In the comments to yesterday's post on

While the challenges of miking an acoustic piano are real (I may have to try double-miking myself sometime), I must disagree with your statement that an electronic keyboard usually sounds better. I don't think ever heard a keyboard, through a sound system, that I could have fooled myself into thinking was a real piano, particularly if it's played across the compass with a wide range of tone colors. As a pianist, while I've encountered many out-of-tune or poorly-regulated acoustic pianos, there is simply no contest in terms of touch and subtlety of sound between a keyboard and a good piano.

I think the keyboard and real piano both sound good, but I do think the keyboard sounds a little better. Modern keyboards work by playing back lots of high quality recorded samples made off of a very good piano, so it's not surprising that they can do a very good job at the piano sound.



[1] These are clips I generated when trying to figure out if we'd gotten better over time. Look there for details on how I made them. I've tried to select here ones where the piano can be heard well, instead of being drowned out by too much mandolin or something.