Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Roland V-Piano / [Key replacements requested]*

[Edited]*

*Extra note:

Looks as if Roland is replacing Ivory Feel key beds for customers requesting them due to wear, as I have already done so, as mentioned in the most current post, further on.

How do they deterioate?

@Gigantoad,

Quite simply, deterioration is the direct result of finger nail contact as this cannot be completely avoided in piano playing even if you trim your nails very short as I do, for example.

Now, you may not want to do this if you own a V-Piano, however, by taking the edge of just one nail (on the index finger) you can easily make marks on the key surfaces with a firm scraping motion which are very minute (i.e., small) but they are scratches, nonetheless.

Now, after a few marks have appeared (as this doesn't take very long with regular piano use) you will also see flaky/dusty residue on the keys that is analogous to perhaps very tiny paint chips, or, maybe even flour.

Wipe a finger over a key where these scratches have occurred and you will now have proof of the key coating coming off.

And, as the scratches become more numerous you will both see and feel them while playing.

How many of you have observed this?

Hmmm....

If there are replacement keys available for other high end Roland models, you would think they could be used - even if they aren't the same material as the original ones. Unless there are physical differences between the V-piano and other keys - which has never been confirmed. If I were a V-piano owner I'd insist that Roland make some plastic keys and just give up on this useless Ivory stuff. The "ivory feel" is a much overemphasised selling point on pianos anyway.

at that price level rolland simply assumed the keys will not deteriorate...

pv88, when you compare V-Piano to Casio... I think there's an obvious answer for Casio keys holding well, perhaps you play V-Piano more often?

Anyway, this "deteriorates" is nothing. At least the key still plays.

"Deteriorates" could be way more serious - when keys start being stuck, for example. Yamaha P80, P120 and a bunch of other stage pianos of the time used bad lubricant which corroded the plastic. After 1 year, multiple keys would suddenly stop returning back after being pressed. That's serious deterioration. Yamaha had to offer no questions asked complete keyboard replacement after many complaints.


Re: V-Piano. Even if the key issue is cosmetic, Roland should sell replacements keys for years still... This is called product support.

Also, if they are still manufacturing the V-Piano, they must still have keys for it, or they wouldn't be able to make any more. So this does sound very strange.

As an aside, I believe that in the U.S., manufacturers are required to make spare parts available for 7 years. It's not as wonderful as it sounds. There's no rule about what they have to charge for them. So if a company is running low on parts before the 7 years are up, and it's not cost-practical for them to manufacture more, they can just raise the price on the existing parts so high that almost no one would buy them anyway, and then they're pretty much assured of not running out. ;-)

Along those lines, it's not impossible that Roland could say that the keys are not available individually, but you are welcome to buy an entire replacement keybed for a thousand dollars or whatever... but it seems to me that they need to offer something.

Also, I believe a replacement part only need to be sufficient to maintain functionality, it does not have to be identical to the original. For example, they may stop manufacturing a certain ivory-style key design because, say, its surface deteriorates. It would not make sense to continue to manufacture what is, in a sense, a kind of defective design. So they may have a new "improved" replacement key design that they can offer. But it's possible it may, for example, not exactly match the color or feel of the original. And in that case, you can't really expect them to continue to manufacture a part that they know has problems which they have subsequently corrected.

And that could be another reason to perhaps only sell replacement keys as part of a full set, if the "fixed" version doesn't match the original in some way, such that mixing and matching keys would be problematic... but it would still fulfill their obligation to provide some way to "repair" the instrument. And in fact, it might be the best way to go anyway, if the same problem would be likely to start happening to a number of the other keys anyway. But I can't imagine they're not offering anything at all, really?

I bought my HP-305 in September 2011. One or maybe two months ago I started to feel some wear on the keys. I don't think 5 months is time enough to keys starting to deteriorate. Now the wear is very evident and the keys makes me feel a weird sensation.

I'm very happy with my DP, except for this. I will call the shop where I bought it to ask if this is covered by guaranty. I hope so... and I also hope that the replacement keys will be made more quality made. This is frankly unacceptable for such a worldwide prestigious make as Roland is.

According to a correspondence from Roland, the V "has a one-of-a-kind keyboard assembly," which implies that it is not, after all, interchangeable with the keys of other PHAIII models, and probably is not mechanically identical to them either.

There have been a number of people who have claimed that the V keys feel different than those of other PHAIII pianos like the RD700NX. I would have expected this to be all in their heads, but perhaps this new evidence indicates that it is not.

In any case, the comment appears to preclude the possibility of obtaining and using the keys intended for another Roland piano.

Someone else also reported that he tried V-Piano and FP-7F while the power was off and apparently both felt the same. Guess we'll never know.

First off, this is something that has plagued Roland from the start when they launched the RD-700GX back in 2008, and it surprisingly is still an issue. Having owned both an RD-700GXF and RD-700NX, I can attest that I don't miss the Ivory Feel keys at all, and personally feel the keys are a little over done. They haven't used Ivory in piano keys in nearly a hundred years.

As for this bit about the V-Piano having some exclusive keyboard and keys...not likely. If this were true, then why wouldn't Roland proudly advertise such keys and key board action? They could easily say their flagship V-Piano/Grand models have this exclusive action. I believe 100% that the only reason the V-Piano appears to be different is because of the tone generation.

Huh? What does "official word" mean? Press release? Email? Service bulletin?

What is the source?

pv88 requested new (non wearing) keys to replace his, which are getting unpleasant wear. Someone at Roland emailed his dealer, who forwarded it to him. The email indicates that the RD700NX and other pianos have had updated keybeds but the V piano has not, and therefore the only option for replacement of his V piano will be a set of keys that is identical the one it originally came with.

The implication that keys are not interchangeable with other Roland pianos was an inference on my part based on this information and the other (one-of-a-kind) comment I mentioned, which is from the same email.

Oh, so he wasn't told he couldn't get replacement keys, he was told he couldn't get the kind of new improved keys that have been made available for other models. I misunderstood completely, sorry for going off on a tangent.

Unless they prefer people to think they can buy the same action for a much lower price...

Wouldn't this be borderline scam?

I seem to recall one V-Piano owner claiming that his instrument's Ivory Touch keyboard was replaced by 'standard' plastic keys.

James,

Please do let me know who that might be, as Roland has said they never have manufactured any standard plastic keys for the V-Piano, only the Ivory Feel ones.

Also, it was with Pierre that I had additional correspondence with as he told me that Roland did give him plastic keys for his HP model (not a V-Piano), and, that he had trouble with plastic keys not being spaced properly and they made loud clicking noises that he did not like... so, he opted for another set of Ivory Feel keys which apparently had been formulated to be more resilient.

This is good news only for those who own other Roland models, however, this does not apply to the V-Piano.

Ah, it was bennevis. However, I am mistaken. He mentioned that his V-Piano received a newer/harder Ivory Feel keybed when the instrument was taken away to apply the 'Evolution' software update.



Kona's post in the same thread may also be relevant.

Cheers,
James
x