You can crank up Ambience on any sound, but it particularly illuminates the pianos and EP’s. And the Ambience button enriches the piano’s authenticity with a moody reverb presence. There are 13 piano and two quality harpsichord presets that will cover all your ballad, rock, and old-timey needs. They all enhance the instrument’s timbre palette is musically useful ways. You can also dial in Cabinet Resonance, Soundboard types, and a Duplex Scale that lets you tweak the levels of sympathetic vibrations. And there are many more parameters, such as 10 Key-Off-Noise settings and 10 Key-Off-Resonance levels. I wouldn’t say that they sound exactly like you are raising or lowering a piano lid, but it does change the piano tone in subtle and appealing ways. Also, you’re able to customize the piano’s realism in ways that are different from traditionally sampled instruments.įor instance, you can select from seven lid positions. You can do pedal-down glissandi forever and never run out of notes. For starters, the polyphony is nearly limitless. The result is an uncommonly smooth and authentic piano tone with some uncommon features. Rather than recording thousands of individual variations on played notes, releases and other noises the instrument makes, Roland uses physical modeling to create the sound. While most digital pianos employ heavyweight sampling to re-create the acoustic piano sound, Roland took a different approach some years back with its flagship SuperNatural piano technology. 1: The FP-90's onboard stereo speaker system offers 30W per side-perfect for rehearsals and gigs in smaller venues. These last two can also be switched on and off using the centre pedal. What’s more, there is a dedicated Mic fader for mixing your vocal level, and DSP effects to dial in: a Compressor a Doubling effect, that has too much pitch variation for everyday use and Echo, which is actually a good, short reverb. One of the welcome surprises on the FP-90 is the 1/4" microphone input and gain knob, so you can sing through the FP-90’s amp and speakers. You can even pop an expression pedal into the center jack for global volume control. The Center pedal can be assigned to control pitch bend (there is no joystick or mod wheel on the FR-90), vibrato, and the rotary effect on the organ sounds, among other things. You can also assign one of these pedals to step through Registrations, the multisound presets that let you seamlessly prep a set’s worth of material. For starters, you can use them to control page-turning if you pair the FP-90 with a Bluetooth-linked app that has this functionality. There are three pedal jacks (Soft, Sostenuto, Damper) and you would be wise to invest in Roland’s KPD-90 pedal board, because the two left pedals control some important functions. The FP-90 provides a full complement of connectors: MIDI I/O, USB B (for computers) and USB A (for a memory stick), TRS ¼" stereo outputs, a miniature stereo input for your mobile device, and two headphone jacks-1/4" and 3.5mm-on the front where you can easily get to them. Or pair it with your smartphone to turn the FP-90 into the world’s handsomest boombox. The Bluetooth connectivity handles MIDI and audio, so you can expand the instrument’s capabilities to include app-based features such as rhythm patterns and auto-accompaniment. It also seems as if they have put in long nights on velocity mapping to make the playing experience so consistent across the sound gallery. Moreover, the FP-90 action is effortless, and for this product Roland has added the PHA-50 Wood and Plastic Hybrid Structure with Escapement and Ebony/Ivory Feel, which provides a subtle yet athletic touch that brings out the best in both their acoustic and electric pianos. Surprisingly, the unit powers up in less than two seconds, which is much faster than any other keyboard I’ve reviewed it really raises the bar for this category of instrument. The other 25 buttons cover the controls you would expect-Split/Dual, Transpose, Category Selection, Data Entry, Recorder Controls-and a couple you wouldn’t, such as internal song volume and the digital effects for the external microphone input. The keyboard’s eight recessed faders are smooth-throw for reliable incremental adjustment, and the three EQ faders are center-dented for a quick return to your flat-point.
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