Donner DEP-20 Beginner Digital Piano 88 Key Full Size Weighted Keyboard, Portable Electric Piano with Furniture Stand, 3-Pedal Unit

I've been playing keyboards for over 60 years. I live with my wife and a 9 year old grand daughter and a 15 year old grand son. I'm the only musician in the family and I have my music/computer room with a $2000 weighted action synthesizer and DAW software and an expensive audio interface and studio monitors and headphones and microphones and music stands and microphone stands and lots of wires. Sometimes the kids would ask to play my "piano". I gladly boot up the computer so that my audio interface has power so that the keyboard sound can be pumped to my studio monitors and I make adjustments to the volumes of the audio interface and the synthesizer and then they can start playing my "piano". They play and I try to teach them a few things. But they don't play for long because my studio is not an inviting place. It doesn't have a warm and fuzzy atmosphere. It's a bit claustrophobic. After watching every youtube video about the donner dep 20 (and other keyboards) multiple times, I bought a donner dep 20 and put it in our living room on a z-type stand that can easily be moved around. It can be moved out of the way in front of the non-used fireplace and it can easily be moved to where it's facing the big tv where youtube videos are commonly watched. Now when the wife or kids or visitors want to play the "piano", they just sit down, push the power button, and start playing. I didn't care much about the hundreds of built-in sounds of the donner dep 20 because it was just supposed to be a "piano". But those extra sounds allowed me to play along with youtube videos of popular bands playing tunes that my wife or kids wanted to hear and allowed me to play a voice (or voices if I layered two voices together) that really made me a rock star in their eyes. If Van Halen starts playing "jump" and I play it with a synthesizer sound instead of a piano sound, suddenly my wife and kids take notice and they want to learn to play the part. The "jump" tune is just one example of where the extra non-piano sounds really help to get people to want to play when they otherwise might not get interested. Don't under-estimate the power of being able to easily move your keyboard to being in front of a tv with youtube. My wife and kids frequently try to play along with youtube videos that have the notes or chords displayed and I teach them. The keyboard action on the donner dep 20 is closer to an acoustic piano than my $2000 weighted action synthesizer. My synthesizer has a very heavily-weighted action -- maybe more than some acoustic pianos, but it doesn't have the volumetric dynamic range of the donner dep 20. Also, my synthesizer has somewhat short throw keys, whereas the donner dep 20 has a proper amount of throw in the keys. I truly love the keyboard action of the donner dep 20. I've had my donner dep 20 for about a month now. I hope the dep 20 lasts a long time, but if it doesn't I would probably buy another dep 20 to replace it. It's what makes my house a home. I know that may sound corny, like I'm trying to sell one. The dep 20 is not for everybody. When I first started looking for a keyboard for the living room, I wanted pitch-bend and modulation wheels and jacks in the back for plugging in a volume pedal and another effect pedal for controlling the modulation so it could allow me to play an organ sound with a live controllable rotary speaker cabinet effect. That would be cool, but once I started shopping around I realized that all I really needed was a piano -- not another synthesizer. When I saw how inexpensive the dep 20 was, I quickly gave up the idea of pitch-bend and mod wheels. The dep 20 is not a full-blown synthesizer, but it is more than just a piano. My full-blown synthesizer is intimading, even to me after decades with it in a music studio. The dep 20 is fun. The dep 20 is always there in the living room ready to play with one push of the power button. I'm not writing this review because I'm excited with "new toy syndrome". I'm totally over the "new toy" ownership excitement. For some people, like me, the dep 20 can actually be life-changing in a good way. The dep 20 is not just cool because of what it is, but also where it can be easily moved to.UPDATE Feb, 13, 2025:I like the dep20 so much that I bought another one about two months ago to put in the other family room in the basement. I bought the 2nd one so that if the main living room is being used for watching tv and someone wants to play piano, then they have another one available.The dep20 can record one midi track and play it back, but I wanted to be able to record multiple midi tracks each playing a different instrument. A cheap laptop or mini pc running windows or linux can do this without having to buy anything more than a usb cable with the appropriate ends on it -- plug the pc end directly to the pc rather than a usb hub. The pc doesn't have to be powerful or have a lot of disk space since it is only recording midi instructions -- not audio files. I installed a digital audio workstation (DAW) program called "reaper" to my cheap mini pc runing linux mint (reaper is free for evaluation purposes). For performance purposes I set the audio device in reaper to "dummy" so that it wouldn't waste computer resources by "taking over" the audio system.A NOTE ON MIDI: All midi output from the dep20 is on channel 1. Midi input to the dep20 can be on any of channels 1 to 16. Midi notes sent to the dep20 on channel 10 will automatically play the drum kit. When the dep20 is in drum mode it does not send any midi output.With the dep20 plugged in and turned on while rebooting my pc, the dep20 shows up in reaper as a midi device without having to install any drivers. I made sure the device was enabled for input and output in the preferences. This only needs to be done once since it will be enabled for all projects after that.I added my first midi track to the project with input set to midi channel 1 from the dep20 and output set to none. For me personally, I do not want the midi recorder to force my notes to start and stop on even bar/beat points -- I just want it to record as if it's a dumb tape recorder, so I turn OFF the horse shoe shaped magnet (snap to) icon at the top of the screen and make sure the metronome is off. I started recording. Now this part is important -- AFTER the computer has started recording, THEN change the dep20 voice to the one you want. If it's already on the voice you want, change it to a different voice and back to the one you want. This way the voice change command is recorded and will tell the dep20 which voice to use for the midi notes that follow when you play it back to the dep20. I played the piano for quite a while and hit the stop recording button in reaper. Then I set the input to none and the output to the dep20 on midi channel 2. I created a new midi track with the input set to the dep20 on midi channel 1 and the output to none. Then I started recording. I selected a bass voice on the dep20. At this point the dep20 is playing my piano part and I'm playing the bass along with it. The bass is being recorded on channel 1 and the piano is being played back on channel 2. Once I stop recording, I set the bass track input to none and it's output to the dep20 on channel 3. I added another midi track with the input set to the dep20 midi channel 1 and it's output to none. I started recording and selected a string sound on the dep20 and played the string sound to the piano and bass that the dep20 is playing back. I stop recording and set the string track input to none and the output to the dep20 midi channel 4. Now when I play the project back, the dep20 is playing piano, bass, and strings.For the people that are saying "What about the drums?", here is a clunky way to add the drum kit sounds to my project. I add another midi track with the input being from the dep20 on midi channel 1. Instead of setting the output to none, I set it to the dep20 on midi channel 10. I enable "input monitoring" so that the dep20 notes I play on midi channel 1 get sent back to the dep20 on midi channel 10 -- the drum channel. This way I hear whatever voice is selected on the dep20 AND the drums from the drum kit. But I don't want to hear the voice selected on the dep20 -- I can't do anything about it except choose a voice that makes very little sound when the note is just quickly hit like a drum. So I choose a voice like "wind" or some other voice that has a very slow attack with the volume. It's clunky, but it works. When you play back the track on channel 10, only the drum sound will be played by the dep20.I hope my little adventure with multi-track midi recording/playback with the dep20 has helped make an already fun piano even more fun.AndyH

I'm learning to play piano at age 64. This was a great buy and does everything I could ask. Exceptional buy for a beginner. Full size key board with weighted keys. Now if learning to play was only as easy as buying.

In my original review I complained about a chemical smell that caused my eyes and nose to itch painfully. I was in contact with Donner support and they sent me a replacement. This review is of the replacement.I think this piano is a great deal. You get a full size 88 key keyboard with weighted keys. The weighted keys feel nice even though the weights aren't exactly the same as an acoustic piano. You can vary the volume of notes realistically by pressing the key faster just like an acoustic piano. The piano also comes with a sustain pedal which is great. There are two headphone jacks so a student and teacher can listen together if needed. I haven't used the headphone jacks, since mostly just use the built in speakers. The speakers on this piano are surprisingly good. You get 4 total speakers and they are better than I expected for this price point. The bass notes sound great!I like the huge number of instrument voices programmed into this piano. You can change it and play around with a lot of different instruments. I wanted this feature to help with composing and I am sure it will be helpful. There is a midi output that I could use to play into my computer if I want also, but I already have a midi keyboard for that so I haven't tried it.There are a lot of electronic features built in. There are many built in midi instruments and even a drumkit feature. There is a built in metronome and there is also a feature that lets you record what you played. You can use that to record and double-check your rhythm. You could also use it to record accompaniment and then improvise over it. A lot of options!The only downside is the strong plastic smell that I hope goes away over time. This piano is fantastic for its price point. You really can't get anything better without spending quite a bit more.T