The words ‘piano’ and ‘portable’ don’t sit easily together, as the famously large, heavy instrument has so far resisted all attempts to make it more compact and remains more room-scale than pocket-size.
Electric pianos can solve this problem, and if you need to go on the road with your keyboard instrument they’re something worth investigating unless you intend on taking a truck and removal crew with you. Some electric pianos can rival traditional models for the feel of their keys, though an acoustic piano is rarely as well-equipped as an electric keyboard when it comes to emulating different sounds or connecting to MIDI equipment.
There is a huge range of portable electric pianos on offer, some of which stretch the meaning of the word ‘portable’, and some the meaning of the word ‘piano’. There are excellent choices for beginners and professionals alike, making good practice keyboards when you’re away from home, useful studio companions, and full electronic music-making workstations when combined with a laptop.
Not all portable keyboards will have the full 88-key keyboard of the traditional piano, but they will attempt to recreate the range of sounds the acoustic instrument can create through a process of sampling and physical modelling. This means using recordings of real pianos, and it can be worth looking into the techniques used in this process if you’re looking for a particular quality of sound. Physical modelling is then a layer of processing on top of this sample, which attempts to create an improved, natural sound.
The benefits of a portable electric piano are that you can take it with you when you travel, it never needs to be tuned, it can create different sounds at the touch of a few buttons, and you can use it with headphones if you need to.
The downside is that nothing can 100 per cent recreate the experience of playing a large instrument crafted from wood and metal, they don’t look as beautiful, and unless you opt for a battery-powered model you’ll be tied to a plug socket whenever you want to play.
Best portable piano keyboards at a glance:
Find out more below
Roland Fp-30X
Best for: piano on the road
Rolands’s SuperNATURAL sound engine uses only physical modelling to create its piano sound, with no samples involved. The company claims this is a superior way to generate the tones, but the ear of the beholder will have to decide whether it really is.
Aside from this, the Fp-30X hits a sweet spot in the Roland range, with 88 keys, MIDI USB and Bluetooth connections, a headphone jack, and a smartphone and tablet app that takes a lot of the guesswork out of using its button-heavy interface.
Its key action uses triple sensors and has five levels of touch sensitivity, which means it feels very realistic to use, with 56 different voices (including 10 pianos and two harpsichords) if you want to mix things up a bit.
Buy now £731.00, Amazon
Casio Casiotone CTS-200
Best for: budget portability
The Casiotone is so portable it even has a built-in carrying handle. This 61-key digital piano offers MIDI connectivity and a headphone socket so your practice sessions don’t disturb nearby sleepers - it will hook up to the Chordana learning app too.
You can run it from six AA batteries, though an AC adapter is included, and its 48 voices, built-in metronome, auto accompaniment function and impressive range of digital effects make it a versatile and highly portable piano keyboard.
Buy now £190.00, Amazon
Yamaha NP-15 Piaggero
Best for: practical practice
Another 61-key option, this time concentrating on keyboard sounds, with just 15 voices including a concert grand, vintage piano, jazz organ, harpsichord and vibraphone.
A specialised carrying case is available to fit it, and it has sockets for a sustain pedal, MIDI connection (a Bluetooth adapter is available) and headphones. It can be powered by six AA batteries or from a wall socket, and makes a superb compact option for playing at home or taking with you.
Buy now £320.00, Amazon
Roland Go:Piano Go-61P
Best for: carrying on your back
This portable option from Roland features 61 full-size box-style keys with four levels of touch sensitivity, though they’re not weighted so will still feel slightly different to playing on a traditional instrument. It can emulate 40 different instruments, including 10 pianos, seven different electric pianos, seven organs and others including drum kits and sound effects, though you can’t split the voices across the keyboard.
Connections include Bluetooth and USB, and there's a headphone socket for those times you need to keep the noise down. It can be powered by six AA batteries, and Roland makes a carrying case (CB-GO61KP) which means you can carry it on your back if you need to.
Buy now £320.00, Roland
Yamaha PSS-A50
Best for: a piano you can carry
A much smaller keyboard than many others on this list, the PSS-A50 has 37 keys but is still capable of 42 voices including four pianos (one acoustic and three electric), organs, guitars, strings and wind instruments.
Powered by batteries or a USB connector (so you can use your phone charger, but note it’s micro USB and not USB-C), this is a highly portable and wallet-friendly keyboard, but its keys aren’t as large as real piano keys and will have a different feel.
If you can deal with that, this makes a great travel companion for songwriting that’s marketed to a younger audience but may find favour with anyone looking for a convenient way to make music.
Buy now £70.00, Amazon
Clavia Nord Stage 4 88
Best for: playing on stage
This large 88-key hammer action piano keyboard might be stretching the definition of portability a bit, but it’s still easier than pushing a wooden piano into a van each night as it weighs less than 20kg. As you’d expect for something hand-built in Sweden and costing north of four grand, the sound quality is excellent, but there's also a lot of customisation, sample editing and programming on offer to really tune the instrument to match your playing style and desired tone.
The Stage 4 88 sports four audio outputs in addition to a headphone jack, MIDI via DIN sockets, six connections for control pedals and a 3.5mm monitor plug. It’s a lot of piano, but for the professionals who need it, it might be their new favourite instrument.
Buy now £4026.93, Gear4music
Yamaha REFACE YC
Best for: organ sounds
Another slim, red, portable keyboard, but this time, it comes from Yamaha and emulates organs rather than pianos - and thus will find itself used by a slightly different section of the musical community than some of the other options here.
Its 37 keys span a useful three octaves, there's MIDI, USB and headphone connectors, and you can power it with batteries. It’s the match of many other electric pianos on this list, just without the piano part.
What you do get are the sounds of a tonewheel Hammond organ, plus others from Vox and Yamaha, as well as less well-defined voices such as transistor organs from various countries. Its analogue-style controls are a nice touch, and there's distortion and vibrato too for an authentic organ sound.
Buy now £600.00, Amazon
Novation Launchkey 25 Mk III
Best for: portable MIDI
You can get a 61-key variant of the Launchkey, but this 25-key version is much more portable. It’s a pure MIDI controller, directly compatible with Ableton Live, Logic and Reason, and therefore not something you’ll be playing without a laptop or other DAW in close attendance.
This third edition of the keyboard ups the quality over previous releases, with the rotary encoders and faders all feeling solid, while the keys themselves are full-size and satisfying to use. For a small, light keyboard and MIDI controller, it packs in a lot of functions, and in this small 25-key incarnation is extremely portable too.
Buy now £95.00, Amazon
Verdict
Taking a piano on the road, whether it’s on a trip as a practice keyboard or on a professional tour, can be a daunting experience. These portable electric piano keyboards make things much easier, and you’ll be able to find something here that fits your needs. Roland has hit something of a sweet spot with its Fp-30X keyboard, which may not be the cheapest but crams in a lot of versatility while remaining eminently portable.
