Roland V-Piano Digital Stage Piano with KS-V8 Stand  (Used)

Comments about Roland V-Piano Digital Stage Piano with KS-V8 Stand:

Sorry for the multiple reviews, but I need to amend something I reported in my recent review. I had stated that the pedals work as expected, but that was a mistake. On very advanced pedaling techniques, there is a problem.

I reported this problem to Roland 2 weeks ago and have received no response.

This problem would only affect a tiny fraction of users, but there is ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE for Roland getting this wrong. If and when you play something that requires complex use of the sostenuto and damper pedal in combination, THIS WILL FRUSTRATE YOU.

Description:

Play a note and depress the sustain pedal.
Release the note. It sustains as long as you hold the sustain pedal.
Now, while the note is released, depress the sostenuto pedal. (Note is still sustaining.)
Then release the damper pedal while still holding the sostunuto pedal.

The note should continue to sustain until both pedals are finally released, but on the V Piano it DOES NOT. Instead, the note stops when the damper pedal is released, despite the sostenuto pedal being held.

If you consult sources, such as Arthur Reblitz's piano technician textbook, you can verify that what I have described is the correct behavior, or just try it out on a high-end grand piano. Basically, on a real grand piano, whenever the damper is raised, whether it is because the key is depressed or because the damper pedal is held down, the note's sostenuto lever is raised above the sostenuto rail. Depressing the sostenuto pedal then engages the sostenuto rail, which then holds the damper up, and will not allow it to lower until BOTH the sostenuto and the damper pedal are released.

Granted, material that requires the sostenuto pedal is rare, and material that requires interplay between both pedals is rarer still. But there is simply no excuse to do this wrong on such an expensive instrument.

Following are some well-known pieces that require this kind of pedaling.

Poulenc Oboe Sonata, Op. 185 (You might not recognize the name, but you've probably heard this)

Rhapsody in Blue, George Gershwin, Original solo piano version.

Various pieces by Edvard Greig

Comments about Roland V-Piano Digital Stage Piano with KS-V8 Stand:

After trying out every digital piano I could get my hands on, I have concluded that the Roland V Piano is the best digital piano there is for a hard-core snobbish classical pianist like myself. (I am the type of player who typically dismisses any and all digital pianos as being like "toys" compared to the real thing.) Disclaimer: I couldn't find a Nord to try out, so couldn't include it in my testing. Sorry, Nord.

This is a replacement for a GeneralMusic Pro 2 that I have had since circa 1997 or 1998. At the time, the Pro 2 was the best you could get, and I was very impressed with it, but it sounded like a toy compared to my Steinway B.

Compared to the GM Pro 2, the V Piano has vastly superior dynamic range (without needing a volume pedal) and far more realistic tone variation vs key velocity. Though the V Piano doesn't sound quite realistic enough to pass as a real acoustic piano, its tonal characteristics and the variation thereof with playing technique have all the aspects of a real piano sound. With the Pro 2, my softest fingering technique produced what I would call "mp," and as I played more forcefully the tone switched way too abruptly to something similar to the typical over-voiced studio piano, and maxed out in volume at what I would call "mf." It took a relatively light touch to saturate the velocity curve, and no amount of fiddling with the controls would fix it. By contrast, the V Piano has a full dynamic range. I can get anything from a whispering "ppp" up to a thunderous fortissimo via variation in fingering pressure alone. Even with my relatively heavy playing touch, I had no problems with saturating the velocity response.

If you listen to the "demo" sequences on any digital piano, they can sound astonishingly good. This doesn't surprize me too much, since the manufacturer can select material for the demo that works best within the limitations of the piano, and can tweak the midi data to perfect the sound, possibly in ways that cannot be achieved in live playing. But for my testing, I put together just the opposite sort of test suite, what I would call "a digital piano's worst nightmare." I used a suite of hard-core classical works specifically chosen to challenge the most difficult aspects of digital piano sound. The only piano that passed all my tests is the Roland V Piano. Coming in second was the Yamaha CP1, which failed only 1 test, which was a test for balancing dynamics between multiple parts ("voices"). For that test, I used the second movement from Beethoven's Sonata Pathetique. EVERY digital piano except the Roland V Piano failed that test.

Later, after performing with the V Piano for a while, I did find a couple of other weaknesses that I had missed in my testing. It would surprise me if including them in my testing would have made a difference, but I'll describe them for the benefit of anyone still shopping. These problems are:

1. Too much variation in playing pressure versus finger placement on the key. More pressure is needed to get a certain key velocity if you strike near the rear of the key than at the front. I believe this problem is universal to all digital pianos due to the limited front-to-back space available for the keys, forcing the fulcrum to be too close to the front.

I am surprized that Roland didn't use a custom keyboard action to "leverage" (pun intended) the extra room inside the V Piano case to improve this. Or perhaps Roland could have been even more innovative and designed an action with either an "according-like" hinge mechanism, or with a mechanism whereby the key travels straight down vertically rather than pivoting on a fulcrum. (Roland, are you listening?)

I noticed this problem while performing the presto passages in Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu. The effect was that some of the notes I played occasionally did not sound in pianissimo passages, and this happened in places where I have to play at the back of the key.

2. Insufficient polyphony. It is hard to decypher the truth about polyphony numbers as advertised, because the manufacturer typically "creatively" counts every "oscillator voice" as a "note" even though more than one "voice" is needed per note (typically 4). The place where this showed up was in another Chopin piece, the Polonaise in A flat, Op 53, where there are some rapid parallel scales that range over 3 or 4 octaves, with the damper pedal held. I could hear notes dropping out despite the fact that I half-pedal these passages.

Anyway, there's 2 more pieces to add to my test suite for next time...

Regarding how closely the sound resembles a real piano, the following may be of interest:

I performed an experiment where I attempted to adjust the sound of the V Piano to match my Steinway B as closely as possible. Note: The Steinway has been meticulously regulated and voiced. It has an absolutely beautiful tone with what I consider to be a perfect blend of balanced harmonics. (By contrast, most pianos are over-voiced to compensate for either poor tonal qualities and/or poor playing techniques. If an engineer boasts that the studio piano has been "brightened" to "cut through the mix," then that piano has been over-voiced. My test for that is the opening passages of the Lassen from Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No 2, which sounds terrible on an over-voiced piano, or on a muddy under-voiced piano.)

These are the settings I came up with:

Decay: +50
(Note: this was still less sustain than the Steinway, but I wanted to be able to do less half-pedaling. The sustain on that Steinway is absolutely extraordinary.)

Hammer Hardness: -25
Cross Resonance: +25

Soundboard Resonance: +100
(Note: That is the maximum setting. I would need even more to match the Steinway. Roland, are you listening?)

Tone Color: -2
Piano Emotion: 20

Interestingly, though that didn't perfectly match the Steinway, I did happen to be crawling on the floor underneith the Steinway once when someone else was playing it and was astonished to hear that, from that location, the Steinway sounded virtually IDENTICAL to the V Piano. Since then, I have been experimenting with placing the speakers for the V Piano (a pair of Barbetta Sona 41c units) below the Steinway and/or bouncing their sound off a wall. I also noticed that the Roland V-Piano Grand (not the version I have) sounds more realistic when played through its internal speaker, which is mounted to reflect off the lid, just as would be the case (more pun) in a real piano.

Bottom line: The Roland V Piano allows me to do performances that would previously have been impossible or impractical due to the expense and hardship of transporting my Steinway to the location. (Typical example: a wedding on a beach.) Though the V Piano is large and heavy, it's only 1/10th the weight of the Steinway, and therefore quite portable by comparison.

For transporting the V Piano I use the RoadRunner Keyboard Flight Case with Castors, 88-key size, Musicians Friend Product #541286.

The V Piano has the following absolutely STUPID feature: There is a built-in bank of General MIDI sounds, but absolutely no way to play them from the keyboard. They can only be played from an external sequencer. And, No, you can't somehow pipe the V Piano's MIDI out back to the MIDI in to defeat this brain-dead misfeature.

The feel of the keyboard action, provided I depress only at the front of the keys, is almost identical to that of my Steinway B. Very impressive. I can play prestissimo just as rapidly on the V Piano as on the Steinway. Rapidly repeating notes (by changing fingers on the same key) works with no surprises.

The pedals also work very well, even on a piece (Poulenc Op. 185) that required very tricky use of the sostenuto pedal in combination with the damper pedal.

The headphone bracket, where you hang the headphone for storage, attaches to the bottom surface of the case. That's a nice feature if you use the V Piano in a studio. But if you transport it, I think the bracket will get destroyed the first time you forget to remove it for transport.
It's overpriced. This is particularly apparent if you consider the pricing for the V Piano Grand, which was obviously priced by considering what a similar acoustic grand would cost, and certainly not by considering the extra cost for the piano case and built-in amplifier and speaker.