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On one Fatar action, somebody adjusted the height of the sensor PCB to adjust the sensor activation points.

Hm wonder if it is hard to do?

Also emailed Studio logic and got a lovely reply from Gianni Gludici. He was aware of it, but if I understood correctly it might have something to do with contact positions. At least it wasn't very easy to solve via firmware.

This time I'm going to keep it though, still very nice to play on for its size.

With virtual instruments like Pianoteq increasing the sample buffer (64->128->256) delays the audio signal ("latency"). Maybe useful here?

But in the first step I would analyse the actual trigger points of your TP/400Wood. All you need is a ruler and a midi event monitor (e.g. that of Pianoteq Trial). Slowly press down a key and watch at which depth in mm the note-on and note-off events really appear. By the way that would prove if this action is really using triple-sensors (and not double sensors). And that it sends variable note-off velocity (1-127).

Is midi event monitor different from just listening when the sound is triggered?

The actually depth in mm might not actually matter as mush as the relation to the escapement, but of course they are related. I would assume the white keys trigger higher than the black as it is now.

If anyone actually opened up a studiologi keyboard it would be interesting to hear.

There is a detailed video, somewhere here on PW.

As for triple sensors (three "bumps" seen on the rubber contacts) and the escapement simulation (hidden inside the key where it meets the hammer?) there are a couple of short peeks at the action:

Hi there,

Gianni from Studiologic seems to me a very responsive and kind guy, he has confirmed all Numa X pianos have tripple sensor and "a very special way to calculate the Velocities also during the key travel", no details on that though..

In case this is useful, I've also enquired about the pivot length and according to him the white keys were 21.7cm whereas the PHA50 is 22cm if I'm correct, so no such big difference after all (3mm), the black keys are 16.5cm

The reason why I wanted this all to be confirmed is because I've just pulled the trigger on an XGT some days ago, it shoul arrive in the couple next days and I wanna test drive it thoroughly and see by myself how it stacks up against the GF2 that I currently have and also the PHA50 that I after a lot of trying I pretty much liked.

I also bought a couple of MTM as external monitors to get them along with the Numa, I want this as a MIDI controller mainly, but i'll not harm to have some nice onboard sounds if any, will see.

My 2cts

Ah, thank you, that's what I searched! They are using the classic two pins but trigger a triple contact:




That long pivot is good news too, thank you. A hot candidate for my next keyboard controller too! Would be good to hear from you if the TP/400Wood is a quiet action (clack, thump) once it arrived. And if it outputs a fullrange, linear velocity response for usage with other virtual pianos.

... nor really, should work too. Eventually note-off is better to detect in a monitor.


... seeing is better than believing. It could be surprising, how small those distances are in reality.

What strikes me when I see the video, where you can see the weight/"hammer" going up under the key, is why it wouldn't be possible to make an action with a proper, folded escapement mechanism, which actually releases the weight, but where the weight is still folded in under the key. That would be perfect...

(Fatar TP/100LR - SL88 Studio)

I just ordered a Numa X Piano GT myself. Canceled my Nord Piano 5. My NXPGT arrives Thursday. Excited to play this thing. How does the action compare to your GFII on the CA97? What are your thoughts on the onboard samples?

It's been a week playing on the XGT and here are some impressions in case they help other users:

I'm a non professional trained pianist looking for the "perfect" controller, tried almost every action in the market and wanted to try the TP400W which has been raved quite much about.

The action falls on the heavy side, I like it and to me it somewhat ressembles the PHA4, the TP400W felt very close although more accurate and agile than the PHA4 but still sluggish and I'll explain why.

The travel when you press the key down is excellent, very realistic IMO and consistent across the whole keyboard, the return on the other hand is the big "issue" for me, nothing wrong if playing some "ABBA" or "Fly me to the moon" but when it comes to classical music, you cannot perform quick trills the way you'd do on an accoustic, freely and expressively, because if you're quicker than what the keys allow, you'll clearly feel the hammer underneath your fingers returning to its initial position and you've hit it already again before that happening and the result here is missing notes.

In other words, you need to lift your fingers all the way up before hitting the key again (repetitions), otherwise your fingers are quicker than the action since there's no real "let-off" like in the accoustics and you'll get no sound unless you change your technique as I did, hitting the keys stronger while returning so I could effectively activate the sensors and produce sound, it worked out well after a lot of trying but the trills became lifeless and uncontrolable, just a forced ornament that sounds mostly loud because of what I explained before.

Controlling trills or any type of ornaments in that context becomes a tricky matter, you can get some better results after adjusting a lot to that action but still not satisfying enough so you can say this is the ultimate action, unfortunately.

Fast passages weren't a problem, although they'll take a bit more of effort because of the heavy action if you're used to some lighter/agile ones, still some keys might not be as responsive as you'd expect because you haven't used enough force down, meaning you need to ensure that the key has traveled down enough so that you've triggered the sensor, soft staccatos in that sense are impossible.

Another thing that bugs me a bit is that the black keys felt slightly heavier than the whites to me, that can be improved with an internal setting that allows you to adjust the balance between whites and blacks, that very cool IMO and helps a bit to get the same feel between them, other people may not feel any difference though.

Last thing I'd like to mention regarding action is the pivot length which is 21.7cm (white keys) according to SL, in my case, I can say I do notice an important difference in the touch of the key back to front, meaning that the keys (especially the blacks) become quite uncontrollable in their second half towards the fallboard, not that they're completely unplayable but it takes bigger effort to control them, that's more evident when playing arpeggios that require pressing some blacks quite back, you need to press stronger on them which is again somewhat tricky and undesirable for me.

Some folks will say, any key behaves like that because of the momentum and inertia etc. While it's true that less effort is generally required when playing towards the key tip (basic physics), the difference between that and the second half of the key shouldn't be that noticeable if the key stick (pivot length) is long enough. An example of that is the GF2 (24cm) I still play, I've compared the actions side by side and those "issues" weren't present in the GF2, I could play the key at any point without really changing the force I used for that. Not sure it's all just about the pivot length or perhaps the design of the key has something to do too.

This all becomes yet worse if using internal sounds (very few layers IMO), forgot to mention that I'm using it as a controller mostly with Pianoteq and Noir. I must say it really makes a nice MIDI controller, you get full dynamic range (0-127) and no velocity adjustments needed in my case.

Back to the sounds, I've updated the system and added all available new piano sounds, I found them generally intimate, nice with headphones, less so with external monitors, they lack longer decays and more layers IMO, also I was missing some more ompf depending on the piece/mood, some more bite if you want. The "american" and the "japanese" are my favourites, the "german" is too mild but I like it too, the "italian" is a complete disappointment, I was really expecting nice samples but it wasn't the case, similarly although in a less degree the "viennese", this all is very subjective of course and it's just my taste.

When switching between onboard pianos and the VST it's like day and night, not that I didn't like the internal sounds but I think SL still can do a better job, especially by adding more parameters so you can a closer sound to your liking, they're now 4 parameters per sound (one of them is the volume of the pedal sound..) but they're planning to expand them in the future according to a quick feedback from SL on youtube, I guess that will increase the size of the downloaded pianos which will result in some capacity limitation of the internal memory which is 50% by now after downloading all available packs (including non-pianos), not sure how much is that in GB.

On a positive note, the programed patches that come by default are very fun to play, you can spend hours trying this and that. I like a lot the user interface, very intuitive and accessible, most parameters are editable by a single click. There's also a MIDI button that's heaven for VST users since it turns the whole slab into a MIDI controller purely.

Also, the EQ which is accesible with a dedicated button is very useful and it comes handy when playing VST through the internal USB interface since it also affects the sound of the played VST, you can very quicky change the value of the MID frequency as well as the level of all 3 frequencies, you cannot select the values of the low and high frequencies though.

There are 3 velocities and there's a useful parameter that allows to change the sensibility up/down to 25%, not sure what that exactly is but seemed to me some sort of fine tuning the velocity, like giving it some light curve.

The build quality is good, feels solid and sturdy, the wood pannels on the sides are very cool and the buttons/knobs behave properly.

The thing is heavy but one average person can manage to place it on a stand at home/stage.

Sound interface is usable, not the greatest ever but enough to run some Pianoteq without significant latency, also been able to run ableton on it for backing tracks.

The pedal unit feels quite cheap in comparison with pedals on my CA97 and even compared to the damper pedal from Roland (cannot recall its name), my pedal unit was faulty since the damper wasn't working at all, a minot issue though.

Last and not least, not sure it's something inherent to my XGT only but it started to develop some click noise on some keys, it wasn't there at the beginning and I'm surprised how quickly some keys started to get like that, I've played classical music mostly these last days, so not sure this action can really live up to some heavy duty usage.

Good news is that I still can return it so I'll do and I'll get an FP90X instead, I was wishing for better contenders but there's nothing appealling rather than the "outdated" VPC1/MP11SE and the FP90X, well the P515 may be an option too, but that's another story.

Hope it helps future users who are blindly buying the XGT as I did, good luck in any case and happy playing!

Regards,
David

Thank you for the detailed review.

"I could play the key at any point without really changing the force I used for that." [Grand Feel II]

This aspect is also very important to me, since I have a lot of repertoire where I have to play deep into the keys. It will be interesting to read your impressions of the PHA‑50 in the FP‑90X.

Thank you for the very detailed review.

I personally like a lighter action, so the heavy action is a no go area for me and also the quick trills which do not seem to be possible.
Since my use would be as a MIDI controller with lots of VST's, the internal sounds would be a bonus.
I had my eyes on the XGT, but on second thought may keep my Kawai MP11 SE.

A pitty Kawai does not offer any update for the MP11SE.
Same with the VPC1 which pedals are outdated and could easily be replaced by the newer ones used in the MP11 SE.
The longer pivot of the Kawai MP11 SE may proof it's advantage, certainly when playing deeper into the keys.

Interesting observations on the action. I've watched all the videos I can find, and read as many reviews as I could find, and not one mentioned the action on the heavy side. In fact, many of the reviews have mentioned the action is much closer to a grand action in being light but also somewhat weighty and extremely responsive, whereas many DPs over compensate to make an action heavy. Mine arrives tomorrow, so happy to report after spending some time on it. I've spent the last 5 years on my MP7SE.

Have spent several hours with the Numa X Piano GT now. This has one of the very best actions I’ve ever played, maybe the very best in a slab style DP. It is NOT heavy. It’s got meat to it but is very responsive. I don’t love most of the sounds so far, but the B211 (Steinway B) patch is quite lovely, especially with some tweaking of the parameters. The sound-action connection is second to none. Truly a spectacular playing instrument. Will keep this either for years or possibly trade it and my MP7SE for the MP11SE replacement, whenever that comes along.

For anyone on the fence, the action of the NXPGT is simply spectacular. The sounds are very subjective, but a few can be made to be very good, and importantly, the connection between the sound and the action is the best I’ve ever played, including my AvantGrand N1s I’ve had. A very good instrument. The other component to the sound is the details in a piano sound like resonance, duplex, key on/off, pedal sounds, dampers, etc are extremely well done.

Don't say this, I'm going to have to find a shop with one now and actually try it... Geez, you're so inconsiderate!

I'm enjoying my Studiologic Numa X GT a lot. I agree with Zac's comments pretty much.

The action is outstanding but as he says, it's the sense of feeling connected to it that is the thing that makes it special. It's dynamic and responsive but not spiky or overdone.

I also happen to like the onboard sounds, although there's a slightly odd, occasionally 'plasticky' tonality with some of them, in a few notes in the mid/upper mid range. I think this is the result of the amount of modelling that is going on in these sounds. As we all know modelling equals good behaviours but bad sounds! The pianos are fundamentally sample based but with modelled 'stuff' happening. For instance I can't detect any velocity layer switching at all - it's just a linear and pleasing response throughout all playing strengths.

For anyone remotely interested in trying one, or buying one, I would strongly encourage an extended try-out. It takes time with this piano to really know if you're going to love it. On day one I was plotting some kind of return on it because I was certainly underwhelmed but within another day or two I just kept going back to it, unable to leave it alone.

Interesting contrary opinions, thank you!
Would be helpful to know, how Fatar solved the triple-contact situation in the new iteration called TP/400Wood. When the honey moon is over and someone is having some spare time, could you please control the contact points of that new action?

Just for example in an old Kawai action with double-contacts they were found at keydepth 5 mm (note-off) and 9 mm (note-on):



Waiting for the day a TP/400Wood or a Grand Feel Compact both with 73 keys appear. This will probably happen within the next 5 years and then I'd like to be prepared with a few facts