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Hi everybody.

You may recall me from about 13 years ago. How has everybody been?

TL:DR would you buy a new Roland FP30 (USD$430) or a new old stock FP7F ($300)

I think the last post I made was about buying a real piano a Danemann 996 school piano I found during a school demolition. I grew enormously in those 10 years I had that piano.

That was 10 years ago. I emigrated and had to leave my piano behind and didn't play for a 6 months. I managed to buy a Korg SP250 (for beer money) but the difference between my Danemann and the Korg was night and day it actually demotivated me so much the difference I've played the Korg less than 10 times and it's gathering dust. The one patch per key almost zero sustain I don't like at all. Touch is ok but the sound uh...


A real piano is out of the question as I live in a small apartment as is Pianoteq.

I did however get to play a Yamaha P125 and found that DP's have improved massively since my casio CDP days and thought about buying one

P125 is US$620 (new)

While Roland a Fp10 is US$430.

A third wild card is the Roland FP7F which first came out in 2012 which apparently was one of Roland's higher models.


So the question is would a FP7F be as good or better than an FP10/30? As the 10/30 are entry level machines and the FP7F was a high(er) end machine.

Thanks for your time

$300 for an FP-7F? As long as you don't have to move it around (it's 53 lbs), I'd jump on it. Feel is subjective, but I thought it was a great feeling DP, certainly better than the FP30, and more fully featured in general. If you want better sound... why is something like pianoteq out of the question? Anyway, at that price, I doubt you'd take a loss if you wanted to change to something else in the future.

Hi thanks for the response.

Pianoteq is out of the question because I don't have any PCs or laptops. The ones at work well are at work and I find using my phone enough for home browsing these days.

If your phone is an iPhone, you might still have some alternate pianos worth trying.

I would take an FP-30 over the FP-10 because of:
1) Pedalling (depending on how you use the sustain pedal)
2) Polyphony (related to 1 in some ways, as well as layering two sounds)
3) Better speakers

So that bumps up the price for starters (assuming you’d get an FP-30 over the FP-10 for the above reasons).

Big shame there is no line-out on either of those models (you do get a headphone output though). If you intend to use external speakers, it may steer you in a different direction (ie wild card, or P125). Also, headphone volume can be a hit & miss depending on their impedance.


Haven’t a clue RE the action on the FP-7F (whether the ‘PHA III Ivory Feel S’ is better, worse or similar to the PHA IV action). Neither do I know anything about the headphone volume.

FP-7F touch sensitivity is more customisable (100 different levels as opposed to only 5), as well as the piano sound (in subtle ways), and there’s an EQ as well. No Bluetooth obviously.

Apparently you get the same sound engine - however haven’t a clue how much (if any) work they do to it in-between releases.

I had FP-30, now I have FP-10 (I use it just as MIDI keyboard), but I would take FP-7F or FP-80 over them. I played on them recently. Better action, more sounds, some other nice features.

FP7-F has a better action than what Roland now calls PHA-4 (as fitted to FP10/30/60 etc). I think they are using deliberately confusing action model names to disguise the fact that what they now call PHA-4 is actually the updated/improved version of their somewhat sluggish old lower level action (the last iteration being called 'Ivory-Feel G' if I remember correctly).

The FP7-F has PHA-IIIS action. The S means standard but that just means it's not made with different coloured plastic to create the illusion of the keys being wood. The action is mechanically the same as the original PHA-III, as fitted to the V-Piano and many others. It's not a very quiet action but it is lightning quick, very controllable and not too heavy. Good for expressive playing.

The original PHA-IV action was an updated (quietened) version of PHA-III and was also very good. PHA-4 nowadays means low end but I think Roland likes the fact that some people will think it is the old PHA-IV.

The sound engines are the same. The original Supernatural sampled/modelled combination. Ultra metallic and twangy in the mid range (some people like that - I don't).

Always assuming a new-old-stock FP7-F has been well stored then it is a far better thing than the FP10/30/60 siblings.