Donner DDP-80 Review

Wood-Like Appearance

I don’t typically talk about a piano or keyboard’s appearance, but in the case of the Donner DDP-80; I have to – this is a beautiful instrument! I don’t think it’s made out of real hardwood or anything, not at THIS price, but it does have a beautiful smooth wood like finish, and it comes with it’s own removable legs which are metal with some type of wood like finish on them. And the music rest not only looks good but is very functional, and nicely holds music books or a tablet; and I think the music rest might actually be real wood. So while you can get digital pianos that are meant to look like upright acoustics, they do cost quite a bit more than the DDP80 – in the DDP80’s entry level price range of about $630 USD, digital pianos will pretty much all be the black plastic “slab” style keyboards.

And, just like an acoustic piano, there are no visible buttons, screens, dials or ports – so at first glance, to someone who might not know any better, this COULD actually be mistaken for an acoustic piano, especially with the wooden finish.

User Interface

Ok so the user interface – well – that’s easy! It consists of an on/off button and a volume button, both located on the back. At first, I thought that’s kind of inconvenient, but given that the whole point of this piano is to mimic an acoustic piano, I really don’t mind – and I found I’m rarely needing to adjust the volume anyways. I can reach over to the power easily once memorizing where it is, but if you wanted you could plug the piano in to a power bar with a switch and turn it on and off that way. And a nice feature given where the power button is – the piano will turn off on its own if you leave it idle for 15 minutes or so.

The Keys

The Donner DDP-80 has 88 full size keys, and in trying to accurately mimic the feel of a real piano, these keys are fully weighted and graded hammer action keys, so they are heavier in the bass range and lighter as you move up the keyboard. The action is a dual sensor action, and while I’m not at ALL an expert on key actions, I would be willing to bet, looking at the depth of the case, that the DDP-80 might have a longer pivot point than some entry level digital pianos, because the keys don’t seem to feel THAT much heavier as you play up the key, which CAN be an issue with pianos that have shorter pivot points.

The black keys have a subtle matte finish on them, and while the white keys at first look to be shiny smooth plastic, they have a REALLY subtle matte finish as well – so while they are nowhere near the finish you will see on a Roland FP series or a Casio PXS series, they are just a tiny bit less “smooth and shiny” than the keys on a Yamaha P45 or P125. And there is a nice red felt liner that helps keep dust out of the mechanism, reduces key noise a bit; and also looks good.

So how do the keys feel? Well to me, they feel heavy but really pretty good and . . . quite realistic. I personally have always preferred lighter key actions like the Casio Privia PX-S series of digital pianos, and more recently I have even started to move towards playing unweighted synth action keys. So while they feel heavy to me, those of you that like heavier actions like the Roland PHA4 action or the Yamaha P515 piano’s action, or the action on many acoustic pianos, you will feel quite at home with the DDP-80. And as I’ve gotten more used to playing them, there is a pretty decent dynamic range available. And on that note, are you wondering how many levels of touch sensitivity the DDP-80 has? Well . . . how many levels does an acoustic piano have? ONE! And so does the DDP-80; just like an acoustic piano, you can’t adjust the touch response.

And an interesting fact I’d like to mention – I just came back from holidays in Europe and a hotel I spent 5 days in had a Yamaha upright acoustic piano, so I had been playing that daily right before coming home to check out the Donner, and the DDP-80 felt very similar.

So overall, how does this action compare to other entry level digital piano actions? Well, in comparing the DDP-80 action to the “Big 3: Roland, Yamaha and Casio, keep in mind that all of their actions will be found in pianos that are more expensive than the Donner:
– Roland PHA4 (Roland FP-10, FP-30x): I think it has a similar weight, but since this is only a dual sensor, the Roland triple sensor action with escapement, will still be a much more realistic action
– Yamaha GHS (Yamaha P45, P125 and DGX670): The DDP-80 action feels heavier than the dual sensor GHS action in these Yamahas; as far as which one feels better or is more realistic? I’d have to have them side by side to say for sure, but they are both very good actions. I do have to admit though that the Yamaha GHS is of a noticeably higher build quality (it’s super solid)
– Casio Smart Scaled Hammer Action (PX-S Privia series): The DDP-80 is noticeably heavier than the PX-S series; while the Casio action is actually my personal favorite, it is quite light – I think I can safely say the DDP-80 action would be a closer approximation of an acoustic piano action than the Casio

In comparing the DDP-80 action to competitors more in its own price range like the Alesis Recital Pro, Alesis Prestige or iNovus i88? I think the Donner DDP-80 action definitely outshines all 3 of those.

The Voice(s)

This is REALLY where the DDP-80 gets super unique AND super interesting; once again, just like an acoustic piano – the DDP-80 has ONE sound – PIANO. It doesn’t have grand piano, bright piano, mellow piano, electric piano, strings, etc – just PIANO. So for people who just want to play piano, this is kind of cool; you don’t have 20, 60 or 800 sounds to distract you from your piano playing. And since there is only one sound, that pretty much tells you that, just like an acoustic piano, there are no layering features or splitting features on the DDP-80.

So how does it sound? The sound samples are from a French company called Dream that has been making digital samples since the 1980’s; the samples used for the DDP-80 are from a French grand piano.

Some Notes On Polyphony / Sound Quality

The Donner DDP-80 has 128 notes of polyphony; and while this is already quite good for the price range, I want to talk about how polyphony plays a big role with the DDP-80 because it only has one sound.

So just in case you don’t know what polyphony is, in very simplified terms it refers to how many unique sound samples a keyboard sound chip can make at once. So you might think – I have 10 fingers, so 10 polyphony should be enough right? Well not quite; if your keyboard has layering and splitting voice options, then your 10 fingers could suddenly be using 30 notes of polyphony – and if there are rhythms and accompaniment, then each instrument part can eat up even more polyphony. And if you have sustained some notes that can also use up polyphony, as can effects and DSP. And keep in mind that the manufacturer may even be using more than a single sample for a single voice to thicken it which also requires more polyphony.

When there is only one sound, no layers, splits, rhythms and accompaniment, or effects or DSP to worry about, this allows Donner to maximize the use of their polyphony and their processing to trigger multiple samples at a time to thicken up and improve their piano sound.

Now I don’t have any specs or facts that they HAVE done this, but after playing the DDP-80 for a couple of weeks, I’m pretty sure they have done exactly that.

About a year ago or so I reviewed the iNovus i88 piano which uses the same voice samples from the same French “dream” company that Donner uses; and the iNovus i88 is very similar to the Donner DEP-20 piano, in that they both have HUNDREDS of sounds, splitting, layering as well as rhythms and accompaniment. So even though the iNovus and the Donner DEP-20 use the same core piano sample as the DDP-80 does, the DDP-80 piano sample sounds MASSIVELY better than the sample on the iNovus; it is a much fuller sounding sample, with clearer and stronger bass in the low end, and clearer and more natural sounding mid and high end notes as well. The decay is longer and more natural, and the dynamic range is considerably bigger. And all of this is because I’m pretty sure they are taking advantage of all this available polyphony and processing power to really thicken up the piano sound on the DDP-80.

I have to say I am really impressed with the piano sample on the Donner DDP-80; I think they’ve done a really good job with this sample. I’m thinking I’d like to try and rent a Yamaha P-45 or even a P-125 to see how the Donner piano voice holds up. And I will be comparing this voice to the piano sample on my new Yamaha PSR-EW425 keyboard as well.

Effects / DSP, Rhythms & Accompaniment

What about effects or DSP? Well … does an acoustic piano come with reverb and chorus? Nope – neither does the Donner DDP-80; there are NO adjustable effects or DSP of any kind available, not even reverb.

What about rhythms or accompaniment? You guessed it, there are no rhythms or accompaniment (there isn’t even a metronome – this is probably the only digital keyboard on the MARKET without a metronome)

Connectivity

On the back, there is:

• 1/4” headphone port
• 1/4” line out:
  • this is for connecting to external audio equipment like amps or PA systems. The headphone port is of course stereo, and the line out is a mono port that has a summed left and right signal. This is the same as keyboards that have TWO line out ports, one left (labelled “L/Mono”) and one right (labelled “Right”). With those ports, if you only use the L/Mono port you get a combined left and right mono signal, which is what you would typically use to connect to external amplification. And the nice thing about having this port included is that you still get the benefit of hearing the built in speakers when you are using this port to connect to external amplification, so you still have the benefit of the 40 watts of built in speaker power.
• USB to host port for connecting to a device like an iPad to transmit MIDI data to apps or software. This port does only send MIDI data (it would have been very cool if Donner could have done what Yamaha does on almost all their products, and that is include AUDIO in this port; you can’t have everything though).
• 1/4″ generic sustain pedal port (if you’d like to just use a generic sustain pedal as opposed to the included triple pedal unit); the included triple pedal connects to a separate port on the bottom of the piano. Even though I never use the soft and sostenudo pedals myself, I do quite like the feel of the included sustain pedal, and even though it’s bigger than a standalone sustain pedal, it’s still totally portable if you want.

What’s Missing?

The one thing I REALLY wish Donner had included is an auxiliary in port so you could connect a device like an iPad and play along with YouTube videos, or online piano courses. After all this IS an entry level piano, and is aimed mostly at beginner to intermediate level piano players, so easy access to online piano training would be a big benefit. But, you can easily accomplish that with a basic mixer, or with my new OneOdio headphones which actually have 2 inputs; one from my piano, and one from my iPad.