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…
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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…
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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.