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I have a Yamaha P-80 which seems to not recognize when I play the keys softly. I need to touch them quite firmly in order for it to play a note. Is this normal behaviour or is mine broken?

Edit: The difference to an actual acoustic piano is quite large. When I'm used to the digital one, I need some adjustment time to be able to play softly again on the acoustic piano. This happens for all volumes and all settings of "touch" (hard, medium and soft). It seems slightly better with "touch" turned off, but still quite different to an acoustic piano.

Uroc327
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    I know this question may sound stupid, but how strong did you set the volume level? In case it might actually work but not being audible when you play piano/pianissimo. – Clockwork Mar 01 '22 at 15:47
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    If I understand correctly, when you enable "touch", it's supposed to simulate the actions of an acoustic piano. But what happens in your case is: no sound comes out when you play softly and you have to play forte to have anything at all? And when you disable touch, it works like a synthesizer and it doesn't matter how strong you press? – Clockwork Mar 01 '22 at 18:27
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    @Clockwork precisely. Additionally, It seems that "touch" on hard starts registering very very slightly earlier than "touch" on soft. – Uroc327 Mar 01 '22 at 18:42
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    I've only ever had a Kawai digital piano, but that doesn't sound like it's working properly, although that model of Yamaha might be working differently. – Clockwork Mar 01 '22 at 18:46

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Yes, this is normal. It is how acoustic pianos work, so it makes sense for digital piano to simulate the behaviour.

Acoustic pianos have mechanism called escapement that allows the hammer to drop while key remains pressed. This is necessary, because pressing the hammer against string would mute the note. To make sure that hammers are not stuck, the mechanism allows them to drop slightly before they hit the string. Normally the hammer has enough momentum that it will hit the key after being released, but if you play too softly the hammer can drop before hitting the string.

If I recall correctly, P-80 turns this effect off if you set keyboard velocity sensitivity to zero. P-80 is also notorious for manufacturing defects in the keyboard, but the problems show up as keys getting stuck down. I used to have one, and eventually Yamaha replaced all white keys because of that.

Edit: After the update, it sounds to me like the keyboard is somehow defective. 20 years is a long time for plastic mechanism, but it also sounds odd to me that all keys are malfunctioning the same way.

ojs
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    Excuse me, I forgot to mention that the difference to most acoustic pianos I know is quite far. When I use the same force as required to hear anything on the P-80 on my acoustic piano, the tones are very loud and sharp. – Uroc327 Mar 01 '22 at 10:19
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    Yes, it makes sense to include that kind of detail in the question. I remember that the P-80 required a bit more force than most acoustic pianos but the difference wasn't huge. Maybe there's a parameter that could be adjusted, or maybe the keyboard is broken. Difficult to tell without seeing it. – ojs Mar 01 '22 at 10:22
  • Also, just out of curiosity, why the downvote? – ojs Mar 01 '22 at 13:59
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    @ojs, a certain few people downvote "just for fun", or when they're in a bad mood, or ... , and there's no point in asking about it... sigh... :) In my experience on several SE's, people with constructive/rational objections to an answer will perhaps downvote (though not necessarily), and leave a comment. So, without a comment, "no action is indicated". :) – paul garrett Mar 01 '22 at 18:25