Roland FP-10 – Compact 88-Note Digital Piano with SuperNATURAL Piano Tones and Authentic Acoustic Feel Keyboard | Simple to Use | Ideal for Home Use, Students and Learning Correct Techniques

Product Information

At the heart of the P-45 is the AWM stereo sampling technology that ensures you get a rich, natural piano sound as well as 8 other beautiful tones including electric pianos, organs, strings, and a few other sounds.

All of the basic tones that you’ll need in any basic professional setting or even to have some fun with at home are covered, such as electric pianos, organs, strings and synths. Instead of a dual speakers system like the S1000 or FP10, the P125 has a 4 speaker system consisting of 2 mains and 2 tweeters, with 14 watts of power. The result is no distortion whatsoever, even if you’re pushing the speakers at max volume. The tweeters also contribute to the P125’s excellent clarity, so even if it is a less complex tone overall, the speakers are great. The GHS doesn’t have any textured material on top of the keys, and it uses 2-sensor key detection system. Yamaha’s Graded Hammer Standard (GHS) hammer action has been with us for quite a few years now and is also featured on other models like the P series Yamaha P45 and the YDP series. Okay, so as we alluded to above, the type of sounds found in both of these pianos is very similar, but which unit sounds the best? Well, let's focus purely on the grand piano settings – which, let's be honest, is the sound you'll use 99.9% of the time.Each key of the FP-10 is individually weighted, providing a heavier feel in the low registers and progressively becoming lighter as you move up the top, which is something you’ll find on an acoustic piano. The FP10 has 15 different sounds or voices, a maximum polyphony of 96 notes. The Korg has 12 different sounds or voices and a maximum polyphony of 120 notes. Remember that polyphony is the highest number of notes that can be played simultaneously on a computer.

The entry-level digital piano class has never been filled with so many great options, combining a high level of musical potential in the form of a portable keyboard. In fact, many professional musicians will even use pianos from this category for gigging in some cases. The Roland FP 10 has more polyphony. Which are the notes that can sound at the same time including what we play and the accompaniments that sound at the same time. Transposing: You can easily transpose keys up or down – super handy feature, especially for beginners (like me 🙂 ). NOTE: You can also fine tune your piano if you needed to match a recording or an acoustic instrument that isn’t tuned to an exact key signature. All of them come with very basic sustain pedals in the box, so regardless of which one you choose, we would strongly suggest upgrading to their manufacturer’s more robust damper pedal with proper weighting, substance and half-pedaling like a real piano.The speaker trade-off is a better bass presence on the FP-10 despite less amplifier power, but slightly better clarity and overall detail on the S1100. Both are good digital pianos for the early years of piano study, however the Roland FP 30 has its obvious advantages over its younger brother. Its triple-pedal entry, is very much appreciated when studying the piano in a decent way, so that’s worth the 120 euros. In total, the keyboard has 12 built-in sounds and a nice set of features that any beginner will appreciate. Such keyboards most commonly have 49, 61, 73 or 76 non-weighted or semi-weighted keys which don’t feel anything like a real piano. So it isn’t a good choice for those who want to develop proper finger strength and technique.

Voices and Effects: Now we’ve come to the voices and effects, which are usually why pianists decide to get a digital piano in the first place. While both instruments offer cool effects like reverb (imitating the echo one would hear when playing in a concert hall) and damper resonance (the sound your piano makes when the pedal is lifted), the Roland’s more powerful processor just makes them sound better. There are more of them too, such as ambience and brilliance for the organ voices. The second reason is that the FP30 is on the verge of being replaced by the Roland FP30X, and based on the upgrades we’ve seen, the FP30X should probably be regarded as being in an entirely different class from the other two pianos we’re looking at today. They both have 88 weighted keys with PHA-IV technology with an ivory touch and leakage release. Let’s remember that counterweight is the weight that the keys of real acoustic pianos have. As well as, both have sensitivity in their keys. Sensitivity refers to the option of performing dynamics in our performances, that is, when we step or press a key with force it sounds louder or higher, and when we step with less force it sounds lower. In any case, we’ve got two great 88-key digital pianos here with differing sets of specs sure to be great options for many piano shoppers.

This is fine for beginners, but if you regularly use the sustain pedal, you might want to invest in a damper pedal which will give you a more realistic piano experience and support half-pedal action. At the heart of the B2 is the Stereo PCM tone generator, which along with 120-note polyphony and dual 15W speakers delivers a deep, powerful sound with a wide dynamic range.

It’s a pretty basic action in terms of the specs with a double sensor and no escapement, but it certainly has good repetition speed and is thus capable of fast playing. In a general sense, as far as overall features go (especially when you don’t include features added by the Piano Partner 2 app) the Yamaha P-125 wins that battle hands down: the P-125 has a few more voices, twice the polyphony (192), built-in split voices, onboard MIDI recording, built in rhythms to practice with, proper 1/4″ line out ports to connect to external amplification, and an audio interface built into the USB port (which not only allows you to record high quality audio WITHOUT needing an external audio interface, it also functions as an audio in to stream in audio to play along with).

However, since the FP-10 has less powerful speakers, (6W X 2 rather than 11W x 2), listening through the speakers is a slightly different experience to the FP-30. To be fair, Roland has labeled the most popular functions on the keys so that they’re easier to find, but still, it takes some practice. String resonance and damper resonance are also reproduced quite accurately here, which makes the sound more nuanced.