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I love how there's crazy sh*t like laser guns, explosions, cars speeding by, rain falling, wind, crystal glasses... as well as more realistic, yet still unusual stuff like pan flute, English horn and accordion. I wonder who actually ever used those things. I admit I like to fiddle around sometimes, crystal-glass Einaudi actually doesn't sound too bad XD

Don't worry, when we get there, it will be "hey google, turn on the piano with concert grand layered with strings"

Wow, that's really weird. Maybe you just connect the app, select a voice, and it sends midi data to the keyboard to change the voice. If it did it note by note that would be kind of crazy. Maybe they did it that way to avoid complains over tedious scrolling as was suggested above.

Still, surprised it is not advertised for the fp-30x. Did fp-30 also have "styles" (accompaniment)?

The FP-30 has drum patterns. Not really full-on accompaniment, unless I've forgotten.

Sorry, this is a bit off topic, but I'm actually new to digital pianos (digital music, VSTs, etc) and from our conversation above, I'm wondering what people really mean when they say the FP-30 has the GM2 on board. From what I have read, GM2 is a specification about how instruments should be coded in midi so you always can trigger a specific voice with the same midi code.

I'm wondering, when someone says that a keyboard has the GM2 library, are the GM2 voices from the same source samples for every keyboard? For instance, are GM2 voices the same samples for Roland, Yamaha, Casio, etc.

TIA!

Really, don't worry. Once we're all connected up to the Internet through our brains with AI you won't even need a piano. You'll just be waving your fingers around in the air and hearing the sounds in your head. You won't have to slave over scales or Hanon, work your way up through the grades or learn pieces bar by bar, you'll just be able to say "OK CyBorg, play Rachmaninov No 2, Artur Rubinstein style" and away you go.

Sorry, for cynicism. Just longing for my German acoustic to be delivered. This other stuff has gone way too far and for what? It isn't real and it is way over my head. I don't like the way the world is going.

hmmmmm....he said the app is "bug free"

Nice review, though it left several questions unanswered.

As much as I love my Kawai ES920, I have to hand it to Roland for the features they're able to include for a $1099 price. Of course price wise the real comparison is with the es520.

Apparently this model has
- a built in audio interface, like most Yamahas do these days (this needs to become a standard feature!),
- a mic input with a top panel volume control- love it!
- 360? sounds, though the highlighted main sounds appear to be 79, which is still twice what the es920 offers. This review doesn't mention if the remaining 279 tones are GM sounds: 16 piano tones, 18 electric piano tones, 18 organ tones, 27 string tones, 279 other tones-

Cons:
- weighs 42.6 pounds, 5 pounds more than even the es920, which is already past my personal limit
- an action that is not on a par with the es520/es920 (based on reviews I've read). This alone is a disqualifier.

Like the 30x, this'd go to the top of the list if the action was on a par with Kawai.

I just got my FP-30X, and it exceeds my expectations as an intermediate player. Here are some technical details and my setup which some people might find useful:

I can confirm that the FP-30X has a two-way USB audio interface. Windows detects it as a 16-bit 44100 Hz output (for playing computer audio) and a 16-bit 44100 Hz input (for recording piano audio). These bit depths and sample rates do not appear to be configurable, but they should be fine for most purposes.

This piano supports variable pedaling with the 1/4" TRS jack, which I use with the DP-10 without issue. It will produce sounds of partially damped strings as well as sympathetic resonances. (The piano came with a DP-2 footswitch, but I do not use it.)

I have been using this piano with Pianoteq, and this opens up a lot of possibilities. Using the USB audio, I configure Pianoteq to use the piano speakers (in exclusive mode for low latency), then I press Function-F#1 to disable the Roland piano sound. Once I do this, it's like having a completely different piano.

I can send notes with the entire velocity range of 1-127, though 127 is very hard for me to reach. I can get pretty fast repeated notes, as it appears that a key can be retriggered without resetting to its rest position first.

The FP-30X also supports note-off velocity, which I've never had before in a digital piano. Pianoteq can use this parameter to control how quickly the virtual damper deadens the string, and it's pretty neat, though I'm not sure exactly what range I'd like for this (note-off velocities close to 1 cause the string to ring for quite a while; setting the minimum to 10 is what I have now).

While it's not as fancy as the FP-60X or FP-90X, I'm very pleased with my purchase. It ticks all of my boxes, it was a very reasonable price, and I'm having a lot of fun with it!

Thanks for posting. Enjoy your new piano.

Roland could do a better job of highlighting the usb audio capability.

How do you like VST sound through Roland speakers? Is it acceptable? Regarding reaching vel 127 , you can try setting Light touch in FP30X and adjust PTQ curve to be 'harder'. I do this with FP10.

And yet another ("sales") video, this time from Tony from Bonners Music:

The instruments have the same MIDI codes -- that's what the GM2 standard specifies.

But the _samples_ -- the precise sound of "Reed Organ" or "Helicopter" -- are specific to the manufacturer. And there's no guarantee that they're the same across different models from the same maker.

Congrats!

Question on the action. What DPs are you familiar with, and how does this one feel to you? Specs wise, as I outlined in a post above this one, I'm MUCH rather have the features of the 30x or 60x (compared to comparably priced ES110 or ES520), but from what i've heard the action on these boards are relatively harder/stiffer to play. Some people don't care, but as someone who loves the super light action of the es110, this is a deciding factor for someone like me, so I'm curious how you like it and what you're used to.

Yes, having a built-in interface is flat out great! Enjoy!!!

I have the piano on a QuikLok WS-550, so the downward-facing speakers are not obstructed. There is a setting that will adjust the output of the speakers if they were, such as if the piano were on a desk; this affects USB audio as well.

The speakers are alright. Personally, I think Pianoteq actually sounds better than the built-in piano sound through its speakers. That said, I usually use headphones, and if I had better external speakers, I would probably use those instead.

I'm sticking close to the defaults in Pianoteq for now, but I have changed the velocity curves and other settings to my taste. I don't think I'll adjust the key touch on the piano except if I were playing offline: I can make equivalent adjustments with the curve, and reaching maximum velocity is still possible, but not something I'd want to do often.


In the past, I had a Casio CDP-220R, whose action felt kind of heavy to me. The previous keyboard I used was an Akai MPK-88, and its action was also kind of heavy. It had aftertouch, as well as a bunch of features that were useful for working in a DAW, but I wanted something more piano-like, which led me to this. I think this piano is lighter than the other keyboards I've owned.

I tried this piano and a bunch of others in the store before buying it. It wasn't the lightest action among those I tested out (the Casio PX-S1000 I think was lighter), but it definitely had the most satisfying action for its price. They had a cross-section demonstration of the keys so you can see and feel how the escapement works. Unfortunately, it seems there are no Kawai pianos for sale in my area, so I can't compare it to those.

No, GM and GM2 only gives you a list of instruments (clarinet, violin...) associated to numbers. Then a GM2 MIDI file will be correctly played on any GM instruments in the sense that what should be played by the clarinet is really played you clarinet samples.

However, it is up to the instrument maker to bring its own samples. A GM file played by two different instruments could render differently.

I have made a comparison of GM samples (some free, some others commercial).

http://www.sinerj.org/~loyer/GeneralMIDI

Thanks and wow, cool project!

Stu's done another comparison video: internal speakers vs. line out (this time on an FP60X).

And yet another comparison video by Stu from Merriam Music: FP-60X vs. FP-60.