Randy Hoexter

Bad Digital Keyboard Actions (Why does it hurt when I play?)

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Randy
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Ever wonder why some keyboards are harder to play than others, or why your hands hurt after a gig on certain keyboards? In this article, we are going to look at certain design elements that make some keyboards hard to play. I tested a selection of keyboards available to me as a cross-section.

Many musicians focus on the amount of force it takes to press the keys, called touch weight. While this is important, here we will examine some other design features that can really mess up our ability to perform:

Fulcrum

Keys are an example of a lever, where, like a see-saw, there is a pivot point attached to a long key, which naturally has its greatest throw at the end. The main measurement I took reflecting this was the distance the key travels in front, called key dip, compared to the travel at the back of the keys. The greater the difference between these, the more force it takes to press the keys farther back, and the more unpleasant the action. In the best cases, reflected by the grands, the front moved 10mm, while the back came out to nearly 5mm. This is because the pivot point of these keys is several inches behind the back of the keys, allowing more leverage. In the worst case, oddly enough, the Yamaha EZ-200 keyboard, the measurements were 10mm in front and >1mm at the back edge. This reflects the pivot point being directly behind the keys.

In grand pianos, the fulcrum is farther back for the black keys, which compensates for the lack of leverage in these shorter keys; this also makes an improvement.

Key Length

While a we often play at the front or middle of the keys, there are many cases where our thumb is used to play a black key; in this case our fingers are now towards the back. Look at any old piano, and you will see scratches in the finish behind the keys to indicate that this has happened a lot. This makes the case for the keys being longer as an advantage, especially for those with large hands. In this case, the Pearl River grand was the  winner at 153mm. M-Audio was at the bottom at 136mm. Short keys can aggravate the leverage issues above, since the back of the keys is closer.

Octave Width

It might seem crazy, but the width of an octave on the keyboards also varied.(!) This may be the most egregious design flaw, since this changes the size of all the intervals our hands are expected to find by touch. This would be like having a gymnast practice on one set of parallel bars and then having them spaced differently during competition. Needless to say the athletes would not feel comfortable and would make more errors.

This particular problem seems to be primarily in Yamaha’s unweighted digital keyboards. I first noticed this in the 80s when I got the famous DX-7 keyboard, and stacked it on other instruments; I tried to line up the “C” keys at the bottom, only to find they were misaligned at the top. Ironically, the Yamaha CP-70 Electric Grand was the other keyboard, and had the correct octave size. Years went by and for some reason Yamaha continued to make these smaller keys, and it continues to this day.

Spring is Here

There are three basic types of keyboards: Actual mechanical piano actions, “Weighted” hammer-action simulated piano actions, and unweighted spring-loaded keys. In general, the piano’s highly-evolved action is going to respond best, especially to velocity variation. Because it relies on momentum rather than spring tension, it doesn’t “push back” on your fingers harder as you press down. Combined with the fulcrum issues above, this makes the spring keyboards the least playable. We will explore the ballistics of these actions in another article.

The Players

1. Yamaha EZ-200 portable keyboard: A consumer-grade portable keyboard from the lab at AIM where I teach. The keys light up to show you what to play (don’t get me started about this.) Spring-loaded keys, unweighted.

Key dip: Front 10mm  Rear <1mm  Key length: 140mm  Octave: 160mm

2. M-Audio Keystation 61es: This one belongs to me, used as an “extra” keyboard or portable. Plastic spring-loaded.

Key dip: Front 12mm  Rear 1mm  Key length: 136mm  Octave: 165mm

3. M-Audio Keystudio 49i: Very small portable keyboards with piano sounds formerly used at AIM until they began to break a lot. Plastic spring-loaded.

Key dip: Front 10mm  Rear 1mm  Key length: 136mm  Octave: 165mm

4. M-Audio Axiom 61: MIDI controllers used in AIM studios. Slightly weighted plastic spring-loaded.

Key dip: Front 12mm  Rear 1mm  Key length: 136mm  Octave: 165mm

5. Yamaha SY-99 synth: Again this one is mine. I used it for years on one-nighter gigs etc. It was more than $3000 new. Semi-weighted keys, spring action. Same keys as DX-7, many Korg models.

Key dip: Front 10mm  Rear 3mm  Key length: 140mm  Octave: 160mm

6. Roland RD-700 digital piano: This is my main gig keyboard. 88-key weighted hammer-action.

Key dip: Front 10mm  Rear 4mm  Key length: 150mm  Octave: 165mm

7. Casio Privia digital piano: belongs to AIM, used for concerts and rehearsals. 88-key weighted hammer-action.

Key dip: Front 10mm  Rear 2mm  Key length: 150mm  Octave: 165mm

8. Pearl River GP142 baby grand: Inherited from my father-in-law, this Chinese-made budget grand is in our living room.

Key dip: Front 10mm  Rear 5mm  Key length: 153mm  Octave: 165mm

9. Baldwin Model L 6′ Grand: Belongs to the head of AIM, and is in one of our studios there.

Key dip: Front 11mm  Rear 5mm  Key length: 140mm  Octave: 164mm

10. Steinway Model B  7′ grand: Belongs to the church where I am staff pianist. From 1973, has been refurbished.

Key dip: Front 10mm  Rear 5mm  Key length: 144mm  Octave: 165mm

11. Rhodes 73 stage piano: Belongs to me. It has a primitive hammer system with fewer parts than a grand.

Key dip: Front 10mm  Rear 3mm  Key length: 144mm  Octave: 165mm

12. Yamaha C6 7′ grand: This is my own instrument, lovingly maintained. Built in 1996. I use this for all my recordings.

Key dip: Front 10mm  Rear 5mm  Key length: 150mm  Octave: 165mm

Measurement notes

Generally, all these keyboards agree on 165mm for the octave, except the two Yamaha digitals.  The front key dip was usually 10mm, except the Axiom 61, which actually went down 12mm, plus the after-touch sensor allowed another 3mm, bringing it up to 15mm (!) this excessive dip would be a problem, but was probably done to allow for some throw at the back. Key length varies, but the Pearl River had the longest keys at 153mm. Surprisingly, the Baldwin and Steinway had short keys at 140-144mm. The shortest keys were M-Audio at 136. 150mm seems like the standard.

Opinions:

At the bottom of the list, the Yamaha EZ-200 has both the shallowest dip at the back, short keys, and worst yet, a non-standard 160mm octave. Combined with a very high spring tension, this keyboard would probably cause injury on a long gig.

All the M-audio keyboards had very short throws at the back and high spring tension, plus short key lengths. The octave measurement was correct. probably quite fatiguing to play.

The Yamaha SY-99 has a venerable semi-weighted action, found in many models, and would be fine if it weren’t for that pesky small octave. Decent key dip and tension.

Casio Privia has the full-sized keys, but the pivot is clearly close to the keyboard, resulting in a short throw at the back.

The Rhodes had decent key length, with a bit of a short throw at 3mm at the back. Typical sloppy action, due to simple design.

Roland RD-700 has a nice action, long keys and decent throw; best of the digital keyboards.

Baldwin played well, though its age shows in the variations from key to key and loose bushings. The short keys feel a bit cramped.

Pearl River had nice long keys and throw, but gummy action due to sticky action parts. probably could be regulated to play well.

The winner, in my opinion: Yamaha C6 grand, with the Steinway a close second. In fairness, the Steinway is 23 years older, and gets beat-up a lot. Yamaha action is a bit more balanced.

Conclusions

Clearly some of the engineers designing these products are not keyboard players, since some of these verge on painful to play. When playing in keys other than “C” the pivot points on some of these models makes it nearly impossible to push the keys. Special complaints to Yamaha for the non-standard octave; This should have been fixed years ago, especially in light of the fine action on their grand pianos.

In a future article, we will explore touch weight, ballistics and spring tension as factors in keyboard playability.

What are your experiences with keyboard actions? Are some keyboards painful for you?

Comments

8 responses to “Bad Digital Keyboard Actions (Why does it hurt when I play?)”

  1. Adrian Gin Avatar
    Adrian Gin

    This is so true!! I’m doing measurements of Keyboards and it’s really annoying how they all have different octave spans.

    There are two types: Grand Piano (Standard Size)
    All decent Digital Piano and real Piano’s have this spacing of 165mm.

    Then there are the cheap non/semi weighted versions. Casio, Roland, Yamaha, Korg all have their own sizes in this category.

    Yamaha Cheapies – 161mm
    Roland Cheapies – 162mm
    Casio Cheapies – 162.5mm

    You get the picture, it differs across manufacturers too!

    Reply
    1. Randy Avatar
      Randy

      Yup. Doesn’t make much sense to vary octave spans and key lengths… Just laziness on the part of the manufacturers. Sadly, many keyboard players are unaware of these factors and blame themselves!

      Reply
  2. David Farley Avatar
    David Farley

    I saw your article linked on Piano World. This was fascinating. I have a Yamaha YPG-535 that measures 160mm on the octave (or maybe 161mm). I recently upgraded to a CP40 that measure 165mm. I was wondering why some exercises I consistently muffed on the YPG-535 now seemed to just fall under my fingers in the right place on the CP40 and I think this explains it. I never thought to measure the octaves. Thanks.

    Reply
    1. randyhoexter Avatar
      randyhoexter

      Thanks for reading! For me there is no question that the smaller octave has an effect on my playing; whenever I play the smaller action, I feel “clumsy” and make more split-note errors. It seems unkind to make keyboardists needlessly change their technique to adapt to a non-standard design. I now check all keyboards before purchase.

      Reply
  3. satrams Avatar
    satrams

    I too own an RD-700, and yes, I also think it has one of the best action ‘feels’.
    I do experience a problem with it, though, in that (especially if I haven’t been playing it for a while) it does hurt my fingers, which some other keyboards and pianos don’t do, but it is not the action that is causing it.
    I was kind of surprised you didn’t say the octave measurement was BIGGER than 165mm. That’s what it feels like.
    It seems to maybe be the shape of the keys, or maybe their edges.
    Having to stretch to play octaves or similar type stuff seems to beat on my fingers and is annoying in kind of a vague way. I guess that would have to be the shape/edges of the black keys. I really wish it didn’t have this characteristic, because I love it otherwise.

    Reply
  4. Henry Avatar
    Henry

    How were the measurements taken? Especially the rear key dip measurements. Were different key lenghts taken into account? I mean, did you measure at a constant distance from the front or at the rearest visible part of the key? (The thing ist that if you measure rear key dip at 144 mm from the front of the key you can’t compare it with a measurement of a longer key at 150 mm from the front because the longer key would have greater dip at shorter distance of 144 mm from the front than it has at 150 mm.) I would like to measure mine (Roland FP-90) and compare it with your measurements but I don’t know where to measure so that the results would be comparable.

    Reply
    1. randyhoexter Avatar
      randyhoexter

      Hi Henry, You raise a valid, though subtle, point: I measured the throw at the back of the key, without regard to key length. Of course this does mean that because of the various key lengths, the overall throw would be different if all the keys were the same length. That said, the difference would be minor. The shortest key (Baldwin) at 140mm with its 5mm throw at the back would have a 4.66mm throw if the key were extended to 150mm (like the Yamaha grand) Likewise, the Yamaha C6, if it had its keys shortened to 140 would have a longer throw at the back of around 5.4mm. It may be that if I were to do it again, it would be a good idea to measure key dip at the front and then some “standard” distance back, but this was kind of a cursory article, with the keyboards I had access to. In general, almost all the keyboards were between 144 and 150 so that small difference in length shouldn’t matter that much.

      Reply
  5. Steve Avatar
    Steve

    Interesting article. The key here is the pivot length which can be calculated from the info given. Within less than 1%, if the front dip is x, and rear dip is y, and key key length is k, the pivot length is xk/(x-y). For the Yamaha C6 grand, this is 300mm.
    (Or more simply, since the front dip is twice the rear dip, the pivot length is twice the key length.)

    What bothers me is the inaccuracy in rounding to the nearest mm. Not a problem for the key length, but the dips are small. For example, the 10mm and 5mm dips for this piano might be 9.5-10.5 and 4.5-5.5 mm. In this best case (using 9.5 and 5.5) this gives 356.25mm and in the worst case (using 10.5 and 4.5) this gives 263.5mm.
    This is a difference of 35%.

    When I look at a piano, I measure the dips using a tire pressure gauge. Here in the US, this is graduated in in 1/32 inch and accurate to 1/64 inch, or about .4mm.

    Reply

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