My 8 year old son has been taking piano lessons for almost 2 years and has a real talent for it.His piano teacher uses a Casio keyboard that has a foot pedal attached.She kept advising me that he needed a pedal for his keyboard to sustain notes.His Casio "Magic Light" keyboard was purchased 10 years ago as a birthday present for my husband (which he never used). It works great, but doesn't support a foot pedal.Also, the cheaper keyboards do not duplicate the "hammer-action" weighted response of keys on a real piano.Lastly, a full-size keyboard is 88 keys, but ours had only 60 something. I was having a discussion with his piano teacher as to my options.Buying a new piano was out of the question; we're talking 10-20 thousand dollars.However, you can purchase second hand pianos for a few thousand dollars, or "adopt" a used piano for nothing but the cost of having it delivered.A guitar teacher overheard us and offered a wonderful alternative: a digital piano.As he said, "It looks like a real piano, it sounds like a real piano, but it doesn't cost as much as a real piano."He advised us to visit a Cafe next store which had a digital piano in the back.We did, and it was a Yamaha digital piano.It had a brown wood finish and an understated beauty.I immediately was excited and would have gone out that day to buy one.My son was not equally excited, however.It did not look like a real piano to him (which he still wanted).I went online and looked at other brands of digital pianos and noticed the "Williams Symphony Elite Digital Piano."My son was hooked when he saw this one.It looks very much like a real piano.I purchased it online (it costs $899 at virtually any site you order it from).There are two other models: the Williams Console digital piano, which looks to be a regular digital piano with no bells and whistles and it looks like black wood; the next level one is the Williams Overture 88-key digital piano.It has all sorts of digital effects and also has the black wood.The Williams website compares the "Overture" model and the "Symphony Elite" model as the difference between driving a Cadillac and a Bentley. You're paying a few hundred extra for the glossy black finish, more digital effects, etc.Not knowing much about the technical details, I decided to go with the "Bentley" of the Williams line, the Symphony Elite.I would rather spend a little extra and have a piano that will last my son for several years as he expands his technical knowlege.The piano arrived two days ago.My husband said it was delivered curbside by UPS Roadway.This is because the box is quite heavy.He had to open the box in our sunporch and carry pieces upstairs to our second floor individually. I wasn't home when he assembled the piano, but he had no complaints of it being difficult.When he called me at work after assembling it, he referred to it as being a "monstrosity".It measures approximately 55 inches across the top. It has a glossy black finish like a grand piano.The music rest is gorgeous.It has a stainless steel "W" logo on it.There are two shiny brass little wands that can be pulled up to support your songbook or music sheets.This is a great improvement over the steel wire that didn't hold up much of anything on his old Casio Magic Light.Also, there is the delightful keyboard cover that slides out over the keys, again, just like a real piano.Finally, there are the three foot pedals identical to a real piano.Just as a piece of furniture, it is aesthetically beautiful.I don't pretend to know all of the technical details (you can find them listed under the piano picture above), but it has over a hundred voices, effects, demos, computer connectivity via USB, and the ability to record yourself. Hidden discreetly under the piano to your left are jacks for using headphones,USB/MIDI and to plug in a microphone. It also has a metronome.My son sounds great when he uses the church organ voice.The beauty of this piano is not only in its appearance, but in the freedom to enjoy the various effects of a keyboard.When my son plays this piano, it looks like I should put a candelabra on top of it!He is very happy, because he feels like he is playing a real piano.
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Williams Symphony Elite Digital PianoProduct Description: The Williams Symphony Digital Piano combines realistic voices with excellent playability. Players can choose the clear tone of 138 different instruments or use among 100 different rhythm styles for fully orchestrated compositions. The Symphony Piano provides an endless source of musical enjoyment in a luxurious black gloss finish cabinet with sliding key-cover.
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The only downside to this is that it is not one of the controllers supported by Ableton out of the box, and it didn't include up to date mappings for Ableton.But with its tools, this is easy enough to create.Mechanically this is a well built controller and the key action is first class.
