When you’re looking for an affordable yet high quality entry-level digital piano, you’ll be pleased with the Williams Allegro 88-key digital piano as it matches that description perfectly. Whilst Williams may not be a name that you have heard of too often when it comes to digital pianos, this model is a great piano. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of web presence for this company, although the lack of brand recognition gives some clue as to why these digital pianos are priced so affordably. We’ll go more into detail what this model offers in the Williams Allegro 88 key digital piano review below.
AESTHETICS
This digital piano is everything that you would expect a digital piano of this price range to look like. Disappointingly, it is only available in black and the design of the piano is very plain, but it’s supposed to be functional and the looks of the digital piano are not likely to matter to the target market that will be mainly using this instrument for practicing. The piano doesn’t have a stand with it. Whilst the piano’s speakers are small, they manage to give out enough sound for practicing.
KEY BED FEEL
Although the keys on the Williams Allegro piano are not graded like some of the higher end digital pianos, they do still have a semi weighting to them to give them that touch of reality. Graded keys have heavier keys in the lower registers and lighter keys in the higher register to give the feel of an acoustic piano, so this is where this digital piano lacks a little. Despite the lack of entirely realistic feel, this piano is still great value for money and the keys have great hammer action. I
POLYPHONY
Williams Allegro digital pianoThe polyphony of a digital piano determines how many keys can be pressed with a clear tone simultaneously. If the instrument has a low polyphony, it is likely that it will have a poor sound quality. The Williams Allegro 88-key piano has 64-key polyphony, meaning that the keys will all play with complete clarity even if you press up to 64 of them at a time. This is highly desirable and impressive, as many higher end digital pianos come with only 60 or even 40 polyphony.
VOICES
The Williams Allegro Digital Piano Comes with 8 different voices, which you can change at the press of a button. It comes with 2 piano voices and 2 electric piano voices, 2 organs, strings and bass. Although this isn’t a bad selection, the grand piano sound doesn’t sound as realistic as it could sound in comparison to other brands.
MEMORY CAPABILITIES
Whilst there isn’t a great deal of internal memory with the Williams Allegro, there is still a decent demo song collection that comes with it. The demos can be played in various voices on the digital piano and give you a good idea of how it could sound. Due to the low memory however, there is only a two-track option when it comes to recording and playback. You may find that you’re a bit stuck too if you want a piano that you can use to compose or record several tracks as there is no USB connection. With no way of taking recordings off the keyboard it is more of a standalone practice or performance instrument than a tool that can be used for all purposes. The Williams Allegro does come with MIDI connections however and you can connect to a midi controller to use other MIDI sounds with the piano.
TRANSPOSING AND LAYERING
If you’re just starting out with playing the piano, or if you need to alter the key of the piano so that you can accompany without transposing the music, the Allegro does come with a handy transpose feature. Another thing that this digital piano does is allows you to choose two voices to play at the same time. This is called layering. You can also split the key bed and choose one instrument for the higher register and another for the lower one.
PROS
64 key polyphony, which is higher than many other models on the market
MIDI input and output to use up to 16 MIDI channels
8 voices to allow you to produce different sounds
Transpose, layering and split voice features adds more selection to the capabilities of the piano.
CONS
No USB connectivity, which limits the functionality for those who want to compose or record their performances.
Slightly lower quality voices when compared with other good digital pianos. More at http://bestrateddigitalpiano.com/finding-the-best-88-key-digital-piano/.
BOTTOM LINE
This is a great digital piano for beginners and with the various options such as different voices, MIDI input, transpose and layering features and 64 key polyphony. This is also a digital piano that would be suited to more advanced or performance players too. If you’re looking for an affordable piano that is highly portable, then this is the choice for you. It is a great quality instrument despite its price and despite lacking a USB port, as you can see from this Williams Allegro 88 Key Digital Piano Review, it is still useful enough to suit most musician’s needs. You can also compare this model to another popular Williams digital piano, Williams Legato.
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