REVIEW - Roland DP90e & DP90Se Digital Pianos - Recommended - Designer compact home models with advanced tone and touch at a good price

REVIEW - Roland DP90e & DP90Se compacthome Digital Pianos - Recommended - New for 2014 - The Roland Corporation started making digital pianos many years ago and is well known throughout the world for building higher quality, advanced digital music products that piano students, players, teachers, professional musicians, churches, and studios use. I have played and used many of the Roland music products including digital drum kits, MIDI guitars, home organs, pro keyboards, digital pianos, pro audio systems, keyboard & guitar amps, headphones, special effects systems, MIDI products, and other music gear.

DP90Se polished ebony

When it comes to digital pianos, the most important things to look for are accurate piano key action and key touch, authentic piano sound  & dynamics with full expression capability, realistic pedaling response, and durability, especially in the higher priced models such as these new Roland DP series pianos. The DP series of pianos has been out for a number of years and Roland is well known for them and they get better every time a new model comes out.  No other major brand in the higher price range over $2000 has a digital piano quite like the Roland DP series with regard to a unique combination of upgraded looks & design in a special compact form, realistic acoustic style key action & acoustic type sound, authentic pedaling response, and useful digital features. The DP90e & DP90Se are new 2014 models and are just coming out at Roland stores soon. I have played them both and like them very much. The 
differences between the two models is that the DP90e has the middle grade key action called "Premium Keyboard" and the cabinet comes in a satin black finish, and the DP90Se has the best "Concert Keyboard" action and the cabinet is available in the upgraded high polish ebony and high polish white finishes. The price difference is about $1000 between the two models (DP90e vs DP90Se) but the upgraded finish and key action is significant and worth the difference in my opinion, if it's within your budget and fits your home decor. Both pianos are/will be available on the internet and discount selling price for the DP90e available in satin black with matching bench is $2599US and the DP90Se in polished ebony with matching bench is $3499US and polished white is $3599. 

What makes these models unique as far as appearance goes is the cabinet design. They are smaller and less deep than the average home piano in this price range and the special built-in folding lid of the pianos quietly and slowly (with built-in slow close key cover) folds down over the entire piano top creating a completely flat surface like a small table or desk. The music rest on the inside of the lid supports sheet music and books and it folds up as well. For apartment dwellers or people living in small condos or just have limited space, this cabinet design is definitely good at saving space and looking elegant at the same time...especially in the high polish finishes. Although these Roland models are just coming out now, I have already had the opportunity of playing the new DP pianos and really like them. I did not expect them to be much better than the previous DP models because the pianos look pretty similar overall and based on digital feature specifications, it did
not look like much had changed. However, I was quite surprised that they had improved in a big way with regard to the fundamentals of piano playing including key action, sound & dynamic response, and pedaling. The best product change analogy I can use is when Apple computer company upgraded their iPad2 to the iPad 3 with Retina display screen. 
The iPad Retina display was a huge upgrade in terms of the screen display quality and realism for images, The processing power was greater too and buyers were very impressed and bought them in huge numbers.
The new DP series are much the same way with its new upgrades of noticeably superior piano performance over previous models. The new key actions are much quieter and move better, the piano sound and dynamic range is much more realistic & pure, and pedaling is improved. For those people who play digital pianos or have played good acoustic grand pianos, they would be able to tell how nice these new Roland pianos really are as compared to anything that Roland and other piano companies have had before. The subtleties in tonality, nuance, dynamic range, and expressiveness are evident when playing complex music in ways not possible on Roland pianos in the past.

Roland has two the two new upgraded piano hammer weighted graded key actions as I mentioned earlier called Concert Keyboard (an appropriate name actually)and Premium Keyboard. The difference between the two is that the Concert Keyboard feels more like a real grand piano to me (upgraded design and construction over the Premium keyboard found in the DP90e, which is not quite as realistic as the Concert Keyboard but still very enjoyable to play, and much better than most other brands in its price range. This is the first major key action upgrade in many years for the Roland company in terms of feel, key sensor ability and sensitivity, reaction time, and overall quietness of key movement and keybed. All Roland furniture cabinet digital pianos in the lower price range (under $2000) use the older and in my opinion unimpressive ivory feel-G key action which I do not like so much and have said so in reviews of Roland pianos using this key action. Maybe one day those G key actions will improve but for now Roland has done an excellent job in producing an impressive playing experience with the new Concert & Premium key actions.

New synthetic ebony keys

As I mentioned before, unless you have played piano before or have a very musically trained ear for listening to high quality acoustic pianos, you may not be able to recognize how good these new models really are as compared to some lower priced digital pianos or other brands and models in this price range. This is because sound and feel are, at the end of the day, subjective & personal and objectivity for the untrained ear and fingers can be difficult to obtain. Having said that, the piano sound realism, key sensitivity, and dynamic range along with a much quieter key action than ever before is really quite amazing in both models, and it really does give you the impression that you are playing a top quality acoustic piano. The key weight and static touch weight (amount of finger pressure required to press keys when keys are at resting position) are excellent as well as key balance from bass through treble range and from black keys to white keys. Unless you get a chance to play one of these pianos locally you'll just have to take my word for it:).

New synthetic ivory keys

Both new Roland key actions also incorporate a grand piano simulation movement with a "let-off/escapement mechanism" (left pic). This key movement simulates the key action feel of a grand piano as opposed to an upright piano (upright movement such as what you find on current Yamaha Clavinova digital pianos), and of the major brands, only Roland & Kawai have this feature right now in digital pianos retailing under $8000. When you press the keys down slowly on a real grand piano, you can feel a slight hesitation or notch about half way down when the key action is moving and this is called the escapement or let-off effect. Generally speaking, upright acoustic pianos do not have this feature but grand pianos do. Is this let-off/escapement feature a necessity for playing a piano?...not really...but it's cool to have because it does offer a playing accuracy and feel that is subtle but yet noticeable, especially for trained players. The white piano key tops are coated in a synthetic ivory material which (tries to) duplicates the feel of the older acoustic pianos which had real ivory keys and has a slight textured feeling to them. This synthetic ivory was on the previous models too. But on these new models Roland has added new synthetic ebony for the black keys which completes the total realism of playing a real organic piano keyboard on all keys. This synthetic substance on both black & white keys has a slight texture and helps absorb sweat from the fingers and offers a smoother playing experience. It also looks a bit classier than the all shiny white and black keys and I personally like this "feel" very much.

The acoustic piano sound itself (taken from Steinway acoustic grand pianos) on both Roland DP pianos are identical and they both have 128-note polyphony piano memory (how many notes can be played and sustained at one time) which is more than enough for even the most complex piano pieces because of Roland's advanced polyphony voice allocation. It's a fancy way to say you won't run out of notes even when layering two sounds together or playing complex MIDI files. Roland calls its acoustic piano sound SuperNATURAL Piano meaning that Roland has attempted to reproduce a much  more "natural & beautiful" acoustic stereo sound in their digital pianos and I feel they have done this quite well on these new models. In fact, if you plug in a good pair of stereo headphones to either piano they would both sound identical. 

All in all, I like the Roland SuperNATURAL piano sound very much and it offers a beautiful acoustic playing experience more closely associated with the Steinway grand piano sound because Roland takes its piano sounds directly from Steinway acoustic grand pianos, although Kawai & Yamaha have very nice piano tones in their higher priced digital pianos too which come from their acoustic pianos (Kawai & Yamaha grands). It's about apples & oranges...some people like one better than another because everyone has different ears and reacts to sound differently. I personally enjoy playing and listening to the (Steinway sampled) SuperNATURAL acoustic piano sound in these new pianos

With regard to the piano pedals, they operate very smoothly and feel realistic to press down and incorporate the three traditional pedal functions (damper/sustain, sostenuto, and soft) of regular acoustic pianos. They do work better than other digital pianos I have played and also simulate a good note sustaining experience using a damper continuous detection pedaling feature. This function gives the player incremental note sustain amounts rather than just on & off or half pedal. It is definitely a much more realistic acoustic piano playing experience than other brands as well as physically feeling like the pedal is changing resistance when being pressed down. Roland calls this feature Progressive Damper Action. Having good piano pedals and operation is very important, especially to more advanced players, so Roland does a very good job in this way.

DP90e satin black

The DP models offer many high quality instrument sounds divided into 4 control panel buttons above the keyboard. These sounds include 14 variations of acoustic  grand pianos, 5 upright pianos (uprights are generally not found on other brands), 10 electric pianos, and 321 additional instrument tones (just about anything you can think of including strings, organs, banjo, synth, sax, trumpet, sitar, guitars, individual drum sounds, etc:) for a total of 350 tones which is a lot! You can see all of the instrument names and other function descriptions in the LCD user display screen which is very nice for displaying relevant info. On the panel button with the 321 extra instrument sounds, it can be a bit tedious in getting to the sound you want by scrolling to it with the value +/- button, but this is true of other brands as well. You can change the "tonality" of the sounds by increasing or decreasing the brilliance or mellowness of the piano & instrument sounds and you can take any two sounds and layer them together or split them separately on either side of the keyboard. The pianos also have the duet twin piano feature which lets you electronically divide the 88-keys into two identical 44-key keyboards playing the same notes in the same octaves so that two people can play the same music at the same time. It's a great feature for teacher-student, parent-child, etc, and many of the top brands are including that feature in their pianos too.

A digital MIDI recorder is built into both models featuring 3 tracks of recording and playback (for up to 3 separate instruments) and being able to save the songs on a USB flashdrive which is very cool. There is also an audio wav file recorder which allows actual CD recording and playback giving a precise rendition of your song which you can then play along with or save on a USB flashdrive for loading onto your computer to use in notation programs or attach to emails to send to family & friends so they can hear you on their computers...lots of fun with that. You can also plug in another instrument or microphone into the pianos and record that sound along with the piano and combine them. You can also use a key transpose feature on the pianos to transpose your recording (including the external audio source) to another key for singing or modulating the song up or down in semi-tones one step at a time. Even playback speed of MIDI and audio song files can be adjusted up or down which is very cool for audio and most digital pianos cannot do this on audio wav/CD files. So that means you can play along with your favorite CD song direct in your piano and slow it down to 75% of original speed to learn how to play it at a better (slower) speed while learning...and it still sounds good! I have not seen audio/CD song tempo control before on any other brand that has audio record or playback.

General MIDI sound

Both Roland piano DP models play back General MIDI song files from a USB flashdrive which is a great feature and one I use all the time in my studio. The General MIDI song format allows you to play your piano parts along "with the band or orchestra" and to interact with multiple instruments at one time using well known piano lesson books including thousands of popular songs which can be found on the Internet. For more info on the General MIDI format go here: General MIDI and Playing Piano. Roland has a number of other ways its pianos can record music and playback songs for music education & learning that are quite useful and can be important when trying to learn music whether you are a beginner or professional. But this comes as no surprise because for years Roland has built professional recording & music learning devices for musicians, teachers, and students who use them in their home or studio for more effective practice sessions. If you want to know more about this you are welcome to contact me.

The DP90e and DP90Se can connect directly to an iPad for another interactive way of learning about music and playing the piano, and I use iPad piano learning/teaching apps in my studio which provide a cutting edge visual way of interactive piano practice and learning. A unique feature of the Roland HP pianos is that they can do a wireless USB connection to an iPad using an optional Roland wireless USB adapter. On previous models there was this USB wireless connection to iPad, but now on the new DP models there is also wireless audio to hear the iPad music coming directly through a Roland designed and created
app that allows you to play music from iTunes (with tempo & transpose control) and hear it through the Roland piano speakers without need of connecting audio cables from the piano to the iPad. This is quite helpful and unique and I have not seen this featured offered on other brands before. The audio sound from other non-Roland iPad music apps still need connecting cables but that's true of the other brands too. Roland also has a special Roland piano education app for good interactive ways of building piano skills. There is also a Roland designed iPad app to visually navigate the Roland control panel from the iPad, which is very cool. This feature makes your overall user experience much more enjoyable and intuitive.

The speaker/audio systems are identical in both models with 24 watts of total stereo audio power going into 2 amplifiers and 2 speakers. I would have preferred the audio power in the DP pianos to be a bit stronger and deeper sounding (at least in the DP90Se) but the cabinet itself helps it resonate pretty well and there is enough volume for the average size room. However you can connect external powered speakers or a home stereo to these pianos to give it more bass and fullness if that's what you desire (I would personally do that because I like big sound), but overall the sound coming through the speakers will be good for most home applications.


The best way I can sum up and identify the major changes from the previous models to these new models are as follows:

1. New PHA-4 Concert Keyboard with Escapement and Ebony/Ivory Feel features Roland’s latest high-resolution touch-detection technology 
2. Fortissimo (dynamically very loud) playing styles are fully expressed with the new Dynamic Harmonic feature, which provides both a unique tonal character and powerful sound
3. New Individual Note Voicing to customize the sound to your taste by adjusting the pitch (tuning), volume, and character of each note independently including Stretched Tuning: -50.0 – +50.0 cent, Note Volume: -50 – 0, Note Character: -5 – +5
4. Headphones 3D Ambience effect sound experience while using headphones for private practice
5. Display music scores and songs with Piano Partner app for iPad
6. Independent volume control for headphones and volume limit function
7. Better connectivity with mini stereo input and output jacks as opposed to stand just standard 1/4 jacks

I do need to point out that while all of the upgrades on these new pianos are pretty impressive, the most interesting new feature to me is that for the first time that I know of on a top name home digital (upright style) piano, you can actually electronically adjust each of the 88 notes one at a time for tuning, volume, and character (voicing). On all other top name digital pianos you can only do this for all 88 keys at one time, but not for each note individually. This may not be useful or ever necessary for beginner thru early intermediate players, but for more advanced players you may have reason to want specific notes individually altered because of the way you hear your music and the notes that are playing. It's all about the "ear" and about your piano playing experience & skill level, thus you may find this new and impressive feature useful to be able to play your music exactly in the way you want it to sound over 88 individual notes.

The only new feature I found that was not impressive and actually useless (at least to me) was the "3D effect" through headphones. It's supposed to give you the impression the piano sound is all around you coming from different directions. Roland calls it "an immersive sound experience" but I call it "dumb." Sorry about that but maybe I wasn't using it correctly or hearing it right...but it just didn't sound good to me. I much preferred the standard stereo listening experience through headphones and that was very good.  Fortunately you can adjust the level of that 3D effect as well as turn it off. I did adjust the level but by the time I got it to where it was OK to me, it was practically off anyway:). Oh well, you can't have everything be great and if that's all the disappointment I had in these new models, then that is a fairly small thing to complain about.  Also, it's important to have/own excellent sounding stereo headphones for private playing because you want to capture all the nuances and quality of the new enhanced Roland piano sound dynamics. I can give you some good recommendations if you don't already have headphones.

HP506

If you want a realistic and satisfying acoustic piano style playing experience without an over abundance of digital features (no drum rhythm patterns, no automatic chord styles, etc), the new Roland DP90e and DP90Se would be an excellent choice depending on your budget, and I do highly recommend them. They are a big upgrade from the prior models in key action & piano dynamics and play great.   As compared to the other popular name brands such as Yamaha & Kawai, etc, the new Roland pianos have some of the latest piano technology out there right now, and in a number of important ways they surpass what other brands do in similar price ranges. Although these new DP pianos do a lot more than I have mentioned in this review in terms of digital features they have, those things are just "frosting on the cake" as far as I am concerned. Once you get up into this price range it's mostly all about piano playing in my opinion, and that's definitely where the Roland DP models excel. By the way, Roland makes a new traditional cabinet version of the DP90e & DP90Se which are called the HP504 & HP506 (upper left pic) and they are priced similarly but do have a couple additional differences including more cabinet color options. Check out my review of those pianos at the following link: Roland HP504, HP506, & HP508 Review. Regardless of what you decide to purchase, do your homework before making a buying decision and you can't go wrong with any of the new Roland DP or HP digital pianos.

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.