I’ve been thinking about buying a digital piano for a while and settled on a Roland FP-30X as it seems to be a really great balance of features and price.
I’ve just spotted they’ve now released the FP-E50 which seems to have the Supernatural engine of the FP-30X, but also the ZenCore that you would find on something like the MC-707 or a Fantom. Given it’s not hugely more expensive this seems like a real bargain.
Has anyone tried one and have an opinion on what they think of it as an instrument?
This admittedly flew under my radar.
I’ve been relearning my keyboard skills on my Yamaha PSR-SX600 arranger keyboard. It’s served my needs well, but sometimes I miss having 88 keys. I have an old Casio Privia 88-key digital piano, which hasn’t been in the same shape after it was damaged in the lowest couple of octaves.
The Piano Designer looks fun for creating your own quirky piano sounds.
Otherwise, from the perspective of using ZenCore sounds and arranger styles it looks like a preset-only machine At least it’s able to load SDZ (ZenCore) preset packs.
I can overlook the above limitations though if the piano sound and keybed quality is really good.
Looks like the competitors - of interest to me - in this price range are:
Kawai ES-120 - Most sound is built on 2 multi-sampled high-end Kawai grand pianos. There’s some basic drum machine functionality, but no arranger functions. The feel of the keys and the sound quality would have to be mind-blowing in comparison to the competition for me to pick this one. I’ve grown to like having onboard arranger functions.
Yamaha DGX-670 - Featured sound is is the multi-sampled CFX Concert Grand, with resonance modeling. Additional sounds include Super Articulation voices and other sample-based voices that prob. don’t take up as much memory. Has arranger functions that look similar to the PSR-SX600’s - including Unison, Accent, and Style Creator. These functions are much more extensive the FP-E50’s from what I can tell.
I’d definitely have to go into the store and have a good sit down with each of these digital pianos. I don’t have the refined touch of some of my keyboard playing friends but I can feel the difference between the cute but clearly lower end Casio CT-S1 keys and the keys on a high end Roland digital piano. So the feel of the keys and how it’s coupled to the piano tones are going to be significant factors in my shopping decision.
FP-E50 vs DGX-670
FP-E50’s Chord Sequencer lets you import csv files that have chord progressions - pretty cool.
I don’t think the DGX-670 would really work for me.
I’m looking at a stage piano primarily rather than an arranger.
I’m hoping that the FP-E50 will be able to load ZenCore patches created in the plugin although apparently that’s a pain on the MC-707 so I do all my sound design on the box as it has a fairly decent editor.
You might want to hold off on buying this Roland until you can verify 100% that it can load ZenCore patches created in Zenology Pro. They might have designed it to only work with ZenCore packs sold by Roland for all we know.
When I get around to doing the sound-and-feel shootout at the music shop, I’m going to focus primarily on the sound quality and feel of the keyboard. If this Roland wins the shootout, I can work around its shortcomings. Since I have both a 101 and 707, I wouldn’t even bother trying to get my edited ZenCore sounds into the FP-E50. Work with Zenology Pro just to make a custom sound pack of sounds I already have on the other devices… get da fuck out… 
TBH I’d already decided to get an FP-30X so any additional functionality is a bonus for me.
There’s also the chance the Kawai might blow the other two away.
There’s a chance that Kawai blows them away on keyboard feel, and probably has better/more realistic piano sounds.
You have to give up a lot of the other arranger-type stuff and variety of voices though.
yeah that’s something I’m thinking about for myself. Can I live with the shootout winner possibly being the one that just sounds and feels great as a virtual piano and has nothing else to it? For me the answer is probably yes.
I was unimpressed with the FP-30x’ key action and overall feel. I’m not an accomplished keyboardist, but I grew up on vintage Steinways so that probably impacted my judgment.
My guess is that if you want something vaguely reminiscent of piano feel then the cheap Rolands and midrange Casios are probably good enough. But if you need the feel of a wooden mechanism, you will probably end up spending 2-3x as much.
I ended up with a 61 key Novation controller because it feels really good as a synth control device and I wasn’t ready to spend Fantom 8 or Kawai money for a nice Piano Experience.
Edit: Yamaha S90 series synth pianos seem like they could be a good used value, but I have no idea if they are a ticking time bomb in terms of maintenance.
I haven’t tried the ES-120, but I have a slightly higher-end Kawai and the action is much more piano-like than any Roland I’ve tried. That’s the MP7se though, which is a price bracket higher than these. It does seem like Kawai prioritise keyboard action in general more than other manufacturers. As someone who didn’t grow up playing piano, that’s become more important to me than I would have imagined. The experience of playing is quite different on a quality weighted keyboard.