-85...I had a CP-300 here for a few months, excellent sound and feel but a bear to move at 71 lbs, I really liked it, but luckily I liked the P-85's slightly lighter action better and I'm certainly glad of that as it is so much lighter in weight(25.9 lbs).

It also has half pedalling like the CP-300.

I wish I could adapt to the semi-weighted actions for piano, but they really feel all wrong to me.

Ian

Are we really going to have this same discussion again ????

Ahhhh grasshopper...very often the answer we seek is in our question.

Makes you wonder why there is a piano sample in there, then...

And a very nice one it is...fits in the mix absolutely perfectly.

The G70 has a keyboard, yet it has a Sax sound in it...why?

Because there is nothing about the G70 keyboard that prevents you playing it...