REVIEW - Roland FP80 Digital Piano - Portable & Powerful - Nice for the Price

REVIEW - Roland FP80 portable digital piano - Recommended - The Roland corporation recently released its new 2013 model FP80 pro quality portable digital piano ($1999US internet discount price not including optional stand or 3 pedal unit). This new model replaces the popular Roland FP7F, and the FP80 has some definite improvements over the previous model and can be used for home, church, stage, studio work, teaching, and more. Whether you are a beginner of professional, this piano can pretty much do it all including having very nice acoustic piano sound, realistic piano style key action, and lots of cool digital features.

First of all, it is good to know that the FP80 can be used in a variety of playing situations because it is not only portable but it also has a new larger, fuller sounding stereo internal speaker system which allows the high quality instrument sounds to come through in a very impressive way. The speaker system consists of 4 speakers balanced on both sides of the keyboard specially aligned inside the top and sides of the cabinet with the larger speakers inside an enclosed sound box for fuller bass reproduction. The power amplification consists of four separate amps powering each speaker independently with a total of 26 watts altogether, which is quite a bit for its portable size. With this kind of internal speaker system, you do not have to connect an external speaker system to it if you do not want to, and because the way the speakers and amps are installed and mounted in the compact FP80 cabinet, the sound is fuller and clearer than many furniture cabinet pianos I have played in this
price range including all of the Yamaha Arius series digital pianos as well as the Roland RP301 & RP301R digital pianos. So just because a digital piano is in a furniture cabinet does not necessarily make it sound better than one in a portable compact cabinet. The only other portable digital piano in this price range with a good internal speaker system along with competitive functions which would compete with the FP80 in my opinion would be the new Kawai ES7 digital piano (above left pic), and you can go to the following link to read my review on the Kawai ES7. Kawai ES7 review.

As far as the some of the cool features of the FP80 go, one of the things which impresses me is its larger, easy to read LCD display screen in the center of the control panel, which is convenient. This large screen displays lots of useful information for the user so that it is easier to understand what is going on inside the piano. I really like this LCD screen on the FP80 and wish other brands would do the same thing in this price range. There are a whopping 372 high quality instrument tones on this model, which is a lot for a portable instrument, and these instrument tones include a big variety of acoustic pianos, electric pianos, strings, pipe & pop organs (with drawbar settings), synths, horns, woodwinds, guitars, and many more. The sounds are impressive and have a live sound to them. You can layer any 2 of these instrument sounds together along with also being able to split two sounds anywhere on the keyboard so that one is on the left side of the keyboard and one is on the right. You can plug a microphone into the FP80 and sing through it and also use the vocal harmony function which adds other vocal parts to your own solo voice so it sounds like you are singing in harmony with other people...but the harmony is all from you! You can even record your vocal performances as an audio wav file to a USB flashdrive and save those recordings to be heard later or even sent by email to friends & relatives or converted to MP3 audio files.

The Roland FP80 also has the interactive ensemble chord arrangements so that you can play left and/or right hand chords and get the entire accompaniment just like a band with a pro guitar player, pro bass player, pro piano player, pro drummer, pro orchestra instruments, and more. These interactive arrangement styles include music from nearly all music genres such as rock, jazz, blues, swing, big band, country, classical, kids, Latin, and others. In all there are 180 different arrangement styles along with impressive introductions and endings, and in my opinion they are really great and musically tasteful...and fun to play. It does make it sound like you have an entire professional band playing along with you whenever you want...and the band always shows up on time and they work for free...what more could you want:)! The only drawback to the arranger setup is that unfortunately the bass line in the arrangements is permanently locked in to play a leading bass line only determined by the chord inversion you are playing. The bass line in the arrangement style should be setup to allow the player to have the bass line come out with a root note first, but the leading bass feature starts the bass note on the first note of the chord you are holding. In most cases this is not preferable or acceptable in live music. The leading bass setup should be an option in this piano and not standard and permanent within the chord arrangement. If this sounds confusing to you then that's OK...it just might be until you hear what I am talking about. I don't understand why Roland did it this way because it musically does not make sense. To get around this limitation you would need to play the root position of a chord every time and not only is not preferable to do, it's not natural. I hope that Roland can (through a software update, etc) correct this issue because it overshadows an otherwise terrific arrangement feature which no other piano in this price range comes close to.

The heart of any furniture style or portable digital piano is the key action, piano sound, and pedaling realism. The other features take a back seat to the primary needs of most people which is "how does the key action feel & respond, how smooth and dynamic is the acoustic piano sound, and how does the pedaling experience allow me to bring in the sustain in a realistic way? As far as key action goes, Roland is using its better piano style key action known as the ivory feel-S key action with 3 key sensors for each key which offers better key repetition response (upper left pic). Roland has three different key actions which include the ivory feel-G, ivory feel-S, and PHAIII. I personally do not like the ivory feel-G key action as it is too sluggish in movement and bottoms out with some noticeable irritating thumping sound (when playing the keys a bit harder) like the key is hitting a wood bottom with little or no padding. Most piano key actions do make some noise when the keys are going up and down, but the G keyboard action is especially noticeable in this area.  The ivory feel-G action is found in the new FP50 ($1499 internet discount price), RD300NX, and also the F120, RP301, and RP301R. So for me personally, I don't recommend Roland instruments with this key action as it is sluggish & noisy and it's better to spend more money (or even less) on something that will be a better longer term investment

The better ivory feel-S key action in the FP80 is a big improvement over the other one (ivory-G) I just mentioned and does play and respond very nicely to light or heavy playing styles and offers great dynamic range when playing the acoustic piano sounds. In fact, in my opinion this key action beats anything Yamaha has to offer in any of their digital pianos up to about the $3500 price range. The Roland FP80 key action simply feels much more like a real acoustic piano to me (and I have played hundreds of acoustic pianos) and it even has the escapement/let-off feature which simulates what a grand piano feels like when you press a key slowly and lightly. The top PHAIII key action is found in Roland pianos starting at about $2700 and goes up from there. I wish Roland had put their best PHAIII key action (which has some upgraded improvements) on the FP80 but the ivory feel-S key action is more than acceptable and certainly better than most of their competitors and feels good.

The acoustic piano sound itself is very enjoyable and the dynamic range is excellent for its price range. The built-in speaker system as I described earlier, really helps bring out the quality of the Roland SuperNATURAL acoustic piano sound (a higher grade of acoustic piano reproduction) unlike its little brother the FP50 which has an average on board speaker system and nothing near the FP80. The piano sound is quite realistic and fairly balanced, and in its price range the only brand that competes with it is Kawai which also offers excellent key actions that feel great. The synthetic ivory on the key tops also help with key feel and finger movement and allows for the natural sweat in the fingers to be absorbed so the keys remain dry and not greasy...that's a nice feature. So when it comes to reproducing a natural piano sound playing experience, the FP80 does a very good job. The pedaling is also competent and offers half pedaling good decay times, and damper resonance for the acoustic piano sound all of which contribute to more piano realism. Roland has also included some extensive editing features for the acoustic piano sound which is great for people who would like to "tweak" the piano sound to their own taste and then save that in memory on the piano. Some of these tweaky features include Soundboard Behavior (Off, 1 to 10), Cabinet Resonance (Off, 1 to 10), Hammer Noise (-2 to +2), Damper Noise (Off, 1 to 10), Duplex Scale (Off, 1 to 10), Damper Resonance (Off, 1 to 10), String Resonance (Off, 1 to 10), and Key Off Resonance (Off, 1 to 10). These musical acoustic elements are (in part) what makes up an acoustic piano sound and you can edit these functions on the FP80 for your own customized acoustic piano sound. I think this is a very cool thing and am glad Roland included this kind of sound flexibility in the piano. You can also edit and add reverb/ambiance, as well as change the EQ settings for your own environmental sound-room control to increase or reduce instrument sound brightness, bass, etc.

In addition to these sound editing features, there are also some realistic special effects (chorus, tremolo, delay, etc) that are built into the electric pianos, synths, and other instrument sounds. However, if you layer any one of those sounds (with the nice built-in effects) on top of an organic sounding acoustic piano tone with no effects (which is a common layer), the nice effects on those instrument sounds do not work when layered with an acoustic piano tone, and as far as I know, there's nothing you can do about it. That's disappointing to me and something that Roland should improve upon and upgrade its software/hardware to accommodate that situation. I don't know why Roland allowed that to slip by.

The FP80 also has the capacity to play complete 16-track General MIDI song files off a USB flashdrive for learning songs, practicing lessons, or just listening to or singing along with great music. The Roland company developed the General MIDI format many years ago and the quality of the playback instrument sounds are very realistic and the best that I have heard in or around this price range. You can purchase and also download some free GM songs from among thousands of selection on the internet. You simply load them onto a standard USB flashdrive and the piano will play them. You can slowdown the tempo to any speed that you like which is great for learning and you can also transpose the key up or down to whatever vocal range would be best for you or whatever key the sheet music might be written in. Go to the following link for my review of the General MIDI format: General MIDI info. The FP80 also allows for audio wav file recording and playback from a USB flashdrive which then gives you the flexibility of having live CD quality music from your favorite CD's playing on the piano along with some tempo control and transpose capability. You can even mute out the center vocal/melody track from your audio CD song so you can take over and play or sing that part instead of the song playing it...that is lots of fun. You can record your own CD quality audio file and then save it to a flash drive and load it into your computer for use with notation programs or further audio recording.

The Roland FP80 has 128-note polyphony piano technology and 100 levels of key-touch velocity sensitivity so that you have plenty of horsepower when it comes to reproducing a high quality, smooth dynamic sound simulating a real piano responding to your personal finger touch in an organic way. The motion of the keys is especially good for its price range because the keys push down easily while still offering a graduated hammer weighted feel of a good piano without the action being too heavy or too light. There certainly are other good keyboard actions out there in other brands and models, but for all this piano does in its class, it's hard to complain and gives you a good finger to sound connection as I call it. This is when your fingers play the keys and you can connect emotionally to the sound that is being produced.

Roland offers plenty of external device connectivity including USB output to iPad and computer, audio outputs and inputs, MIDI in/out, headphone jacks, mic input for singing, and special 1/4" inputs for an optional 3-pedal unit (with assignable pedals) which I highly recommend. You can also buy an attractive Roland FP80 furniture stand at an additional cost in case the piano will be placed in a nicer area in your home. At 52lbs this model has a bit of weight to it for those that need to move it often but considering what this piano does and how solid it is with internal speakers, that's not to bad. I do like the control panel and longer plastic buttons that light up on this model because they're fairly easy to use and easy to see. The FP80 can even connect wirelessly to an iPad or computer which is helpful especially because there are so many exciting iPad piano/music apps available for learning songs, understanding music theory, sight reading drills, and many fun educational music games. I use them in my studio all the time.

If you want a fun, easy to use, good sounding, nice feeling digital piano with a variety of useable, high quality features in a well made compact cabinet at a reasonable price, I would definitely recommend the Roland FP80, which is offered in both a satin black and satin white finish. This instrument is certainly not a perfect digital piano as I would like to see a few changes in it, but overall for the price, I do like it and enjoy playing it. The FP80 comes with a music stand/rest and one Roland made piano style sustain pedal and so all you need to do is put the piano on any good keyboard stand (I do recommend some specific models), plug it in, and start playing...and that's what it's all about...making good music and relaxing with a quality instrument:) There are also other good digital pianos out there so if you want suggestions on what might be best for you, please contact me and I will be happy to answer your questions.

If you want more info on new digital pianos and LOWER PRICES than internet discounts, please email me at tim@azpianowholesale.com or call direct at 602-571-1864.