Best Digital Keyboard

A digital keyboard is one that boasts of an easy to use and professional experience that caters to music students as commendably as to professional music teachers. This season, we pick our top best digital keyboard, the Yamaha YPG-535 88-Key Portable Grand Piano which is the perfect combination of realistic sounds, straightforward assembly, and lastly, has a solid learning curve for students to follow. You’d surely be missing out on a great opportunity if you choose not to go with this more economically valuable Yamaha keyboard. It features 88-key graded soft touch keyboard action with versatile levels of resistance and a high-resolution stereo. The deciding features of this best digital keyboard include a 6-track recorder, USB connectivity, and committed piano centric features.

The Yamaha YPG-535 88-Key Portable Grand Piano brings on the table excellent handiwork as it’s suitable of all skill levels; in fact it even features individual capabilities that cater to a specific skill level such as its user-friendly and straightforward design grants beginners a more useful experience, for intermediate pianists, it features the Yamaha Education Suite, and lastly for professionals, its high-resolution stereo sampling makes the sound quality absolutely superior. So you know how second to none this best digital keyboard is in the industry. Let’s talk about how useful the Yamaha YPG-535 88-Key Portable Grand Piano is apart from its objective: it comes with an energy saving power adapter that reduces total electricity use in half than any other conventional digital keyboards on the market. For better connectivity, this best digital keyboard also includes a USB input, 30-built in songs plus 70 more in its included CD-ROM. All this and much more in a stunning piece of marvel that can be bought by anyone with a musical stimulation.

As for our extravagant, but valuable pick, the Yamaha ARIUS YDP-181 Traditional Digital Piano is the best digital keyboard that anyone could expect to find that performs with excellent sound, high production quality, and a realistic musical action. It comes with uncomplicated assembly that just snaps back to into shape once you adjust the pedal cord, power supply, and you’re ready to play. It comes with bench that’s not too wide or too narrow, making it the most comfortable bench for a digital keyboard. The Yamaha ARIUS YDP-181 Traditional Digital Piano features Graded Hammer keyboard action with synthetic ivory key-tops. It provides well-prioritized elegance and a responsive feel to its users without sacrificing on the pianist’s skill level. It’s so lightweight that you can move it around a room without fearing any serious damage to the unit. This best digital keyboard is greatly reliable, sturdy, and includes a whole package of powerful capabilities with good control over its dynamics.

As for our budget-friendly pick, the Casio CTK2400 PPK 61-Key Premium Portable Keyboard is a great enhancement package which makes an even sweeter deal since we all know how much you love to buy the best at the most modest value. The Casio CTK2400 PPK 61-Key Premium Portable Keyboard offers a new and upgraded Sound EFX Sampler function with a built-in microphone and 400 AHL keyboard voices. It even has 48 Note Polyphony so you never have to worry about dropping notes and an impressive learning system so you don’t have to worry about missing out on the exclusive just because it’s considerably cheaper. Upon arrival, you get a pair of headphones, X-style stand, and power supply, so basically everything musicians could expect from the best digital keyboard. The headphones are a surprising addition to the family as they’re designed to provide complete volume control for great sound. Apart from that, this best digital keyboard for the money ranks as an excellent introduction for beginners and professionals to keep up with extravagant musical performance.

What are the different types of digital keyboards?

Our expert researchers felt the need to put across a basic overview of the different types of digital keyboards that we’ve come across and reviewed with dedicated and absolute attention to detail.

Synthesizers
Common synthesizers are those that are mainly used to produce sounds. Formerly, professionals used synthesizers to manipulate electrical noise to invent new, personalized sounds, but now there are sample-based synthesizers that use pre-recorded sounds to create music.

Keyboard Workstations
This is the kind of digital keyboard that has more primary functions than just one centralized one. They’re used for composing, recording, and production purposes. Most keyboard workstations include an internal memory drive, microphone, multi-track recording feature, portable input jacks, etc. Often used by professionals because of its complex functionality and objective, a keyboard workstation is one that helps you to compose, edit, and finalize a track.

Arranger Keyboards
Essential arranger keyboards are portable digital keyboards including a few composition functions as well as professional sound tools. These are commonly used by beginners and intermediates during live performances.

Portable Keyboards
These are just plain portable keyboards, primarily used by beginners with basic functions and powerful connectivity jacks. Portable keyboards are great for experimentation and connecting different musical instruments with one.

Digital Pianos
There are two types of digital pianos- console and stage. Console digital pianos are essentially used in homes while stage digital pianos for live performances or anywhere out of the ‘stage’. Basically, stage pianos are used for commercial purposes. Even though they have the same functionality, console pianos are designed for less portability and hence are more cabinet-like while stage pianos have a portable exterior design element to them.

What are the common best digital keyboard features you should know?

There are many versatile features that every musician should know about when it comes to enhancing the art of using the best digital keyboard, but there are a few common ones that stand-out from the lot.
Touch Sensitivity
Touch sensitivity means that the player can express the intensity of the music by depressing keys with different amounts of pressure from light to aggressive. All digital keyboards have a touch sensitivity measure and the greater the touch sensitivity, the better.
Sound quality
Most of the digital keyboards on the market include versatile samples from high-acoustic pianos, and other instruments, which means that their sound quality is top-notch. Amplification is an important aspect within the realms of sound quality to consider as it can greatly influence the way you create music. Internal speakers are a must if you’re looking for portability, with included internal amplifier.
Polyphony
Polyphony means the number of tones that can work or be produced simultaneously at one time. In this case, the higher the polyphony number, the better.
Comprehensive Learning System
This feature is best fitting for beginners as they not only perform on a best digital keyboard, they learn advanced levels of creating music too.

Our best pick: Yamaha YPG-535 88-Key Portable Grand Piano

Yamaha YPG-535 88-Key Portable Grand Piano
You never know how stunning a piece of musical instrument is once you’ve set your mind on it. Our researchers began to pioneer the Yamaha YPG-535 88-Key Portable Grand Piano and found too many interesting features such as XGLite sounds, 6-track sequencer, and a unique stand, pedal and adapter extension. This best digital keyboard can sequence up to 10,000 notes and has an exclusive setting that allows you to switch intensity modes from light and delicate touch to loud and aggressive pummeling. This is a huge plus if you’re someone who loves to experiment with different key tunes from time to time. The Yamaha YPG-535 88-Key Portable Grand Piano has tons of versatile features, sounds, and great styles; according to our research, this keyboard is the only musical instrument that’s closer to the real deal at such an affordable price. Even though it hold some complicated submenus such as the Octave function, volume levels of sections, and sound parameters, it has a fairly straightforward design that won’t take much time and effort to get used to. It also includes decent internal speaker, and if you want to add some more, you will find a 1/4 inch jack on the back of the keyboard for external audio. About its interesting educative function, the Yahama Education Suite features perfect breaking down of songs into individual components of pitch and rhythm so students can master them by reconstructing the songs bit by bit. It features three modes, namely the Waiting Mode, Tempo Mode, and the Minus One Mode. The first mode halts accompaniment until the notes that are indicated on the display are played while the second mode monitors playing and makes accurate tempo adjustments, if required. The Minus One mode grants complete play of the song from start-to-finish and after it’s complete, gives you a grade for it.
To conclude, the Yamaha YPG-535 88-Key Portable Grand Piano is the best digital keyboard with a wide variety of features that showcase the kind of portability and experience that one demands from an advanced digital keyboard in the industry.

Our upgraded pick: Yamaha ARIUS YDP-181 Traditional Digital Piano

Yamaha ARIUS YDP-181 Traditional Digital Piano
The Yamaha ARIUS YDP-181 Traditional Digital Piano offers crisp and undisturbed volume with a strong bass, something that all musicians want primarily. The more information we find on this best digital keyboard, the most credible it gets as our upgraded pick on the market. Speaking of its versatile, yet so familiar capabilities for beginners as well as professionals, it features a levelheaded half-damper pedal performance that controls the subtle details while playing. It even offers Stereo Sustain samples that grant subtle reverberations as the damper pedal depresses. This unique performance drastically makes the sound more clear and realistic as soon as the user begins to press the pedal while striking a key. Another interesting feature of the Yamaha ARIUS YDP-181 Traditional Digital Piano is its Graded Hammer Standard that offers a heavier touch in the low end and a lighter touch in the high end, which makes it more adaptable for beginners and intermediates to build a proper finger technique for playing on an acoustic piano. You might wonder why this is one of the most highly-priced digital keyboards on the market; let us tell you that the Yamaha ARIUS YDP-181 Traditional Digital Piano isn’t one to take lightly, it offers immense sound quality plus many other powerful features such as iOS compatibility, Stereophonic Optimizer that allows specialized sound quality for when you’re connected to headphones. This Optimizer adjusts the sound rhythm and spacing to make it more centralized and well-defined. The keyboard comes with three conventional pedal functions that add more depth and freedom to your pedaling capabilities. The touch sensitivity of the Yamaha ARIUS YDP-181 Traditional Digital Piano is greatly inspiring and delivers great artistic expression that is suitable for all-skill level players, especially those in the more advanced turfs.
Together with impressive sound quality and superb pedaling performance, this best digital keyboard offers 128-voice polyphony, a recording function that is capable of recording up to 2 tracks for simultaneous playback, and lastly, the sort of musical action that is better than any other expensive or affordable digital keyboard.

Our affordable pick: Casio CTK2400 PPK 61-Key Premium Portable Keyboard

Casio CTK2400 PPK 61-Key Premium Portable Keyboard
The Casio CTK2400 PPK 61-Key Premium Portable Keyboard is an easy to use and highly portable digital keyboard that offers 150 rhythms and 110 built-in songs for better playing and recording with its built-in microphone. For better connectivity, you will find a USB MIDI cable that allows you to link your computer, iPad, etc. effortlessly. It even features a step-up learning system that guides learners to know which buttons to press. For those who don’t know their way around a digital keyboard can refer to its own instructional software plus manual, a feature that’s unique to this best digital keyboard; no other digital keyboard on the market has such an extensive system in place that makes learning so simple and fun. This best digital keyboard is best used by beginners as well as professionals for learning purposes because of its responsive musical action and user-friendly design. Let’s talk about its included stand that’s a heavy-duty steel single X-bracketed keyboard stand with a Secure-Lock height adjustment from 25.23 inches to 38.75 inches for comfortable seated and standing positions. Such a handy addition can only mean one thing- that the Casio CTK2400 PPK 61-Key Premium Portable Keyboard is built to provide a professional experience to all players, no matter their skill level and expertise.
Another striking feature includes a voice percussion function with samples integrated into the rhythm that provide amazing sound quality and effects. For the price you pay, this best digital keyboard performs exceptionally well with strong touch sensitivity, decent pedaling, and simple accompaniment. It’s also great for someone who’s looking for a simple digital keyboard for learning capabilities.

Also consider

Williams Legato 88-Key Digital Piano
One of the most budget-friendly and impressive digital keyboards, the Williams Legato 88-Key Digital Piano is the only sought-after instrument our research couldn’t help but highlight. If our list had a loophole, this would be it. The Williams Legato 88-Key Digital Piano offers such powerful portability for performing and practicing, plus it also features split/layer function to combine different sounds together. It is an 88 Semi-Weighted Key keyboard with 5 rich sounds: piano, electric piano, organ, synth, and bass. It is perfect for professional singers to bring to performances as long as they have an external instrument to amplify the sound. It’s total inexpensive model that boasts of its only deciding feature which is a full range of octaves and 88 keys. It delivers good sound quality with its built-in speakers, stereo/mono line out jacks, and USB MIDI connection. Although its lacks some features that may otherwise would have marked the Williams Legato 88-Key Digital Piano as the superior budget-friendly pick, it still sustains a few key features for aspiring musicians as well as advanced players. This best digital keyboard is very light indeed with a sustain pedal and AC power adapter. As a great alternative to electricity-saving, this best digital keyboard also operates on batteries effortlessly. To conclude, you should definitely consider the Williams Legato 88-Key Digital Piano if you’re looking for a cheaper, but a stable and all-encompassing digital keyboard on the market.

Best digital keyboard for beginners

Yamaha DGX-650B Digital Piano
The Yamaha DGX-650B Digital Piano is a pure concert grand CF-sampled digital keyboard that delivers high-end instrumental capabilities that no other digital keyboard is designed to deliver, especially for beginners. It features a variety of interactive features that make learning, playing, and experimenting music much simpler and easier for beginners. It has a weighted action with a heavier touch in the low end and lighter touch in the high end, with the Graded Hammer Standard action and PureCF sampling that makes the proper finger technique seem like a mere stepping stone for aspiring musicians. Another striking feature of this best digital keyboard for beginners include Damper Resonance that initiates a smooth connection between the strings to deliver high-quality sounds without any disturbances. What this feature does results in the harmonics of the strings washing over the notes being played as soon as the damper pedal is used until the pedal gets released. It also offers 128- voice note Polyphony which provides immense power throughout your performance and as you get better at it, it adapts your skill level. In plain hindsight, the Yamaha DGX-650B Digital Piano is our best pick for beginners to consider intently as it includes other beginner-friendly features such as USB Audio Recording and Playback, AUX Line Input, Style Recommender, and a Smart Chord which is designed to create entire chords from simple Pop triads to complex jazz 7th and 9th chords.

Williams Allegro 2 Digital Piano
Our second best digital keyboard for beginners is the Williams Allegro 2 Digital Piano that offers 88-keys and 32-voice note polyphony. From a beginner’s perspective, a digital keyboard should be user-friendly, not too complex with variegated features, and lastly, it should be a more expressive instrument rather than a focused one. The Williams Allegro 2 Digital Piano is a decently priced, less complex, and a handy digital keyboard. It features well-weighted key actions that are not too aggressive, and for a demand this simple, we’re sure you don’t want something that gives faster musical passages. The touch sensitivity of this best digital keyboard is not an upgraded one, but satisfies basic musical requirements. It comes with a basic sustain pedal, which is perfect for beginners to play around with. Along with its new custom sound library, you get to enjoy 10 great sound samples, with classical, modern pianos as well as electronic keyboards and synths. Allow us to further narrow-down its versatility with its reverb and chorus effects with Modulation/FX control for realistic rotary and vibrato effects on selected instruments. What this means for beginners is that they have more control over their internal sounds, which directly means more freedom of expression. Other value-added features include a large LCD display, built-in metronome with speakers, and a pair of included headphones for more a focused musical experience.

Best digital keyboard for intermediates

Korg SP170s 88-Key Digital Piano
Featuring an action-packed and highly dependable digital keyboard that’s simple in its design and offers a wide variety of satisfying features, the Korg SP170s 88-Key Digital Piano is skillfully used and loved by intermediates. It is a true digital keyboard with the right equipment and to-go stamina to withstand richer sound, lots of digital dynamics, and amazing resistance. Formerly, Korg has many of its consumers feeling let down because of its complicated key mechanisms and controls, so they introduced this best digital keyboard with buttons to retain the same musical tasks from before. This sort of functionality helps intermediates get the hang of the basics as well as prepare for intense keyboard control when learning on advanced levels. The Korg SP170s 88-Key Digital Piano is responsible for making its users spoilt for choice because of its perfect sound of each tone, popularly the default concert piano tone. For the intermediate player, this can make a useful advantage. It consists of 10 tones- 2 electric piano tones, harpsichord, clavichord, a pipe organ, vibraphone, a drawback electric organ, a string section, and two grand piano sounds. The rear panel of this best digital keyboard has two headphone jacks which is a conveniently sound addition. For better listening, it features an enhanced speaker system with two advanced speakers delivering improved sound quality, structure and clear resonance and tone. It’s Natural Weighted Hammer Action has 3 levels of Key Touch Control that can match any playing style, keeping freedom of expression in check!

Yamaha DGX-530 88-Key Digital Keyboard
Out of all the digital keyboards we’ve reviewed, Yamaha products have proven to be the most reliable and fitting in a market where a user’s demands are so versatile and needy. To suit the intermediate’s plea, the Yamaha DGX-530 88-Key Digital Keyboard offers the kind of features that would suit those with heavy recording and compositing, and occasional performance purposes. It is an 88-keys keyboard with Graded Soft Touch of different levels of resistance and high-resolution stereo piano samples. It comes with a matching keyboard stand and a sustain pedal for extra comfort. This portable digital keyboard adds to functionality and class with its unique One Touch Setting that is designed match voice with effects for each different style. Along those lines is its Expandable Music Database that is trained to select a recommended voice for the right hand melody, the perfect tempo and musical style. Other impressive feature that we think can be extremely useful for intermediate players is its Performance Assistant Technology that ensures you never play the wrong melody, chord, or note ever again! Just by pressing the PAT button, you select a song, play any notes you like and those notes won’t ever be inappropriate for the song you’ve selected. The Yamaha DGX-530 88-Key Digital Keyboard’s sound quality is to-the-point with no upgrades required at all! It delivers realistic sounds and thanks to its Bass Boost ports, you get a deeper low-end impact with special stereo sounds.

Best digital keyboard for professionals

Yamaha MM8 Music Synthesizer
The only way we can emphasize on the fact that professionals require a solitary digital keyboard that surpasses the rest is by feature our most loved and best digital keyboard which is the Yamaha MM8 Music Synthesizer. This is the best digital keyboard for professionals, and according to our research, we think it’s the only at such an impressive price. It features supreme power and control to create high-quality sound, while adding your own personal touch in tunes. Even though it is built for rugged professional use, it is pretty straightforward that provides access to quick and handy features effortlessly. It features an 88-keys keyboard with Graded Hammer Keys, a technology that’s designed to give professionals the most dependable and swift touch sensitivity ever! The Yamaha MM8 Music Synthesizer has versatile sounds that you can work on such as it consists of 418 different voices, and 22 different drum kits. And so that players don’t waste time finding these different sounds and voices, it has an integrated search system that lets users find the voice they want quickly. Another deciding feature of this best digital keyboard is its Dynamic Music Creation tools- Automatic Pattern Generator and Arpeggiator Generator. The former function provides you with a full set of patterns that extend rhythmic backing in different music styles. While the latter function allows for repeated playback of different rhythmic phrases, riffs, broken chords, etc. to create a melodic pattern. It comes with 213 Arpeggio built-in types with Drum Voice rhythm included for setting up interesting and melodic beats for playing. Other features include comprehensive control, a Performance Memory feature, and excellent real-time control. Now, doesn’t this make the Yamaha MM8 Music Synthesizer a perfect fit for professionals?

Best digital keyboard for all-level pianists

Casio PX850 BK Privia Digital Piano
After Yamaha, Casio is our go-to pick for all-rounders in the industry. They deliver high-quality products that are more than what experts would expect, but they do meet exact needs in terms of design and versatility. If there’s something we admire, it’s the ability to adapt to different skill-level to provide more control and expression to musicians. That’s why we chose the Casio PX850 BK Privia Digital Piano as our best digital kaybaord for all-level pianists; it’s destined to recreate sound quality with its Tri-Sensor Scaled Hammer Action with Ebony and Ivory Keys. The Casio PX850 BK Privia Digital Piano consists of 256-voice note polyphony, an easy to use USB port and a two track recorder for simple recording and playback. A 20W + 20W amplifier delivers excellent sound and it has features a duet mode splits for both student and teacher to use the keyboard simultaneously. The deciding feature of this best digital keyboard is the Acoustic and intelligent Resonator processor (AiR) which is designed to utilize grand piano samples at 4 dynamics samplings to deliver excellent grand piano sounds with impeccable quality. You won’t find this suitable enough in any other conventional digital keyboard on the market. Furthermore, it stimulates the sound of the open strings as the dampers are raised the pedal. Such refined control and performance is ideal for beginners, intermediates, and professionals alike. All one needs to do is aspire to be a pianist, and with the help of the Casio PX850 BK Privia Digital Piano, one becomes it so effortlessly!

Korg KROME 61-Key Keyboard
The Korg KROME 61-Key Keyboard is a comfortable alternative for pianists with more creative pursuits. This particular digital keyboard gives you controlled power and cutting-edge sound quality to derive best results for beginners, intermediates, and professionals alike. It features 640 sounds, 288 amazing combination sounds, and over 600 realistic drum grooves. According to our research, we found that the Korg KROME 61-Key Keyboard delivers excellent natural acoustic sounds with drum patterns that you can record easily right out of the box, and lastly, 120-voice note polyphony. It goes without saying that this best digital keyboard is packed with versatile features that are suitable for all skill level pianists such as its quick access to its combination mode for immediate song ideas to play and record for beginners, Natural Touch Semi Weighted keyboard layout for intermediates, and an Enhanced Definition Synthesis that gives access to up to 2 stereo oscillators, 4 filters, 2 amp sections, 5 Low Frequency Oscillators, and 5 exclusive time-variant Envelope Generators for professionals. With USB and SD card ports, you can easily make quick transfers to manage your data files. Plus, a bonus for beginners and intermediates for better user-friendly design, this best digital keyboard features a large LCD TouchView color display interface that shows multiple parameters at once. All these impressive features mark the stupendous character of the Korg KROME 61-Key Keyboard as the best digital keyboard for all-level pianists.

Wrapping it up

The psychology of any buyer is to search about the exact product they think they want to buy or to find considerably better and more suitable products that defeat the product they thought was perfect for them. Our review on the best digital keyboard, the Yamaha YPG-535 88-Key Portable Grand Piano should be convincing enough for you to conclude, but if you’re the type that thrives on more options, then our expert team has compiled a simple list of the most expensive and a within-budget pick on the market. Apart from those, we understand the specifications of a product that is best defined by how it caters to its audience, which is for beginners, intermediates, and finally, professionals. There are many digital keyboards out there that are universal in their design and functionality, and we felt that it is our duty to bring forth the ones that don’t disappoint. After-all, a product’s genuine response boils down to how its customers apprehend it, so let this accurate guide help you make the right decision.