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Today I purchased a Roland V-Grand piano on sale. It will be delivered Friday. I never imagined that my wife would agree to this! I tried it and was able to compare it to other digital pianos by Roland and Kawai, as well as acoustic pianos by Kawai and Steinway. Due to my currently limited capabilities on the instrument compared to most here, I was able to determine that the V-Grand accurately shows my lack of technique in certain important areas just as the acoustic grand pianos do, that other digital pianos seem to gloss over (making me sound better than I really am).

To me, all the digital pianos I have played sound good. My concern has been about dynamics, pedalling, and that sort of subtlety that digitals seem to still gloss over somehow. The V-Grand does not seem to do this, and it is the only digital I have played that seems like an acoustic in this regard. I have never played the stage piano version of the V-Piano, but I assume it would be similar.

I intend to keep my Casio PX-5S as a portable stage piano, and will probably sell off my Yamaha Motif XS8 due to lack of space in my condo. One thing for certain, I will be seriously "woodshedding" over the winter!

This purchase will certainly put to bed any concerns I have had (as mentioned in a few other threads) about learning to play on a digital and developing bad habits since I don't have ready access to a "real" acoustic piano. Also, when I plugged in headphones, the external speaker sound was cut off so that playing in the wee hours in our condo will continue to be possible.

A friend of mine, when he first started playing piano, purchased a fine Yamaha grand. He has it to this day, has never suffered GAS (or is that Piano Acquisition Syndrome?) and plays quite well. Hopefully, my experience with the V-Grand will be similar. Living in a condo, a Yamaha (or any other brand) acoustic is just not feasible.

Tony

Congratulations!

If you haven't done so already, look up some of the posts here by Piano World member Bennevis, who appears to have made more of a study of what can be done with the V-Piano than anyone else in the world. He is a big fan, as I'm sure you will be.

Post some recordings for us, please!

Congrats Tony!

Cheers,
James
x

Congrats!!

I'm almost green with envy - not something I'm prone to (green or envious, that is), when it comes to others' digital purchases... . You must be the first PW member to own the V-Piano Grand.

You'll probably be spending a lot of time initially tweaking the sound (and the way it responds to your playing) to your liking, but if you like, you can try out my 'patches' detailed on my ancient V-Piano thread nearby. Also on that thread, AEMontoya has tweaked the settings a little and put them into a neat table, which is easier to read. Jay Roland also has some of his own, specially for the V-Piano Grand, which I'm sure he'll be happy to send you. (Send him a PM to get them).

The V-Piano Grand's speakers are truly awesome, and the whole experience of playing it is about as close as it's possible to get on a digital to playing a real nine-foot acoustic grand......

TonyB
That's awesome! Congratulations on your new purchase. I hope that it gives you years of joy ahead!

Congratulations, Tony...
Ya got a really nice one there.

Thanks bennevis! I found the table and printed it. Playing around with this table will really help me to get acquainted with what the V-Grand can do in that regard.

I have to admit to being nervous spending that much money. I think my biggest concern would be what happens if something electronic on the V-Grand fails in, say, 10 years. Will Roland still have the parts/boards to fix it? I would like to think that considering the likely market for such an instrument, the turn-over in technology would be slower, unlike the lower end where new models replace old every year or so and 5 years makes a given model obsolete. Such a failure on my Motif XS8 or Casio PX-5S is something I can move on from due to lower cost and ease of moving them as needed, but both the sheer size of the V-Grand and the cost would make such a failure a really big deal for me. An acoustic piano can always be repaired, but the electronics on the V-Grand is highly proprietary and specialized.

On the plus side in that situation, I am fairly certain the store I am buying the piano from, Schmitt Music, will be around for a long time to come. They are an institution around these parts. I would be far more worried buying it from some online store that could disappear at any time.

The reason for buying a piano of this caliber at this point is not that I am a good piano player by any means, since I rarely had time for that while I was working. In retirement, I want to focus on playing piano and a few other instruments, and having a really decent instrument on which to do that would be really enjoyable.

Tony

Thanks all in this thread. I consider myself unusually fortunate to have a wife who supports a purchase such as this. I always had the idea that, in retirement it would be great to get a decent instrument to live out the rest of my days pursuing what I rarely had consistent time for when working, and wish the same for all here.

The Sudnow method always seemed to me to be geared toward that segment of the population - those who had the time and inclination to carefully attend to learning the skills necessary to play in their chosen style. I remember thee being a number of retired folks coming to the local Sudnow study group back in the 90s. People don't seem to do that anymore unfortunately. I plan to pick up the Sudnow method again and probably expand into other areas as well. It was always due to hours at work that interrupted the best efforts of my playing. The irony always seemed to me to be that if you could afford this stuff, you probably had a job that did not allow for the time to do so. During one stretch in the early 90s of about two years, I was able to work consistently with the Sudnow method and did put together about 12 tunes. There is a momentum that happens with that consistency that is easily interrupted by a few months of extended work hours and travel. Now, in retirement, maybe I can get back to what I was doing then.

Thanks,

Tony

Hi Tony,

Congratulations, I am sure you will really enjoy the v-piano grand. I purchased a v-piano last christmas and really like it. I have no GAS for another digital piano and now concentrate on just playing.

As far as your concern about 10 years from now - who knows? 10 years is a long time and life happens. I do know that if you play the v-piano grand everyday for the next ten years then this will be a great purchase no matter what.

Be sure to input all those additional piano settings. They sound pretty good and also give you an idea about how the settings change the tone.

Don't forget - we need pictures

-tom

Congratulations. Welcome to the club I'm sure you'll be a very happy camper once you find the sounds you like the best. Bennevis's ear is top notch when it comes to re-creating certain piano sounds. I'm sure you'll find the new sounds worthy and they should sound spectacular coming from the speakers of the v-grand.

I stopped by Schmitt Music today to show my wife what we purchased since she was not with me when I did that yesterday. They were apologetic, but I was pleased to see that they had removed it from the floor already to prep it for delivery, because their annual warehouse piano sale started today and there will soon be lots of people banging on the various keyboards. The V-Grand seems to attract a lot of attention from what I have seen so far.

Yes, I think that bennevis' table will be really helpful for learning my way aorund the V-Grand and immediately getting off to a good start with some fine sounds. I just hope the V-Grand really does fit in our living room.

Tony

A fine instrument to be sure ...

However, just a word of caution ...

With all the possible sound adjustments, it is possible to spend valuable practice time fiddling with the numerous parameters to get the sound "just right".

Keep your priorities straight.

Enjoy

Advice well taken. Hopefully, I will have practice time and fooling around with the technology time as separates. However, I can definitely see where this could well become a problem. Since I really have not had access to acoustic pianos very often, I don't really have an ear for how these adjustments should sound, so I will be trusting bennevis' table, at least until I start hearing things I might want to change.

One thing I noticed is that the default sound that is there when the piano is powered on seems to have an unnatural "bloom" when you hold down the sustain pedal too long. I was able to tame this with a few adjustments. I did not notice this "bloom" on any of the acoustic grands I tried, but then I really don't know if I was making an accurate comparison. Some of the other patches did not seem to exhibit this, at least to the same extent.

Tony

It begins ...

Yes, I can definitely see that. I will try to keep it to a "dull roar".

Another aspect of this that I really want to keep under control is getting wrapped up in theory and exercises and neglecting to play...MUSIC. I have done that all too often on the guitar. It is all too easy to forget to play music and then somebody sees this cool piano and asks me to play something and ... nothing. "Here is an arpeggio" is NOT an appropriate response, nor is "I can't find my music".

I just finished clearing the area of my living room where the V-Grand will go. According to my tape measure, it should fit...

Tony

One thing worth mentioning is that the patches I made were for the V-Piano slab, heard through my headphones. (The slab has no speakers). Which means that all the resonances, sustain etc has to be generated by the V's computer, with no help from any wooden material that may vibrate in sympathy.

But your V is housed in a cabinet, which provides a lot of the resonances, as the speakers are strategically placed within it to simulate the location of where the sound would emanate from struck strings on an acoustic grand. So, you'll probably need to lower my suggested settings for the 'soundboard', 'string', and 'cross' resonances, as well as the 'decay time' and 'damping time', otherwise the excessive resonances may sound unnatural.

Thanks bennevis. It does seem there are some differences between the original V-Piano and the V-Grand beyond the cabinetry. I read something about the firmware upgrade to the V-Piano called "Evolution" that added two (?) more models, but no such upgrade for the V-Grand. I also read that the firmware upgrades are NOT compatible between the V-Grand and the V-Piano. This tells me that the sound engines are probably not quite the same even if they are based on the same technology.

Tony

You are quite right Tony. The V-Grand is not just a V-Piano in a pseudo-grand cabinet with onboard sound system. There are two new 'models' on the V-Grand. They are a very significant improvement on the original (and Evolution) V-Piano sounds.

Enjoy your V-Grand!

Thanks EssBrace! I have read a lot of your posts and appreciate your input.

Tony

I was thinking about your circumstances Tony. Given that an acoustic is out of the question and given that it seems that the dynamic connection with the instrument was your top priority and assuming you like the sound of the V-Grand and can afford it I do think it is a very good choice for you.

If you've read some of my posts you might be quite surprised to read that I'm quite envious! I was sceptical about the V-Grand at first but one of the new models goes a very long way towards addressing my dislike of the V-Piano sound. In your shoes I would quite likely have made the same choice.

I wish you well with it for many years to come.

Steve