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Roland FP

6owners with an opinion
80%of verdicts positive
1/1positive/negative since 2024
0happy after 3+ years

Praised for sound and performance; criticized for build quality and repairability.

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Doesn’t like it
I converted almost all of my music collection from paper to digital. At the very least, the pages lie flat for a change (on the iPad) and don't need an intrusive light. A neighbor's daughter is a music major and took the lot (minus the ones I found later) to her college music teacher. Oh, and a flute along with them. Off topic, but I did the same for many books on landscaping, woodworking, and cooking but have yet to find help. They are really heavy. The idea of a sharing society is one we totally forgot. Heck, it's even in the New Testament. Back to music ... I have mixed feelings about the old Roland FP-1 keyboard. The levers that do the work were poorly designed, with a weak spot at the maximum stress point. I have gotten pretty good at replacing them as they break (epoxy resin) but I don't think that an average keyboard player is up to it. The 14 or 32 (so it seems) holding the cover on have been reduced to 4 as a help to me during repairs, and they would need some thread booster. At rest, they aren't even needed, IIRC I finally found a source/sources for parts. I think. I bought a used Clavinova vastly newer, so it's waiting for a musica/mechanical home. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwezvnqV6Z0 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXb7KCsOG8c [2] https://www.synth-parts.com/en/search?search=roland%20fp-1&t...
Likes it
Just did research into this question...I'm someone that played piano as a child and wanted to get back into it. I wanted to get something that would integrate with apps, good action and sound without making a massive investment in case I don't stick with it. I also wanted something that was small and easy to move. My digital piano just arrived a few hours ago. I decided on the Roland FP-30X after trying several models in store. Pro-tip: many of the big name digital pianos are half the price in the mainland China market than in the rest of the world. Often for an upgraded model as well. FP-30X was 3850 CNY (~US$550) including the Roland KPD-70 three pedal unit and KSC-70 stand. Delivery (to Hong Kong) was ~400 CNY. Another good option is the FP-18 which is a mainland market-only China model that's an upgrade overthe FP-10 in that it has more sounds and also supports three pedals. It's about ~1200 CNY cheaper than the FP-30X. Downside is slightly inferior sound and speakers compared to FP-30x I also tried out the Yamaha portables...P-525 was excellent but about 3x the cost of the FP-30x. I didn't really like feel of the action of the cheaper Yamaha (P-225?). So far FP-30X has been great...the bluetooth MIDI interface and bluetooth interfaces work seamlessly with my iPad. I haven't tried out Hanon Pro yet but it's been really thrilling to try out the various piano learning apps. If I had these back in the 90s, I'd probably be a much better piano player now! Better late than neve…
Neutral
Piano, I brought a second hand numeric piano Roland FP-30, and I use an old iPad with the app Piano Marvel connected in bluetooth to get the midi output into the app so it can grade me (if I play the correct note at the correct time), I also use a simple audio mixer to get the sound generated by the piano and the app into a single headphone. I tested pretty all piano app and even if it is not the slickest or most efficient, it has the most progressive learning plan of all.
Likes it
Really??? Uh, it's probably my fault but as a hobbyist composer (day job software engineer) I can personally say that tools I use absolutely and utterly suck. They're immensely buggy. My workflow includes: - LilyPond for writing the final notation - MuseScore 4 for playing around, MuseScore 3 for playing MIDI - REAPER as DAW, SFZ plugin for midi soundfonts - Audacity for processing WAV files - music21 python lib if I need to programmatically process MIDI (which I commonly do). My scripts using this lib. - Kdenlive for video processing - Most importantly: my piano Roland FP-30X Now among these the only one I don't hate is FP-30X. That piano is fucking amazing, it sounds and feels great. Kdenlive is also not terrible but I don't do a lot of video processing. Just basic notation videos for YouTube. Everything else is incredibly, incredibly buggy. MuseScore 4 is thrash, almost every interaction I have with it exposes some bug. REAPER is usually fine but there are pretty annoying bugs when it comes to MIDI import/export that involves time signature change. My workflow is so dogshit that last month I decided either I'll write my minimalist tiny notation/DAW tool or reconsider this hobby. So far haven't been able to do anything major but I'm confident I'll invest some time into developing my own tools in late 2023 or early 2024. I'm glad people like their workflow. Unfortunately my own experience with Linux audio processing has been nothing other than encountering one bug after the…
Likes it
I just did the same. I wanted to get something cheap-ish, but still feeling like a piano. Roland seems to the default choice, maybe with Yamaha being a close second. I wound up buying a Roland FP-30X, but I think the FP-10 feels basically the same. When we visit friends who went for cheaper options, their keyboards feel like toys.
Recommends itDoesn’t say they own it
A tenth of that gets you a basic but solid 88-key Roland FP-10; that's something they will sell a shit ton of and which shares components with several other pianos. It's also worth noting that a piano or piano-like keyboard will be taking _much_ greater impacts than any typist inflicts on a computer keyboard; a music keyboard needs a mechanical action that can properly and rapidly reset the keys, withstanding many rapidly repeated simultaneous heavy strikes.