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Hi!

Is there anyone who knows something about Roland releases 2010?

/Andrée

Absolutely. Roland would know!

Lawrence

Here they come:

Google Translated Roland News Release on HP Series

There is mention of some new technology to make the sound even more expressive and natural, and of course the PHA III for the HP307.

Wonder how they would compare with the Kawai CA63 and CA93!

So it looks like their new products are going to be hybrid: sampling combined with modeling?

Yes, they did say that it incorporates technology from the V Piano and that the new models can achieve dynamics and tone previously unachievable with purely sampled instruments.

This has got me really excited even though I just bought a Casio PX-730 Imagine the possibilities a few years down the road when I've outgrown my DP! (hopefully I'll have an acoustic by then, too. But I love the convenience of digitals).

Excellent!

These new instruments look terrific, and with the PHAIII action and 'Super Natural Piano Sound' engine, I'm sure they will sound and play incredibly well too.

Congratulations to Roland for once again raising the bar! I shall look forward to playing these new instruments in the coming weeks.

Cheers,
James
x

HP307 looks fantastic, what do you think about the price of this machine?

The interface still looks absolutely horrid with that 3 digit display. Every time I sit down at my piano, I am completely amazed how utterly, intolerably bad the interface for those digitals is.

If you look at any cellphone, PC or MP3 player made in the last decade, you'll find better options than "to save your song, press the 3D and Dynamics keys at the same time, then press internal song, then press "+", then press Play, then +/- for the save slot, then Play, then Record". To record a new song to the temporary buffer, press internal song, press right, press record, press left".

I get sooo worked up on this topic, sorry

the HP 302 sounds awesome! The only thing that concerns me are the Speakers, but they say that it's capable of producing sounds as loud as the older models...

Anyway, any idea when they'll start selling?
Or about the prices?
I think the HP302 should be somwhere in between HP 203 and 201, righT?

Only the hp 307 has the new keyboard (pha III). From what I have seen, the major difference is in the way the escapment works (you can reach the hard point and still can get a sound if you press firmly, as for a real piano, a thing you cannot do with pha II).

They also claimed when V piano was announced that keys can repeat faster, but I have not noticed a big difference when I tried the V piano.

Sieg - can you please elaborate? I don't understand what you mean by this.

Greg.

Supernatural Piano Sound...

Wonder what that really means.

Interesting to note the first year sales projections, for the various models.

Lawrence

Hi Greg, I guess this is what Sieg meant ...

In an acoustic piano, when you press the key down slowly, at some point you'll feel some resistance before you reach the bottom of the key. This is caused by the escapement mechanism (that allows the hammer to be stay away from the string at the end of playing a note). If you continue to press down at that point, usually you cannot make a sound, unless you press very hard.

According to Sieg, PHA III is able to simulate the above behavior whereas with PHA II, once you reach the escapement point, you cannot make a sound no matter how hard you press the key.

Hi Sieg,

Could you share with us where you learned about this difference between PHA III and PHA II?

Thanks,
Tony

It's market speak. It means "let's get people excited, while making no claims whatever."

I can't lend much credence to promotional material. We'll only know more when we get a chance to try one of these new models ... next year.

The PHA III action has 3 sensors to the II's 2. The third sensor is functionally equivalent to the repetition lever on an acoustic grand action, allowing faster repetition without fully releasing the key or allowing the damper to touch the strings. Its a similar arrangement to Yamaha's GH3 action.

It doesn't appear that the PHA III in the HP307 has the V-Piano's dedicated CPU that allows the piano to "learn" your playing style.

Hi Tony,
it's there, a 2'40" http://www.sonicstate.com/news/2009/01/23/wnamm09-roland-v-piano-behind-closed-doors/
and it works, I have tried it in a shop. It's maybe not as subtle as in a real piano, but it's far better that with pha II where escapment is of no use. It would be interesting to see how the new kawai ca 93 deals with the same issue.

It's nice to see that the new roland keyboard has a better sensor system, because in a real piano the point where the damper touch the string is not the same (higher) than the point where you can still produce a sound (lower in the travel of the key, near the escapment point). With many other DPs I believe that this two points are the same, so you can't repeat the same note without dampering it first and thus playing staccato, if you don't use some pedal.

So yamaha seems to use 3 sensors too, what about new kawai models ?

Hi Sieg, Alden,

Thanks for the explanation on the PHA III.

So far I haven't seen literature from Kawai that explains the technology (e.g. number of sensors) used in its new RM3 keyboard. The emphasis is on the physical aspect. RM3 stands for realistic material, mechanism and motion.

I guess we'll need to wait for someone to report on their real experience with the Kawai models.

11/21 HP307 was released in Japan. So I rushed into a store and tried it. The store had both HP207 and HP307 so I could compare them. I had thought HP207 was already an excellent DP however HP307 was fairly better than HP207.

Touch)
More natural, smoother and quicker than HP207. HP307 adopts PHA III (same as V-piano). I played some rapid passage (eg. Fantaisie-Impromptu, Jardins sous la pluie) and the keys were responsive.
I also tested the response for repeated notes. I could easily play 11 notes/sec on HP307 (maybe it is not the limit of HP307 but the limit of my fingers) while I could play 10 notes/sec on HP207.

Sound)
HP307 adopts the newly developed hybrid technology (sampling and physical modeling). A Roland's staff in the store said that they had so much confidence about the sound of HP307 that they removed the sham effects (HP207 has 3D effect but HP307 doesn't have it). I compared the grand piano 1,2,3 on HP207 and HP307 with no reverb. Due to the noisy environment, I gave up evaluating the sound from speakers. I used my noise-cancelling headphone.

HP207's sound was already good but HP307's sound was more natural and clearer. It was something like looking at pictures with high resolution. Tone change along velocity became more natural and wider.

I also brought some midi files and played them on HP307. When I listened to the sound rendered by HP307 I felt as I listened to a CD recorded in a good studio.

Something wrong)
I tried to find some weak points but it was difficult, however:

• I felt the tone change around ppp was a little insufficient compared to acoustic pianos, however this weak point is shared with most of DPs.
• I felt some unnatural frequency characteristic in low frequency, however It might be my headphone's fault.

The prices in the store were
HP307 269,000JPY
HP207 199,000JPY(The store discounted it after the release of HP307.)

I have already known Roland's advertisement. So I am afraid my review is affected by kind of PLACEBO EFFECTs. I'm looking forward to other one's reviews..

thank you for this thoughtful and apparently unbiased (p)review!