Donner DEP-20 Beginner Digital Piano 88 Key Full Size Weighted Keyboard, Portable Electric Piano with Sustain Pedal, Power Supply

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

First and foremost, for an electric piano at this price, its a great deal. I wanted a weighted 88 key keyboard/piano that plays like a real piano, and this does. I've had this piano for a few days now, and have been playing it a lot. I am very happy with this purchase and recommend it to anyone who is looking for an electric piano in this price range. The construction of this piano is a lot more durable than I was expecting it to be. I tried to put some info down below on the features I've noticed so far, I hope this helps anyone who reads it. Why did I buy this piano: I bought this for my daughters who I am going to start giving lessons to. I have a cheaper Yamaha keyboard that was more for recording, and doesn't feel and play like a real piano, so I started shopping for something like this so my daughters will be able to get the idea of the feel of a acoustic piano. I didn't want to go too cheap in the hope that they stick with it, and I can get a few years out of it. Speakers: The speakers are very clear, and do not seem to clip or scratch when turned all the way up. Even with the bass sounds, the speakers perform great. I've been keeping the volume at about 75%, and that's really all that's needed. The speakers have some great range and handle high end and low end really well. I've also noticed that nothing on the piano vibrates, hums or gives any annoying, unintended sound when the volume is up. Headphones: There are 2 1/4 in headphones jacks in the front of the piano, which is nice so you're not looking behind it to plug them in when you want to play quietly. I'm playing with more studio quality headphones and the volume isn't clipping in the headphones, but that could be due to the type i'm using. I'm not sure how it will sound with earbud type headphones. Weighted Keys: All in all, I'm happy with the weight and the pressure needed to press the keys. They may be a little heavier than the acoustic piano I grew up with, but they're really natural feeling. The keys themselves actually have some density to them, and don't feel like cheap, hollow plastic like many keyboards do. They do have felt at the base of the keys unlike many low cost keyboards. Sound Effects: There are a lot, but I stick with the Grand Piano, or Bright Piano effect. Like many keyboards, most effects are unnecessary, but they're there if you need them. There are some decent strings, orchestra, and pads with this keyboard. Sustain Pedal: The frame is plastic but the pedal itself is metal and feels really durable. It just has a 1/4 in jack and plugs in the back. No issues with mine, works as expected. USB and MP3: I haven't used either of these yet, but plan to use the USB for recording on a DAW. On board recording: This works great and is easy to use. I haven't messed with this a ton, but I don't think it will create a loop to play over, but I could be wrong. From what I've seen, the recording feature just records the whole song your playing, then you can play over it while replaying the track. Recommendation: I'm giving it 5 stars and would recommend it to anyone looking in this price range. Its not going to play like a pristine $2000 electric piano, but at this price range and for what I'm doing with it, I'm very impressed with it.

Amazing digital piano for it's price. Ive had it for over a year now and its still going strong. The amount of features built into a piano like this rivals those of Yamaha and other notable brands. Definitely worth it. From the weighted keys, to its built in custom sounds, this piano is almost perfect. Just a couple things to note, to use a specific sound (like an electric organ), you must scroll through tens or even hundreds of them just to find it. I wish there was a number pad we could use as a short cut. Another thing is that this piano is not very small and not very light either compared to its competitors. This piano is definitely worth your money

Been using a 10-12 year old 61 key Yamaha for quite a while, mostly to have sound tracks to play guitar to, and to break down chords that I am learning on the guitar, to see how it all relates to the piano. I found myself running out of keys once I got into the second octave on the guitar neck, so wanted a full 88 key unit. Plus, ten year old sound tracks on the Yamaha, Ugh... After MUCH research, (you can get a cheaper 88 key unit, but most are junk), I decided, based on reviews and YouTube videos this was the best bang for the buck. Let me list the Pros and Cons: Pros: Uses the 128 polyphony software, which makes it sound just like a good piano. Some of the other instruments, not so much, and the drums are basically worthless, but a lot to play around with, but not a toy. Full 88 keys with full weight, hammer action, full size. Decent amount of add-on stuff, but not too much so it becomes more of a toy than an actual instrument. My old Yamaha had so much junk on it I didn't use but about 10% of it. Cool USB and MP3 connections for playing along to your playlist, and hooking into software on something like your laptop. Four speaker system is better than most people think. Two up, two down. It gives the unit a much more rounded sound, where the top only speaker units shoot 100% of the sound straight up. This sounds more like a real piano. Sustain pedal is cool, not that crummy little plastic square most come with. Sounds like an actual acoustic piano in the default setting, save it is always 100% in tune, whereas a typical acoustic is like any other stringed instrument, tuning can vary due to humidity, temperature, usage, etc. This is ALWAYS in 100% tune. Front mounted dual headphone jacks are cool. If you are taking a lesson, one on the student, one on the teacher, or if two people want to play quietly, lots of options. Like it. Power Supply is included, and it is way smaller than my old Yamaha unit, which ran pretty warm. This is much better. Cons: Right off the bat, it is just too thick in the front. About 6" total from the tops of the keys to the bottom. Then there are 1" feet added, so if you try to put it on a table, it is just too high. For me, when I put it on my homemade stand at about the standard keyboard height, (I'm a woodworker), I found that my knees were hitting the lower front of the unit when the keys were about at the correct height for a typical upright piano. So you need long arms, and short legs. Not a deal breaker, but more of an annoyance. They don't make a three pedal unit, (Soft/Sostenuto/Sustain) for this unit. You have to buy the one with the stand that looks somewhat like an upright. It is somehow built into that stand, and they just don't sell the three pedal unit as an add-on, although the jack is there on the back. They also claim that no other brand will work, so you are stuck with a single sustain pedal. I'm going to keep looking, maybe someone somewhere, who knows. On mine, the highest two keys sound like they are straining to get the note out. In Grand Piano mode, (default), they are almost not projecting any sound, just a hiss. I will admit that my hearing is not as good as it used to be, but if I turn on some other types of tones in the unit, they come to life. Again, not a deal breaker, but it reveals itself as a digital... Music holder is cheesy. It works, but my feeling is it might break in the future. The instructions are there, but you can tell some Chinese person did the writing and translation, and some of the explanations are a bit hit and miss, plus the verbage used in the book does not necessarily match the names on the buttons. I found myself just going through, button by button, and making notes in the book so I know what effect does what, and the name that is actually used on the button. Once you play it a while, you will get to know. Takes a while to get through all the sounds. You hold down a button, and it scrolls through. A little keypad would have been great so if you want to sound like a Harpsichord, you just hit a couple numbers, not scroll through tons of other sounds. At least the readout is good and clear. Lastly, and this is nit-picking, I am not a fan of the slider volume system. I like a round knob. Over the years, I have had more than one of these sliders fail. Not a fan, but it does work and the unit is loud! Overall, for a beginner, or a person in their first few years of their piano journey, or an apartment or small house person with not a lot of room, this is really hard to beat. One publication noted it the best unit for under $700. I think that is about right. It is definitely worth the money, and I highly recommend buying it from Amazon, although you can get it a bit cheaper elsewhere. But with Amazon backing it, you are good to go. So far, for me, I love it, love the key action, and find myself learning more piano now than ever before. Recommended!

I think that this is a great digital piano for the money. The quality is great and the key action is very good for an instrument at this price. You have to keep in mind that this is a very low cost instrument with features that generally only come with much higher priced ones. The sound quality of the speakers is good, but sounds better with my headphones. The sustain pedal is not very good, it has nowhere the modulation of a real piano. The range of other sounds/instruments is impressive, but they aren't great. If you're looking for something for your own enjoyment or just learning how to play, then I highly recommend this product.

I purchased the Donner DEP- 20 after watching several in depth reviews on youtube. I especially enjoyed the detailed reviews by James Pavel and Jeremy See. After doing a lot of research I pulled the trigger on this instrument. For MY NEEDS, this is a 5 star instrument, your needs and mileage may be different. I’ve been playing music for more than twenty years on several different instruments, guitar, drums, bass, keyboards, and I primarily write symphonic black metal. I have a yamaha 76 key, spring action keyboard that I wanted to replace with a full 88 key setup. To me, the main selling point of the Donner Dep-20 was the fully weighted, graded, hammer action keys…which is impossible to find elsewhere at a price tag of around $350. This digital piano is NOT perfect, but I do give it 5 stars, because it suits MY needs. Looking at other video reviews, I noticed the sound quality of the samples were on par with standard midi. It does have 200+ different instruments, similar to midi quality. Once again, for my needs, thats not a big deal. I run the keyboard through USB MIDI into FLStudio, and play through sample libraries. So it sounds exactly like a piano (or whatever instrument I want.) No digital piano under $700-1,000 is going to have amazing quality piano sounds, it’s one of the limitations of hardware to price ratios. I already had a powerful computer, and several sample libraries (I use the Noire Piano), and I bought this piano just for the quality of the key actions. The main selling point of this digital piano is the 88 fully weighted, graded, hammer actions keys. It doesn’t feel quite like a real acoustic piano, but it’s SIMILAR, for someone who is not a professional concert pianist. The key action is heavy like an acoustic piano, which I really enjoy. It’s very difficult to ACCIDENTALLY depress an a key. But the heavy key action affords you a lot of velocity control to really bring life to your music, just like an acoustic piano. You simply can’t get that with spring action keys on a keyboard. The piano itself has great volume control, it can go unnecessarily loud, if you choose. I play with headphones a lot, sounds great. The build quality is decent, it’s thick, rigid plastic. Like any digital instrument, you should be careful, if you knocked it over I’m not sure what would happen to the electronics inside, but that’s not the fault of the manufacturer, that’s user error. If you want a really in depth review, I highly, HIGHLY recommend looking for James Pavel on youtube. (Type “james pavel donner dep 20 review) he’s got a review of the piano itself, and another review comparing this product to several other digital pianos in the “under $500 range”. I’m more than a beginner (but not a professional), having played music for more than 20 years, this piano has everything I need, and nothing I don’t. As I said at the start, your needs and mileage may vary, but this digital piano delivers on every promise that was made by the manufacturer. Also like I said, if you already have a computer with a usb port, hook it up to a sample library and this instrument can easily compete with $1,000+ instruments. I purchased this for the cheapest, fully functional, fully weighted, graded, hammer action digital piano on the market. I am extremely satisfied, the key action is great, the standard velocity curve is great. 5 stars.

A lot of piano for the money! This is full size keyboard with "weighted" keys. What that means is that it has the same feel as a piano rather than the soft feel of cheap electronic keyboards. It also registers how hard you strike the key and plays softer/louder accordingly. This is important if you want to the feel of playing a "real" piano. The piano does NOT come with a stand, I used a cheap "X" stand that I already have. This could be a problem if you don't have a large table to put it on. On the other hand the piano has feet that lift it off the table so that the sound that comes from the bottom resonates on the table rather than be muffled (there are also smaller speakers on the top). I think it sounds great and is pretty loud. There are 2 convenient headphones jacks to practice in silence (and duets :) ) I tried also connecting the audio out to an amplifier and boy did it sound great with a full size speaker! The piano has lots of different sounds, from bells, to organ, to strings, etc... so I'm sure there are lots of sounds for everybody, but I wanted a piano, so I really only use the "Grand Piano" sound which is the default when you turn it on. From the photos you can see it has a sustain pedal like a real piano to let the notes resonate even when you let go (see the video). According to the manual you can also get a 3 pedal set, but it doesn't come with it. As you can see from the photos on Amazon, the piano comes with a music sheet holder, I don't have it up in the video. There are lots of cool features, like the ability to play along with demo tracks, do automatic chords, etc... I didn't play with too many of those, because I wanted a piano but I didn't have the money or room for a "real" piano. I do like that it has a built-in metronome, playing with a metronome beat is an important skill for beginners. I love the ability to play along with your own MP3s/tracks. either use the "audio in" cable or plug a USB stick with your tracks right in the back of the piano. Anything bad? Well, I mentioned that it doesn't come with a stand. I have bought other Donner instruments and they came with a bunch of accessories so I had assumed it would come with a stand (my mistake). I gues that way you can buy anything you want (you can see mine is cheap and is wobbly in the video). The black keys are slightly textured on the top instead of 100% smooth. Maybe some pianos are that way (black keys used to be made out of ebony, which is wood, and white keys covered with ivory, which is very smooth), but the piano I grew up with had very smooth black keys. Probably a matter of personal preference. My son is the real piano player in the family but too shy for a video, so you get to hear my playing. My phone is not great at recording videos, it sounds better in person, but you get the idea. This instrument is a great alternative for a student that is just starting and may not stick to his piano lessons (I'm looking at my other son here :+) ) and is a good portable option if you play with friends outside of the home. I'm attaching a few photos and a quick video review, and I will answer comments to my review if I can.

It has excellent sound just like a piano! Very well made

buen piano de 88 teclas, es robusto, pesa un poco, pero todo dentro de los normal. buen sonido y muchas opciones

Que dire de ce superbe instrument que j'ai mis du temps à commenter, certes, à cause d'un dos fracassé. On retrouve cette fois un vrai toucher lourd, comme on les aime, mais qui reste toutefois règlable. Je ne connaissais pas cette marque. L'ergonomie est si bien faite et simple qu'il n'est pas besoin d'ouvrir son mode d'emploi tant on a tout sous les yeux, et d'une façon naturelle, intuituitive, logique. La qualité du son, et des sons est exceptionnelle. Pour le son piano, je parviens même à y retrouver une touche un peu boisée des pianos accoustiques. C'est un aussi excelent instrument pour débuter qu'en niveau confirmé, voire plus.

Ce piano est parfait et complement conforme à mes attentes. Nous l'avons réçu très rapidement et il présente des performences très sympa et intéressantes; totalement au-delà de mes éspérances, pour l'apprentissage de mon fils. Je le conseille vivement à tous, un excellent rapport qualité prix 🏆 Jean-Luc

This really is a great piano for beginners. The weighted keys feel very similar to a real piano, so while practicing if you ever get the chance to play on a real piano you won't feel much difference at all. The piano isn't super heavy, so you can take it anywhere, and the onboard speakers I would call "good enough". The sound isn't super amazing, but for the value you're getting a really excellent machine. If you want high quality sound, you can plug this piano into your computer, fire up your favorite DAW, and load in a Steinway piano in a grand hall and have lots of fun(the piano is smart enough to recognize when it's connected to a DAW and will only play audio through it instead of the onboard speakers). Moreover, the support I received was excellent. One of the keys on my keyboard started acting funny(the velocity was broken, no matter how soft you hit the key it would register as a very hard strike). I looked online and saw this was fairly common, you just had to remove the keys and clean the sensor board. I didn't know how to do it for this specific model, so when I messaged Donner they not only sent directions but an actual video of how to remove the keys and clean it! They were helpful every time I contacted them, and we were able to reach an amicable solution regarding my specific problem. Couldn't suggest this piano any more for beginners. It's great value for the money, and the company behind it offers great support!

This is really the next best thing to the reality of playing an actual piano and it has a lot of functions that make it worth the trade for the slight difference in keyboard. Both myself and my husband love the sound and feel of a real piano. Unfortunately we don’t have the space and for recording, a keyboard of this caliber is really necessary. The difference in playing is very slight, you have to have an excellent ear to even catch the slight delay between playing the note and the sound and if you aren’t the one playing, you can’t tell at all no matter how good your ear is. The sound on the keyboard is beautiful 💕 it has good sound on it’s own and it can be hooked up to speakers to fill an auditorium of any size or to headphones so it can be played while my husband is in a zoom meeting! It can also be programmed to have multiple tones and even to have single keys play different chords! It can make a simple piece of melody turn into a symphony with the right adjustments! It also can be made to play as different instruments, many keyboards do this, what I like about this keyboard is that you can program it so only half or only certain areas or keys play as different instruments! This makes it insanely versatile and gives nearly unlimited creativity to someone who wants to enhance a piece of music or compose their own music. It’s easy to record of off, their are multiple methods to plug into the keyboard with from cords, USB, thumb drives, MP3 players etc There were two surprises when it came in, I kind of thought it came with the bag it was shown with in many of the pictures. It doesn’t come with that. I DID think I would have to buy the sustaining pedal, it costs over $200 to buy, I was delighted to find that it was included!! It works great and I thought I would have to buy it later. The keyboard is a large machine and I’m not sure how portable I would consider it to be. Definitely get it and measure it before buying a bag or case to make sure it will fit as I was surprised by how ‘deep’ it was. It doesn’t take up a lot of room, except that it is a full 88 keys and that’s going to be fairly long. It has good speakers and a lot of components. It’s definitely a worthy piece of equipment and sturdy. It’s not extremely heavy, but it’s not light either. It’s very much worth it for the sound you get and everything else.