Alex Fender © Fender Piano Services 2013 - 2019
Welcome to
Tel: 0800 233 5440 - Mobile: 07725 120137
Free-phone number!
Digital and electronic instrument repair
Electronic pianos and keyboards have a habit of developing faults that are impossible to repair. Most faults spell the end of the piano and you will need to buy a new one.
Sometimes though it’s an obvious fault such as the power socket not connecting or a spring breaking. It’s usually worth me taking a look as I’m pretty good with the soldering iron!
Bear in mind that if the fault is on a circuit board, chances are it’s cheaper to put the piano in a skip and buy a new one. It’s probable that a new board isn’t available anyway.
The sad fact is that no electronic device lasts that long so if you get 15 years out of it you are doing well, just think how long you got from your laptop or TV!
In the past I have been able to repair:
- Dry and broken joints in power sockets
- Headphone sockets
- Pedals
- Broken keys
- Corroded battery terminals
- Crackling buttons and switches
Up till now I have had a high success rate with repairs however I can never guarantee that I’ll be able to fix a fault on a digital piano. In addition I can’t guarantee that a similar problem won’t happen again.
Here’s a dry joint in a keyboard, you can see the two pins, middle and right have come away and not making contact
Digital and electronic pianos
Before you buy a digital piano, here are a few things to think about.
They are usually advertised as needing less room, saves money on tuning, easy to move etc. etc.
Do they take up less room? They have the same number of keys so how is this possible?! They are the same width and usually the same depth as an upright piano. They are certainly not as tall so you will have room for an extra picture on the wall!
It’s true that they don’t need tuned, but it’s a short term saving and besides, it’s not that expensive to have a piano tuned.
To get a digital piano that sounds and feels like the real thing will cost as much and often more. For example (2018 prices) Yamaha CVP 705 digital £4239 against Yamaha B1 acoustic £2723.
Of course the digital piano has many more functions and will suit some people but most of the time they are used as basic pianos.
There are many, many cheaper digital pianos on the market and many have very poor sound quality. To get a good sound you need good speakers which adds to the cost.
An acoustic piano, if looked after, will last a lifetime, 100 years at least. Digital ones 15 - 20 years if you are lucky - like anything, electronics start to fail, think how old your TV is, how long has your computer lasted? So the saving in tuning has been overtaken by having to buy a new one.
Future value - 25 year old Yamaha B1 approx. £1200, same age digital (if working) £0
It’s said that they are much easier to move them around, yes to a point but in my experience they are moved as regularly as acoustic pianos which is hardly ever!
Bear in mind that a ‘keyboard’ and a ‘digital piano’ are two different things. The keyboard is designed to be portable and needs external amplification when the digital piano is designed for home use. Years ago we used to call keyboards synthesizers.