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Hey everybody! Happy Thursday.
Anybody using the Roland RD-700SX? What is everyone doing to get the most out of it. I'm thinking of selling mine. I don't like it's sound anymore and it's not working in the musical settings I've been working in.
What's everybody doing to tweakkk it?? What is everyone's response to the instrument?

Much love and music,

genemusic111

I was playing mine every day for all the time I could get. Now it's bagged up as I'm moving. I may move back home and have looked into a] selling or b] taking with me.

I'm afraid I don't know what kind of tweak is best. Have you thought of asking some Youtube guys who play the RD700? Some of their instument settings sound really good.

I like the grand samples and simply add in reverb and midtone. I have no set-ups saved at present. All I want is an authentic and warm piano. I think the depth will come from whatever amp or speaker system is used with it. I'd like to try some sound cards too.

Thanks for your feedback! I dunno, Arabesque, I'm hearing a hissing sound through headphones on some patches like the Superior Piano patch and it's REALLY annoying. Similar experience?

What kind of amp/speaker set up do have connected? Have you checked the polarity of cables? Try disconnecting everything and listen through headphones only. Also return the sounds to factory settings and listen again. Turn the mixing knobs down to 0 on any speaker amps or mixers so they don't feedback.

Oh, excuse me, I just noticed you already find this hissing through headphones. Well, are you using high-grade headphones recommended by the store? Because some headphones do not have sufficient range they distort the sound. I hardly use headphones anyway because if I am practicing late at night I simply adjust the volume. But it may jsu be your headphones or headphone jack that is the source.

If there is such a subject, maybe you'll write a few words about 700sx, after using it so long time? I mean, is it worth buying new/used right now? The prices are significantly lower than two years ago, and now everybody focus on 700gx. If I want to buy an fp-7, I pay 1400$, and for 700sx it would be 1600$. Difference in instruments is huge, and in the price - not very much.

Recently I tested 300sx and I find it very dissapointing; simply lack of good sounds that can be used onstage... and the keyboard isn't very good. So what about 700sx, huh? And if you'll replace it, who is the winner?

Arabesque, you're the man. By adding in midtone what do you mean? Playing with the EQ?

Several months ago someone published a thread with EQ ("piano Designer" settings that seem to work well for the Roland RD700SX. I use these on my HP-207, and they make an enormous improvement. Do a search and you should find it.

Mine is cased for removal at present but if memory serves me right, you should be able to achieve your optimum settings by a careful use of the Piano Edit button. Press F1 in One Touch [Piano] screen and Superior Piano will come up. I like a bright setting with a good warm midrange. Raise the piano lid where you want for your environment. Then turn on the Midrange Equaliser, knock it up in stages and at the same time adjust the EQ Gain and try different EQ Q settings. By working through the paramaters incrementally you should arrive close to a range you like. Then you need to do a bit of microtuning there and perhaps add in a little reverb. You can then save your setup or also try editing the sound so that if you want more clarity set a lower release value for depressed keys. You'll need really good ears to detect much but it is something which could help reduce any distracting after tones.

I just picked up one of the 700SX beasts on close-out. Fiddling trying to get right sound out of the sampled pianos.
since it was a store demo, had real squirrly sounds. Found I could initialize (reset to factory default) my piano sounds and things got a little better, still tweaking.

Question: Bass and ride, etc. I tend to use splits often, would like to chase down various bass types. Know Roland has the SRX card series for these pianos....any ideas on sources for additiona/various bass/ride combinations ??

I have used my SX for a few years and enjoy the sound of the piano with the lid up, and depending on the room, brightening up the high end. I don't do much else, some Hall reverb. When recording I use the reverb plug-ins in Digital Performer. I've just bought a GX and am looking forward to experimenting with the wider range of piano tweaks. I have two SRX expander cards and use them a lot for recording and live performance. People said nice things about the medieval sounds I got for the silent film ROBIN HOOD that I accompanied in Sonoma last week. Drums, recorders, medieval brass and reeds, trumpets, some strings. Used piano exclusively for a Chinese film that afternoon, and found that my ears were getting tired of the sound after an hour or so, so I changed the EQ a bit to make it brighter. Hope that helps.

Hey guys and girls,

I'm not sure if the vanilla model RD-700 is such a totally different beast than the SX or GX models, but this is what I currently play. It is outfitted with the expensive SRX Piano expansion card. I graduated to this from an old ep-9 which I think is similar to the FP-11. My overall assessment is that the RD-700 is quite crappy for many reasons: 1. It's super heavy and not at all a gigging piano unless you have your own roadies. 2. The changes between patches and ability to control effects parameters are buried in menus, so there is little organic on-the-fly switching to be done. This means... 3. Everything has to be saved as a setup. Cool, fine. I can put my whole set there and toggle between setups with the plus and minus buttons, only... 4. The change in patches is TOO SLOW, so if you are playing while changing there will be a gaping hole. 5. In spite of the Piano expansion board being marketed as the next best thing to a Steinway, it is actually worse than the built in piano sounds in many respects. It relies on velocity switching between 4 samples: light, medium, heavy and extra heavy playing. These samples should be cross faded into each other so that the switching is imperceptible. They aren't and it sounds and feels awful for this reason. Also the velocity points should be editable, so you could potentially do away with the switching all together if you like, or move the switches to points, and edit the touch to where it feels comfortable. No control over that.
One good thing I could say about this synth is that it has a pretty decent set of effects parameters because it inherited these effects, and some great string samples including a Solina type from the JP series. That being said, you can only control one effect at a time with the control source knob which is way lame, and again.. BURIED IN MENUS!

No doubt some of my complaints have been adressed with the newer models with Zones instead of Upper 1/Upper 2, and maybe an extra knob, but all in all I feel it is a horrible keyboard for its price.


How to make the best out of a bad situation:
So the rapid decaying piano tones that mimic a piano on a planet like Jupiter with a lot of gravity... how to deal with this? Well... it's difficult given that there isn't a true ADSR envelope generator but only Attack Release Cutoff and Resonance. I've tried EQing the treble and bass up a bit, I've tried adjusting the touch to Super Light or to super heavy to avoid the velocity switching nastiness, I've tried applying one of the two compression effects a bit to flatten out the tone so that the decay is slower, I've tried layering two piano sounds: One a brighter piano sound on top of a darker sound, then to eliminate some of the chorusing effect, I've modified the attack transient on the darker sound to just ooze in under the impression that I could have the attack of one piano sound, but extend the decay a bit with the other one... and, I really don't know what to say. It doesn't cut through the mix at all, as a solo intrument it sounds thin and anemic. It's like the sound relies too heavily on stereo separation which you don't get through a mono amp or the frequencies just aren't there. Any help getting a decent sound with this setup would be much appreciated.

I have had mine for about a year and six months I got it to play at our church but when I hook it up to the PA system it sounds aweful.It sounds alright through headphones but not through the PA. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Are you hooking up to the PA in stereo or in mono? If you are hooking up only one channel, say the LEFT channel, then yes, it will sound horrible!

Lawrence

Well I have tried it both ways I have hooked both and I have also hooked up one and I can't really tell a difference both sound horrible.

Ron

I really could use some help. I am running my rd700sx through the PA at our church and it sounds awful . I am using two channels and our PA system is a 16 channel Peavey and we are running 12 inch speakers with horns and two peavey monitors also 12 inch speakers with horns. The system is pretty old. Probably 15+ years old. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know. The piano sounds great through head phones but it doesn't sound like the same piano when running it live.

Than you
Ron

Double check that the output (both from the Roland, and from the PA) is stereo. If the signal is being summed to mono, the tone will sound compressed and poor.

James
x

Ok I will look into that.

Thanks James

Ron

So you need to debug the stuff between your ears, and the DP's "Line Out" jack(s).

Two suggestions, FWIW:

1. Get hold of a powered stage monitor (or two)(rent one if necessary), point it at yourself, and play through it. If the piano sounds OK, you'll know the problem lies elsewhere.

2. Move the piano out into the pews, and play it from there. You'll have to adjust to the time delay, but you'll get some idea of how it sounds to the congregation. If it's good, your problem is resolved.

Horn-loaded tweeters on 15-year-old speakers should still be good. But they're putting all their energy _forward_, toward the congregation. From stage (altar?), you might be hearing mostly low frequencies, and all the highs will be subdued.

If you play from the pews, and you don't like the sound, talk to the guy who runs the mixer about adjusting your EQ. A few dB of "presence boost" (an octave or so, around 2.5 kHz) might help, depending on what's wrong with the sound.

. Charles