In recent years we can find many brands started making affordable, beginner friendly with higher quality pianos. Many famous brands like Yamaha, Casio or Korg are also being part of it. If you are looking for a good electric piano but don’t have much to spend, in this article we will try to compare two affordable pianos made by Alesis and Williams. They are Alesis Recital and Williams Legato.
In this article we will give you information about:
– What is Alesis Recital and Williams Legato
– What Alesis Recital and Williams Legato can offer to you
– Alesis Recital vs Williams Legato
About Alesis Recital
Alesis has been manufacturing innovative electronic since 1980s, such as electric piano. Other than electric piano, they also making electronic drum machines, digital audio interfaces, professional recording equipment and many other audio and percussions products. Alesis Recital is a great piano and budget friendly, the unit is suitable for new musicians or students who just begin to learn on how to play the piano. This electric piano only weigh under 16 lbs, makes it portably easy to carry and place wherever you want or stored if not in used. Alesis Recital comes with the 88 keys, full sized and semi-weighted. With this electric piano you will be able to experience and learn how to actually play the grand piano.
Alesis Recital Features
When you first time seeing the piano you will notice the futuristic keyboard design, the unit comes with LED buttons to enhance the design. Some products that mimics grand piano with 88 key are never able to provide the same feeling, this is also happened in Recital however for the price range they have done a decent job. The unit also comes with five stunning built in instruments voices like the acoustic piano, electric piano, organ, synth, and bass that you can combine them to customize your personal preference in the layer mode.
The connectivity in Alesis Recital is also great, taken from Alesis, you can use the USB connectivity to directly to your computer so you can easily lay down MIDI into your track and write as many tunes as you want. At the back of the piano you can find a stereo RCA output that allow you to plug into an amplifier or speaker with AUX or RCA input. If you want to be more private you can also plug your earphone on its 6.35 mm jack.
When tested the Alesis Recital is able to produce amazingly smooth and rich sounds. Along with four other voices, you will see that the organ sound will give you chills especially with the freedom of having full control over the reverb and chorus settings. You will find yourself appreciating this piano that can provide such quality in that range of price. If you are interested on finding out more affordable electric piano, you can read our previous article here.
About Williams Legato
William Pianos are not as famous as other pianos made by Yamaha, Casio or Korg, however this is not stopping the company to create some interesting digital piano that was marketed toward beginner and students. In the past they have made some portable pianos, such as the Allegro 1 and 2 and the company not so recently released another model called the Williams Legato. With this new piano William doesn’t lead the market in the quality standpoint instead they try to provide musicians with cheap keyboards.
Williams Legato Features
The body of William Legato is made from poor low quality plastic with cheaper buttons, knobs, and designed very poorly if compared to its competitors. With the price it offer, you can’t expect much from Legato. It also doesn’t come with accessories, so if you want to add things in this electric keyboard you also have to be prepared to spend some more. However Legato has some plus, the unit is able to be used with 6x-cell batteries, this will be great for people who want to carry the piano to their gigs or rehearsals without having to worry about the power supply.
The William Legato is still can be considered lightweight and compact with only 19 pounds, if you are not into aesthetic, the poor design might not bother you. What you have to pay attention when carrying this piano is the chassis that doesn’t seem robust, so it is advised to carry it with a case.
In the connectivity side you can find MIDI port, a USB slot for media storage, the sustain jack, a headphone output and the power terminal. The speaker is not powerful or good enough to let you enjoy the great piano experience, so using external P.A. or good headphones is recommended.
The William Legato has a third party sound library, which somehow only made of five sounds: piano, electric piano, organ, synth and bass. With the split mode you can divide the keyboards into two parts and select a sound for each zone, like piano and bass or Rhodes and bass. Even though you can layer two sounds, the lack of polyphony 32 notes will not allow you to play any complex arpeggios, advances passages of classical music or bigger two handed chords.
Alesis Recital Vs Williams Legato
| Alesis Recital | Williams Legato | |
|---|---|---|
| Brand | Alesis | Williams |
| Key features | - 88 full-sized, semi-weighted keys with built-in speakers - Includes Skoove 3-month premium subscription for interactive online piano lessons - Standard, Split, Layer, and Lesson modes with 128 max polyphony | - It looks and plays like new and may be considered an equivalent to display units found in retail stores - The Williams Legato Plus is a full size digital piano with 88 semi-weighted keys, 5 great sounds (piano, electric piano, organ, synth, and bass) and built-in speakers |
| Price | ||
| Customer Ratings* | 4.0 out of 5 stars | n/a |
| Best Deal* | Save Money Please click here | Save Money Please click here |
NOTE : Product prices, availability, ratings and save money information are accurate as of the date/time indicated on post time (as seen right bellow the tittle) and are subject to change. Any price, ratings, availability and save money information displayed on Amazon Site at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
Decision
As it have been mentioned above, there are many thing that William Legato lacks in. it was built with lower quality plastics and are not strong enough to be frequently transported. Moreover the sound it produced is lower than its competitors like Alesis Recital, if you want an affordable keyboard that has the quality you are seeking for, we recommend you the Alesis Recital.