REVIEW - Roland F20 Portable Digital Piano - Loaded with some good features, but with a few deficiencies

F20 with optional stand

REVIEW - Roland F20 portable digital piano for 2014 - Partially Recommended - The Roland company of Japan has made some great music products over the years including synthesizers, digital pianos, guitar products, computer music products, digital drums, digital accordions, and lots more. They are well known for their keyboard instruments and professionals from all over the world own and play them. Roland also has a line of home style digital pianos which start at about $1299 and go up from there. The new 2014 model F20 portable digital piano ($899US internet price - furniture stand optional at $119) is Roland's lowest price 88-key weighted action digital piano ever and comes in an attractive satin black finish for the US market. I was excited to get a chance to play this brand new model especially since I am a big fan of many of Roland's pro products and higher priced digital pianos.

Essentially, the new F20 is really a portable version of their higher priced RP301R/F120R (the F120R is not sold in the US) digital cabinet pianos with less features. The F20 has a basic control panel situated on top of the piano above the left hand keys and and sound selection is done by holding a sound category button down and pressing the appropriate key on the left hand portion of the keyboard (the owners manual has the sound chart for this). The F20 operating system is similar to Kawai & Yamaha portable pianos in this way and is fairly easy to use. The F20 uses the same piano sound technology as their RP & F120 models which they call the SuperNATURAL piano sound utilizing 128-note polyphony along with this model having a total of 35 nice sounding instrument tones including electric pianos, organs, guitars, strings, synths, bells, etc, 32 fairly authentic drum rhythms & auto chord styles (nice for rhythm & timing training and playalong), and has most of the connectivity functions of RP301 including USB output to iPad/computer as well as USB flash drive input to record and save songs as well as play multi-track General MIDI song files (I talk about this further down in this review).

The F20 is suppose to be a portable piano and as far as it's overall size and configuration goes, it is portable and it can be used on an option Roland furniture style stand or a keyboard x-style stand. However, the weight of this piano without a music rack (which does come with the piano) is slightly over 44lbs which makes it pretty heavy for a lower priced portable piano as compared to the other top brands including Casio, Yamaha, and Kawai. In fact this piano is between 10-20 lbs heavier and 5" deeper (nearly 16.5" deep) than the competitive models, so if you plan to move this piano often, then there are better options as far as weight and size is concerned.

Ivory Feel-G textured keys

But the most important considerations in any digital piano should be key action, piano sound, and pedaling and when it comes to the new F20, that's where this piano falls short in my opinion. Roland is using its Ivory Feel-G keyboard action which is available in all of its digital pianos that sell for under $2000. This includes the F20, F120, F120R, RP301, RP301R, FP50, and RD300NX. I have reported on this Ivory Feel-G keyboard before in other reviews and overall, I don't like it as compared to the key actions of the other 3 top brands in the under $2000 price range including Kawai, Yamaha, and Casio. In fact Kawai offers 3 different key actions in this price range, Yamaha offers 2 different key actions, and Casio offers one and they offer more playing realism in terms of the key weight, static touch weight, movement, and feel. This newer ivory feel-G key action is supposed to be heavier in key weight and closer to that of a real acoustic piano, and it is heavier. Roland did improve that part from previous models although the key movement is somewhat sluggish when playing softly or lightly, especially compared to other digital piano brands in the same price range and also compared to regular acoustic pianos. The upgraded Roland key actions (Ivory Feel-S and PHAIII) in the higher priced HP models as well as the the new portable FP80 move noticeably better and I do recommend those models for key action. The synthetic ivory material on the white keytops does give the keys a textured ivory look and that part is nice although that particular texture does tend to get dirty looking easily from dirt and oils in the fingers, but it can be cleaned.

Acoustic Grand escapement diagram

Roland also claims to have added an "escapement" feature in the Ivory Feel-G key action which they also have in their better key actions. This key action mechanism is supposed to duplicate more closely the touch of a grand piano as opposed to an upright piano. Unfortunately, this "escapement" feature is virtually non existent in the G-Keyboard as opposed to the escapement feature in the Roland S and PHAIII series of key actions found in the majority of Roland pianos including their HP series. You just cannot feel it the escapement feature in the new F20 (at least I could not and I know what it should be doing), no matter how hard or softly you press the keys. Roland might as well as have not mentioned this feature on their specs because it just doesn't work based on my playing experience with the Ivory Feel-G key action. This is not the case with the better Roland key actions as you can definitely feel this feature on those pianos and it's quite realistic.

acoustic piano keybed and felts

Finally, with regard to key actions, Roland has also had a noticeable problem with their Ivory Feel-G key actions making a very loud thunking/thumping sound when the keys are played with some force or if you just have a heavier hand in playing the keys, so to speak. Some previous Roland digital pianos in past years at about $2500 had this issue and I have played many of them and they all did the same thing with having a loud knocking sound when the keys were going down and hit the bottom. Unfortunately it is no different in this new model F20. The loud thunking noise when playing the keys sounds like there isn't enough felt under the keys to prevent the keys from knocking on the keybed underneath the keys. The picture above left shows a regular acoustic piano with special felt under each key to prevent excessive key noise when the keys hit bottom. It would be a similar concept in a digital piano where some sort of felt or special dampening material needs to be used to allow the keys to play without hitting the bottom keybed or metal frame (in digital pianos). I don't know what causes the excessive noise exactly, but when you especially play at lower volumes or use headphones for private practice, the thumping/knocking noise from the keys can be quite disturbing and distracting and I have had owners of Roland pianos with this issue tell me this before. However, if you play the keys very lightly or softly you really don't hear the knocking noise, which is good. But that's not the way most people play because it's necessary to use dynamics & different expression and therefore you will eventually run into this situation, especially if you're a student or if you're somewhat more advanced in your playing skill level and use more force in playing the keys a bit harder with more dynamic expression (like I do).

With regard to the SuperNATURAL piano sound which Roland claims is a superior reproduction of an acoustic piano, I do think the piano dynamic range, key volume expression and pedal sustain decay time is very good and better than Yamaha in this price range. However,  the smaller 12 watt total stereo, two speaker sound system in this model (the speakers are in back of the piano) seems to make the piano sound a bit thin and tinny especially when you play the middle to upper part of the keyboard and this would also include listening through headphones. The lower bassier piano sounds are full and resonate, but as you get up to the middle and upper octaves, that's where the piano starts sounding somewhat electronic and thin. You can control the brightness and reverb effects on the piano which helps a little and a first time player/student or someone who doesn't know what pianos are supposed to sound like may not notice this unnatural piano sound when playing in middle and upper octaves, and so it may not be an issue for some people. But this is an issue for me and that's why I am pointing it out.

The F20 has a bunch of very cool features such as 32 interactive style accompaniments (backing tracks) so that you can "play with the band." This feature allows you to play regular pop, jazz, classical, country, big band, and other styles of music on the piano and then a background group of instruments (including a drummer) will follow your playing and recognize your chords and notes (chord recognition technology) and play appropriate backgrounds just like a band or orchestra would do. It doesn't wait for you like the teaching system on some Yamaha digital pianos but instead fills in some great multi instrumental music behind you piano playing. This is a fun feature for people who cannot play or don't really want to learn to play in a traditional way such as for adults not wanting to take lessons. The quality of these background arrangements are very good which is a Roland specialty, and I like them very much although the bass line accompaniment only plays correctly in the root position of the chord. In other words, the bass line recognizes the outer not of the 3 finger left hand chord and therefore plays incorrectly in chord inversions. Even though you may not know what I am talking about here, you can just take my word for it that this is not normal and doesn't sound right, and for me that's a problem and an unfortunate oversight on the part of Roland. Other brands of interactive chord style pianos from Yamaha and Casio do not have this issue. On the plus side the Roland F20 is even more intuitive and natural sounding than other brands of digital pianos utilizing this interactive feature but the incorrect bass line issue is a problem for me and I would not use the chord styles because of that. Also based on my experience as a piano teacher and musician, this chord style feature  is normally not utilized by piano students or their piano teachers unless the students are older (late teens or adults) and the teacher is able and willing to teach this chord method of play. This is something you could learn to use on your own but you need to have good rhythm and timing for it to sound good and understand the concept of playing that way. It really is a fun way to make music in ways that you would not otherwise do, but it's also a feature you and/or your family may not use much.

Other useful features on the F20 is a 1-track recorder for recording and learning along with being able to save your recorded songs direct to a USB flash drive (left pic), a headphone out put in back of the piano (I would have preferred that jack to be in front), a keyboard adjustable split function for playing style accompaniments or splitting the keyboard for two different sounds, the ability to layer two sounds together for the two different tone buttons with adjustable relative volume, three key sensitivity adjustments to change velocity curve (how loud the initial sound is when you first press a key), a USB flashdrive input for playing General MIDI songs or even audio WAV file songs for play along and learning with your favorite tune. You can slightly speed up or slow down the audio WAV file song while learning to play it which is useful and a very cool feature. See my blog article for more info on General MIDI here: General MIDI educational features and why they work The F20 also has a direct USB to computer output (above left pic) for connection to a laptop or iPad for even more fun with your piano which is a nice feature to have! Another unique feature of the Roland F20 piano in this price range is that it can wirelessly connect to an iPad using an optional Roland wireless USB adapter. Without a wireless connection you would be using a special cable/iPad connection adapter & cable which is how it would connect for other digital piano brands. The wireless feature is a very unusual to have in this lower price range under $1000 (assuming you have wireless in your home) and can help reduce clutter from cables.

My final conclusions are...if it were not for the less than desirable keyboard action movement & key knocking noise along with having the thinner sounding piano tone in the middle to upper octaves on the main piano sound, and the unavailability of a optional 3-pedal system, the Roland F20 piano would have been nice competitor to the other brands in this price range. If you personally like the Roland F20 piano, assuming you get a chance to try it out, and the deficiencies I have mentioned here do not bother you, then you should buy it because at the end of the day...it's your money and there are many things to like about this piano:). As far as optional pedals for this piano, as I just mentioned, Roland does not offer a triple pedalboard system for this model, so you cannot set it up like a traditional piano as you can on the Yamaha, Kawai, and Casio pianos in this price range. The single piano style sustain pedal that comes with this model may be sufficient for some people (and does do the job of sustaining) but it would have been helpful if Roland had also produced a nice pedalboard that you could buy for an additional price, and I am disappointed they didn't do that especially considering all of their completion does offer it. Roland is really a great company and I just wish they did not have these fundamental issues on this new F20 but otherwise Roland builds reliable products that have a big following and I do like many things they produce including their higher priced home furniture cabinet HP/LX digital pianos.

The bottom line is that it's all about playing music and enjoying the experience because it can add years to your life, make you feel good, instill discipline and lifelong abilities in your children, and it's something that's good for the entire family. When shopping for a new portable digital piano you should also consider the other options in this price range by Yamaha, Casio, and Kawai who build competitive models that, in my opinion, offer you more "bang for the buck" as far as a satisfying piano playing experience, and this would include the Yamaha P105, Casio PX350, and Kawai ES100 as very nice pianos for their price, and they're also less money than the Roland F20. But as I said earlier, if you think the Roland F20 seems like the best option for you, then buy it. Go to the following links to read my reviews on these other models:

Yamaha P105 review
Casio PX350 review
Kawai ES100 review

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.