Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards All about Roland FP-80 & FP-50!!!

Got my fp 80 today. Very much like the fp 7f. Looks like the onboard recorder records only one layer. Also the headphone jack is standard 1/4 inch size. I still can hear a buzzing from a couple of areas of the keyboard but had no time to dicker with equalizer etc to try correcting. Xtra speakers sound noticeably better.

I've noticed this too in the various on-line demos. Kind of "plinky" or something in the upper-mids.

I think it has something to do with the room or the position in the room. When I bought mine they took one out of stock for me to test as they only had the fp 50 displayed. The fp 80 sounded very good in the store.

Free Thinker: Tell us more. Where did you get yours? How does it feel? Are the speakers louder or clearer than the FP-7F? What pianos are on board? How are EPs?

Waiting for my delivery impatiently.... it's killing me.

- How is the new onboard speaker configuration performing ? Is it really good, or do you still require external monitors ?
- How is the keybed - same thumpy-ness as the FP7F / RD700NX ? Perhaps less keynoise / bottoming out due to slightly other cabinet ?
- Any improvement / change in SN AP sound(s) ?!

Those are the most important parts of the FP-80 I'm very curious about.

Sorry JFP, from your previous post I assumed you had played the FP-80 - when you say categorically that the Studio Grand is not onboard. But now you're asking if there's "any improvement/change in SN AP sounds". So you don't actually know the Studio Grand is not on it? It may not be called that but that voice - or something related to it - may be onboard. None of us know yet it would appear.

Here is a nice and simple demo of the FP-50 from a Polish site (e-Muzyk.pl) at the FFM. He demonstrates the AP sounds in good sound quality.

And here is another demo of the FP-80 from our italian friends (www.suoniestrumenti.it). Thanks to John Maul for rockin out. ...Also pretty good quality.

I know it's not on board -> I checked that out with several Roland Reps, People from a Roland dealer and from the Manual - before it was out in the shops, or the manual online. All indicated that the SN AP sounds was NOT extended with the Studio or Brilliant. If the Studio WAS indeed in teh FP-80 , I would have the FP-80 right now under my hands (local stock arrived yesterday).

What I am curious about however is if the basic SN sounds - presumably based on the same samples as on the FP7F - have been improved somewhat in one way or another. Also if the keybed is slightly less thumpy. If both are noticeably better than before, I might put the FP back on my shortlist again, despite the absence of Studio Grand.

For my situation (at home)the onboard speakers are great. I tried the other piano sounds and I was impressed with them although I don't recall their names since I use mostly Grand piano. I love the keyboard. If I have one complaint it's a kind of distortion that I heard only once or twice. Similar to the fp-7f I had which I returned. As I said I have not as yet tackled that, it could be room placement , equalizer, etc. The piano in-store did not have this problem. I bought it at Long And Mcquaid's in the Toronto area for $1960.

I subscribe to JFP's questions. Free-thinker - could you tell us more about the piano, especially the points listed above? If you could post some (solo piano) recording, it would be icing on the cake:-)

I subscribe to this petition too :D, because I am between this one and a Kawai ES7 (if I can find one here in México)

Regards,
Oscar

Hi, IMO the speakers are at least 50% louder than the fp-7f and are louder than the es7 which I returned Sunday. I liked the es7 but the sound was too mellow for my taste and it didn't have many sounds or any drum kits . I will never need external speakers for the fp-80 as they are plenty loud for just using in large room at home.
I never tried the rd700nx but I believe the keyboard is the same as the fp-7f which I liked anyways especially after spending 45min at the store using various keyboards. Yes there is thumping when pressing keys when powered off if that's what you mean.
As far as the SN ap sounds on the fp-80 I like them and find most of them realistic but can't give you a definite answer because I rarely used them on the fp-7f to compare the two.
the first 3 pianos are very good-- 1-concert piano, 2-balladepiano, 3-bright piano also 10- comp piano.
the others ; dreamy piano, piano + ep, piano + strings, piano + pad, piano + choir, magical piano, rock piano, ragtime, harpsichord, coupled hps -- some seem a little gimmicky and I doubt I will use them much.
I hope that helps but there is nothing like going down there and trying them out for yourself since it is a very personal thing. For instance the es7 I returned was too mellow almost hollowed-out sounding for me and prefer the fp=80 even though I may never resolve the twangy noise at d# 3 and the 2 adjacent notes.
By the way Oscar, where are you in Mexico? Just got back from a great 3 weeks in Puerto Vallarta.

Hi, thanks free thinker for your info.

Regarding this, could you tell me how the FP-80 key action of the compares with the ES7 ?


Nice! thats a beautiful place to vacation (like many here in México )
I live in Yucatán Peninsula (in southeastern México) which also is a really nice place to vacation, so I cant really blame on that

Regards,
Oscar

I liked the action on the fp-80 immediately (and equal or better than es7) and I'm used to a young chang baby grand. The ivory feel is also a plus and better than the shiny plastic of the grand.

Awesome, thanks free thinker

Regards,
Oscar

Thank you free thinker! It seems to me that after years of hard work on the most realistic piano samples, their names have been perfected. Or am I just too cynical?:-) Anyway, glad that you are happy with the piano, I believe that it is pretty good board.

This is just how I expected it to sound (starting at 1:03) ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mNSJR0NZ54

You mean totally distorted ?! I assume you're being cynical. About SN : if they got it right (or almost right) in the first place, then why would the same sound 2 years later suddenly be completely outdated.

Kurzweil milked their triple for , what...about 20 years ? And it's still on current boards. Yamaha seems to be in recycling mode as well, and Korg doesn't seem to get that smoothing effects like string resonance, unnoticable layer switching are also part of the job, apart from long samples. Casio has larger sample ram, but uses the same piano sample as before, just longer. I would have liked to see an enhanced SN version 2 from Roland as well, but even without the SN is still one of the better sounding DP sounds out there. Apart from SW Piano's of course.

Funny thing is no-one has still any idea yet if the SN AP is 100% exactly the same as in the FP7f, or that Roland introduced indeed some slight improvements. And then I don't mean only in the preset naming...Edit: we'll one thing I found is that the FP-80 has soundboard behavior modeling, whereas the FP7f has not.

I hardly believe that the ES7 is more "mellow" than any Roland. No way, unless you were talking about the upper octaves, those so-called metallic.
In fact, the main characteristic of the Rolands is their sweet and deep low register.Isn't it?

What do you mean with soundboard behavior???