REVIEW - Roland DP603 Digital Piano - Recommended

DP603 polished ebony

🎹 UPDATED REVIEW - August 23, 2019 - Roland DP603 Digital Piano - Recommended - Roland is known for producing some great musical instruments including digital pianos, synthesizers, guitar products, percussion, recording & audio equipment, and the list goes on. Many pro players as well as institutions own Roland digital pianos and Roland produces some good ones. The Roland DP603 digital piano ($2499US internet price) in satin black finish only - no bench) or the DP603 in polished ebony or white finish including matching duet bench ($3099US internet price) are competitively priced and do offer a satisfying piano playing experience for many people with Roland's new piano sound technology and responsive key action. Roland has had the compact cabinet DP line of pianos for many years and they have been very good pianos and this is no exception.  

HP603 piano traditional model

So what makes this new DP603 piano a good choice? There are many things that I can point out that should give a piano shopper good reasons to buy this piano. But before I go on further, I want to point out that Roland has had a new line of home style digital pianos out for awhile (nearly 2 years) with the exact same digital technology, functions, key action, and pedaling as is in the newer DP603. In fact the DP603 is really just a less expensive version of the Roland HP603 home cabinet digital piano which is only found in local US Roland piano dealers and not for sale on-line in the US. The HP603 sells for closer to $3000 in the Roland piano dealer stores but they come in a more traditional piano cabinet with a nice duet bench longer warranty, and the home pianos include an accessory package at no charge. Otherwise the the new DP603 is virtually the same instrument as the HP603 model, with the exception of cabinet design & structure and one added Bluetooth feature.

What is the difference between this new Roland model over the previous Roland models as well as compared to their competition from Yamaha and Kawai? To start off, for the first time Roland has created a hybrid key action unlike anything they have done before. Each key consists of a combination of wood and plastic (instead of all plastic in the previous Roland models) and Roland claims this gives the key movement more authenticity and natural weight as well as eliminates maintenance of the all-wood key actions. Roland's claim is that these new keys give the key structure more durability and more rigidity (with the addition of an inner stabilizer pin which also reduces lateral key movement) while allowing the action to feel more authentic with the wood in the keys to vibrate a bit from the sound waves when the "digital strings" are vibrating, as a key would normally do in a real acoustic piano. In other words, the key is not all plastic and not all wood as you would normally find in the other popular digital piano brands and Roland would claim this is the best way to produce a key in a digital piano. I personally don't know if it's the best way to make a key and I doubt that the small amount of wood in the key does too much other than look nice, but as long as the keys move smoothly, are balanced well, and are graded weighted in a satisfying way, then that's what I look for, and I believe this new key action called the PHA50 does all that for most people. It is an upgrade to the previous key actions called the "Premium Action" which Roland had in their previous DP90e. Although I always felt that the Premium Key Action was very good and enjoyable to play, this new PHA50 action is even more so and I did notice some upgraded advantages.

It is definitely worth mentioning that the new top-of-the-line PHA-50 key action is on most of the new Roland models for 2019 in the higher price ranges as well as these 2 models here. However, Roland does have a noticeably better "grand Keyboard" model in their top digital upright pianos, but they are definitely more money. Kawai and Yamaha digital pianos also have their best upgraded key actions for their more expensive models. Acoustic piano key actions vary from one piano to another, one brand to another, and there are differences between grand piano key actions and upright piano key actions. So when it comes to digital pianos key actions, the new PHA50 composite action (plastic + wood) in the DP603 is without question an upgrade to what was previously available in this price range before with regard to Roland digital pianos. This allows Roland to be more competitive with the other brands in this price range although the other major brands still have very good key actions. 

This newer Roland key action also has the "escapement feature" which simulates the movement of grand piano keys when you press them down slowly and easily and you feel them slightly hesitate or have a notch or bump that occurs as you press the key down. This type of feeling is a natural occurrence on a real grand piano but you cannot feel it on most upright pianos. It can help with key control when playing music legato and slowly.  Kawai also has the escapement feature which they call "let-off" and that key action is in the newer Kawai ES8 and all of their other digital pianos in this price range. Yamaha does offer the escapement key action feature but only in their full size cabinet pianos starting at around $2000US. But just because the feature (escapement/letoff) may be there doesn't mean it's working well or is necessarily authentic, because at the end of the day these things are just simulations and if you played a real grand piano that function would feel entirely different. So the bottom line is that it's nice to have it in these digital pianos but it's not absolutely necessary because it's only a simulation.

Another thing I noticed about the new Roland key action was how much more quiet it was as compared with their previous models when the keys are moving up and down. By nature, regular acoustic piano key actions do make some noise when the keys are moving, but because those pianos are always so loud and they don't have a volume control or headphone jack like digital pianos do, you cannot hear the key action noise when playing the piano. However in a digital piano, when you have the volume somewhere between low to medium level or when you are using headphones, then you can definitely hear the key action moving and noise is more of a concern. I can say for sure that the key action noise level on these new Roland pianos is the lowest that it's been on any Roland digital piano and has surpassed the previous models for an even lower key movement noise reduction level. The previous models were already pretty good and more most people were satisfied with the fairly low ambient noise level of the moving keys. But the new PHA50 key action has definitely surpassed this and has become quieter and smoother in key movement and this is something that I think many people will appreciate, especially if you play at a higher skill level or you use headphones a lot. Gone are the days on older model Roland key actions when all you could really hear were the "thump" of the keys going down. When you combine this new Roland hybrid key with the quieter, smoother graded-weight (quick response) key movement along with good key action "down weight"& "up weight" return (measured by actual weights - left pic), you really feel like you can express yourself in a more authentic musically correct way as compared with previous models, at least that's the way that I felt about it when playing this new key action. Then you add the nice escapement feature in the key action that I talked about along with Roland proprietary synthetic ivory & ebony feel keys (they do feel good), and the Roland company has really stepped up to the plate by improving upon what they already had in the previous models. This key action is not a major breakthrough in my opinion compared to previous models, but I believe that beginners through advanced players will appreciate it very much. The new PHA50 key action is available in all of the new Roland piano models rather than just in selected higher priced models such as what other brands offer.

When it comes to piano sound and getting as close to approximating or matching a real acoustic piano, there is no digital piano that can exactly reproduce a real acoustic grand piano sound regardless of what anyone else may say. It simply has never been done and no digital piano brand can rightly claim that they have done it. So the next best thing is "how close can a digital piano get to a real acoustic piano sound playing experience?" If you knew how complex a real acoustic piano sound actually is and what is actually happening in a good grand piano when it comes to the piano sound itself  (what it does and how you hear it), you would probably think it would be impossible to recreate it digitally because there are certain piano sound elements that happen in "real time" that are always changing depending on how fast or slow you play the keys, how hard or soft you hit (play) the keys, the type of wood the piano is made of, how much soundboard space you have in the real piano, the types of hammers and key felt that is part of the key action, the vibrations and overtones of the 230 strings (give or take) in a real grand piano and how they all interact with each other including the random vibrations, sympathetic noises, frequency changes, tonal dynamics, string thickness, string windings and materials, the scale design, the piano iron frame, dampers and their affect on the sound, decay and sustain time of the sustained strings, volume, duration of the tone and changes in velocity, among other things. Even the the style of music you play such as chording, voicing of chords, staccato and legato of the notes, and the interaction of the string vibrations on the body of the piano all contribute to the final outcome of the sound. Not only are the key action elements quite complex in a real acoustic piano, but in a lot of ways the piano sound is even more complex and trying to get that "perfect" reproduction which people are looking for in a digital piano is very difficult given the current technology that most digital piano companies are using.

I am a long time piano teacher and pro musician of 40 plus years having taught thousands of students as well as owning, playing on, and teaching acoustic guitar.When it comes to natural grand piano sound, to me that is what it's all about...beauty, soul, feeling, the piano sound being alive and not digital sounding, and feeling like when you play a song, you can play it may times and every time it comes out a bit differently because a real piano sound is "alive & breathing" and changes, and is not canned, digital, dead, plunky, or without taste or expression. I mention all of this so that you will better understand what I am about to share with you. Up until now, Roland, Yamaha, Kawai, and Casio, the four main digital piano companies out there, have been using "sample recording" technology to capture piano sound from a real piano and then put it into the digital micro-processor chip in the digital piano so that it comes out of the speakers and sounds as much like a real piano as possible using that sampling technology. The "samples" or recordings are of each piano note (not each string) on a particular brand and model of acoustic grand piano at different velocity levels when pressing the keys and those recordings, which are done by microphones inside and over the acoustic piano, are relatively short samples of the sound due to digital memory constraints. This is true for all major brand digital pianos. Yamaha uses Yamaha acoustic grands, Kawai uses Kawai acoustic grands, and so on. The sample is then electronically "looped" into a continuous virtual circle/loop so that it will sound like it is continuous in real time linear playback. But when you play a real piano, the piano sound starts when you first touch the key and hear the sound and then it stops when you let go of the key and pedal. That acoustic piano sound is one straight continuous ever-changing sound in real time. Sampled recording is actually taking a slice or piece of that original piano sound and then is looped in a virtual circle, as I just mentioned, so it plays over & over. Some of the better sampled digital home pianos such as the Dexibell H7 use very long samples plus physical modeling technology giving a very natural piano sound. Korg piano company also uses sampling technology and their samples are very long and well defined, especially in their newG1 Air digital home piano ($1399 internet discount price) so they do sound natural.However on other cheaper brands and models, depending on how and where the loop is electronically fastened together, you may hear a noticeable anomaly (depending on how the loop was put together) when the loop starts over. In other words, the sound will end and then quickly start over while you are holding the piano key down. It just depends on your ears and how sensitive they are to a real piano sound and how good the sampling process is on the brand & model.

previous model DP90e

For a large majority of people playing piano these days and regardless of skill level, the piano sampling technology has produced some very enjoyable piano sound in digital pianos and this technology has gotten better and more sophisticated with time, and the end result is some mighty impressive digital piano instruments that have recently come out from the other brands. Along with increasing sampling sophistication also has come increased polyphony in sampled digital pianos up to 256-notes. This means that when playing a digital piano, if you are at a higher skill level and play complex musical passages using a stereo piano sound, you won't run out of notes as you play your music using many keys and pedal sustain at one time along with doing glissando's, arpeggios, and or lots of chording. So when it comes to piano sound, the digital piano industry has come a long way in being able to reproduce it with sampled recording so that most people can be very happy with the results, depending on your budget and the brand of piano of course:)

However, Roland has now gone beyond the standard industry piano sound sampling technology by introducing a newer sound technology for the DP603 called SuperNATURAL piano Physical Modeling. Modeling (aka: modelling)is different from sampling in the way the sound is created and the way you hear it when the piano is being played. Along with this technology being implemented to create an all new piano sound, Roland is putting it in all of their new models instead of just a few at the top of the price range. This means that you can get this new technology of piano sound reproduction starting at around $3000 in their cabinet models. It is typical for digital piano companies to reserve their best features for the most expensive models to get you to spend more money but Roland did not do this, and that is impressive to me and I commend them for that. So exactly what is SuperNATURAL Modeling technology and what makes it different then all other digital pianos? In Sampling technology, the sound elements in a real piano need to be recorded with microphones, as I previously mentioned, and then those recordings need to be translated into computers and then saved in the digital piano sound chips on circuit boards. The recordings can be of a number of different things in a piano including the sound reproduction as you strike a key at different velocities and the noise the hammer makes when it moves, just to name a few. Sampled sounds take a larger amount of computer memory to do it correctly (or as close as can be done), and that may or may not drive up the cost of those instruments.

Physical Modeling sound is not recorded from an acoustic piano but is created through non sampling computer mathematical algorithms. I am definitely not  a mathematician so the best explanation I found on the subject which I believe is important to understand (at some level) so that you can appreciate this new piano sound technology, is as follows: "In sound synthesis, physical modeling synthesis refers to methods in which the waveform of the sound to be generated is computed by using a mathematical model or formula, being a set of equations and algorithms to simulate a physical source of sound, usually a musical instrument. Such a model consists of laws of physics that govern the sound production, and will typically have several parameters, some of which are constants that describe the physical materials and dimensions of the instrument, while others are time-dependent functions that describe the player's interaction with it, such as plucking a string, or covering toneholes. For example, to model the sound of a drum, there would be a formula for how striking the drumhead injects energy into a two dimensional membrane. Thereafter the properties of the membrane (mass density, stiffness, etc.), its coupling with the resonance of the cylindrical body of the drum, and the conditions at its boundaries (a rigid termination to the drum's body) would describe its movement over time and thus its generation of sound." That's the explanation I found that best explains this technology although if you don't understand it...don't worry, a lot of other people don't either:).

In piano sound physical modeling, that technology is dealing with things such as the energy/force you put into the playing the keys, the interaction of the tonal dynamics, piano hammers, felt movement on the hammers, string movement over time, overtones that excite other moving and non-moving parts of the strings and wood cabinet, and many more physical aspects of a real acoustic piano.,..and all of these physical properties in a real piano are recreated by computer computations. It's like a powerful computer that draws a "virtual picture" of every aspect of the best  acoustic grand piano possible and then that "virtual picture" instantly comes to life as that actual acoustic piano played instantly in micro seconds with no repetition or sameness. This technology is supposed to give you the feeling that the piano sound which you're hearing is being generated from an real acoustic piano, when in fact is is all done in the virtual technology world. But does this new technology actually do what it claims to do?

Roland has tried to emulate the Steinway Concert grand piano sound over the years and that's what they have tried to do here with these new digital pianos much the same way as the real thing does. Having this kind of modeling technology gives the player an approximation of Steinway grand sound characteristics without the large size and expense of that acoustic piano. An example of the new Roland sound is when you press any one key on the Roland piano without having any additional reverb or sound effects on, that one note will also trigger natural occurring "overtones" for that specific note that you would normally and naturally hear in a real piano. Also, just when a person thought that 256-note polyphony processing power for the piano sound was a lot, the new Roland physical modelling technology has jumped that polyphony number up to...infinity and beyond:)...in other words...unlimited polyphony. There is no limit because of the way the sound is generated in the virtual physical world. However, the 256-note polyphony (and even less polyphony) in other name brand pianos is way more than enough to power even some of the most complex piano music that a person can play. The unlimited polyphony on the Roland pianos is for the acoustic piano sounds only but not for the non-acoustic piano instruments such as electric pianos, strings, organs, choirs, brass, etc. Those sounds offer 384-note polyphony which is also more than the other brands do, but once again, not something that you'll actually notice when playing these instrumental sounds. Also, polyphony power has nothing to do with the actual instrument sound samples and the authenticity of those tones. However, when you combine that polyphony power along with a 3-sensor key action, the musical expression and dynamic tonal & volume range you get in these new pianos is impressive. From very soft pianissimo to extra loud forte volume. these new pianos go beyond what a person might otherwise expect out of a digital piano, particularly a Roland digital piano.

Physical Modeling Virtual Technology