The Emperor's New Clothes. . .

[MickeyKeys]

The emperor in this case being Roland.

 

I've had an RD700SX for quite a while now and until three days ago I LOVED it.

 

Now I'm pretty PO'd at Roland. Tell you why. This may ramble a bit.

 

Elton John and Billy Joel inspired me to learn to play. But I went about it all the wrong way. Tried to run before I could walk. Tackled chords first - scales, theory and proper fingering were afterthoughts.

 

Got pretty decent nonetheless. I've been playing in bands for years, and I'm apparently regarded as one of the better performers on the local circuit.

 

But there are things I still have great difficulty with. The bad habits I formed in the beginning have been very difficult to break, and I still lay booby traps for myself on a lot of pieces.

 

One of those pieces has always been the rapid-fire opening of Billy Joel's "Prelude/Angry Young Man". I've experimented at times over the years and always put it away because I was convinced I'd never get it.

 

Well, I'm finally in a band that I'm sure would do it if I could bring it to the table. So recently I dragged it out again and started trying on Roland's "pride and joy".

 

Still couldn't get it, and convinced myself it was a matter of technique. I just wasn't going to tickle that middle C trill fast enough and cleanly enough no matter how I tried. I was sure of it. But damn, I'm keeping at it this time.

 

Well, the other day, I was walking through a Best Buy with my ladyfriend.

 

Strolled down the aisle past a Casio Privia PX320, which I'd always sort of regarded as a kid's toy.

 

Perfect for my daughter's lessons, but an alleged pro like me wouldn't be caught dead with one in my stage rig, right?

 

HA HA HA.

 

But just for the hell of it . . . I switched the "toy" on.

 

Well, wouldn't you know, I played the damn thing perfectly - on the first try, and for the first time ever in my life! Our jaws dropped in disbelief (as did those of a couple of bypassers).

 

So I went back home and attacked it on the RD again. Same lackluster, spongy response . . .

 

Now I want to take a sledgehammer to the *&^%! thing.

 

Yeah, alright, maybe I SHOULD have made "Prelude" my litmus test when GAS-ing for a new board. Despite the fact that till recently I'd regarded the piece as an unattainable goal.

 

Instead I let myself be seduced by an expressive soft touch and a lot of nice samples in a slick, user-friendly (and admittedly otherwise very nice) package.

 

But my point is . . .

 

Why can Casio nail a good piano action on a $600 board, and the supposed be-all and end all of stage piano makers can't do it on something they, in their corporate arrogance, have the gall to list at four times as much?

 

Or did I just get a bad one?

 

Am I all alone in this? I know there are a lot of satisfied RD owners out there - hell, until a few days ago I was one!

[Diametro]

Taste and feel are subjective ...

 

Good luck ...

[xmlguy]

See what happens when you buy a brand instead of buying a keyboard?

 

Roland makes keyboards with better actions. So why didn't you buy one? Sounds like your fault, not Rolands. And not all RDs are the same in key action. You bought an RD-SX model, not an RD-GX. Roland has upgraded the key action two generations since yours. Even the lower FP-7 and FP-4 have upgraded actions now.

[Purity_Control]

Different isn't always better or worse.

 

I can play my roland jupiter well faster than i can play my Korg sp200, i also have less fine control on the jupiter and sometimes accidentally catch a key, which never happens on hammer action.

 

Different keyboard actions suit different things.

[KJI]

MikeV,

 

Have you tried it on a "real" piano, just for the heck of it?

 

As other members have said above, key touch is a very subjective matter, and at some point they are all just "different", not necessarily better or worse.

 

The Privia you tried may have a "faster" action more suited to your playing style, which may not actually be necessarily "better", and perhaps compared to a real piano (which all are trying to mimic) the RD-SX action may be more "authentic". For real expressive playing, for example, some(many?) people would prefer the experience on the RD-SX. As you can see, this is all really cloudy.

 

I have an original RD-700 (before the SX), and I can sorta understand your frustration (so many things to like about the board, so many things not to). A few folks around the web would argue all day about which keyboard is more "authentic", but I guess in the end it's all about the music, and if the RD-SX is keeping you from being a better musician, then it's probably wise to move on.

 

Cheers,

 

Jooil

[MickeyKeys]

 

See what happens when you buy a brand instead of buying a keyboard? Roland makes keyboards with better actions. So why didn't you buy one? Sounds like your fault, not Rolands. And not all RDs are the same in key action. You bought an RD-SX model, not an RD-GX. Roland has upgraded the key action two generations since yours. Even the lower FP-7 and FP-4 have upgraded actions now.

 

 

Yeah, I guess it was my fault . . .

 

For believing their declarations that it was the ultimate stage piano . . . until a scant ONE MONTH later when they announced the GX.

 

With an action that I personally found almost indistinguishable from my SX on the ones that I had the opportunity to check out.

 

And mine hadn't laid around in a warehouse for two years before being sold.

 

The serial number plate gave the date of manufacture as three weeks before the date of purchase. That is to say, seven weeks before the unveiling of the GX.

 

Not five years and three different iterations of RD pianos later as you seem to think. That I could almost understand and find easier to live with.

 

We're talking one month.

 

Yeah "caveat emptor" and all that, but . . . If they had improved the RD keybeds and kept dumping inferior ones into a supposed flagship model-well, that's disingenuous, to put it charitably.

 

Not only that, they were outdone on an important aspect of arguably the most important part of a top-shelf instrument they're supposedly making for professionals - and by a company better known for solar powered digital watches!

 

Now don't get me wrong, there are things aplenty NOT to like about that Casio - but the return action on the keybed is not one of the negatives.

 

It's also one of the few things wrong with the RD . . . the rest of the time, when I don't require that one feature, it remains a wonderful board.

 

Which makes what I still consider to be their shortcoming in this one key (no pun intended) area even more mystifying and infuriating. I guess that's what set me off.

[xmlguy]

Casio makes some damn fine solar powered digital watches.

 

Yamaha makes motorcycles, ATVs, and scooters? Does that keep them from making good keyboards?

 

You really need to get over your preconceptions about what _else_ you think a company makes that has nothing to do with what you're buying. That's what I mean by buying a label vs buying a product. Your keyboard made you happy until you FINALLY compared your keyboard to something else. Here's an idea: compare them before you buy them. How many of the competitors keyboards did you try before you bought? How is any of this Roland's problem? Because you thought you bought the world's greatest digital piano and that Roland should stop with that?

 

I don't mind that the Casio pisses you off. That'll teach you. If you weren't so biased against Casio, it wouldn't matter one bit to you. Please try a Motif XS8 and a Korg M3-88. Then you should be irate.

 

I'm just joking and poking fun, of course. Buyer's remorse is a bitch. But you really should spend more time before buying getting a keybed you really love by trying them all, even if you have to drive hundreds of miles to do it. It's worth the effort.

[Umbra]

Casio has made some really good keyboards/modules over the years. For example the VZ series. There is some serious synthesis under the hood and sonic territory that is unexplored but they are written off as junk.

[Yoozer]

Yeah, I guess it was my fault . . . For believing their declarations that it was the ultimate stage piano . . . until a scant ONE MONTH later when they announced the GX.

By that logic you can wait for decades until the difference between the previous ultimate and the next ultimate is so negligible that it's not worth the wait .

 

If they had improved the RD keybeds and kept dumping inferior ones into a supposed flagship model-well, that's disingenuous, to put it charitably.

No, that's getting rid of old stock and delivering exactly according to specification. Specifications are subject to change without notice, but upgrading is not mandatory - and not even possible. You do recall the MKII suffix on some Roland products.

 

What if a player really enjoyed the action of the SX, got one, only to find out that it wasn't what he wanted because the store model was old and his was new?

 

Which makes what I still consider to be their shortcoming in this one key (no pun intended) area even more mystifying and infuriating. I guess that's what set me off.

I too have been looking for something that gives good piano action, and even the GX and the new V-Piano don't hit it perfectly. Unless you get a manufacturer who puts in the entire key mechanism of a grand minus the strings in a big box (and by then it's no longer portable or stage-piano like) I don't think we'll see something that gets close. I mean, I really like my FP7's action, but it's not an August Foerster .

[Allerian]

 

I've had an RD700SX for quite a while now and until three days ago I LOVED it.

 

 

Looks like we found the problem.

[augerinn]

I'm in awe you even attempt that song. By far my favorite by him, and unfortunately one of his lesser known pieces.

 

It's been rumored that the acending triplets in Deep Purples "Hush" were double handed. Is it the same with this piece ? Or is it the 1-2-3 (or 1-2-3-4) on the same key trick ?

 

The most advanced piece I've learned yet is Bostons "Foreplay", prolly followed by 'Tramps "Bloody Well Right" intro (Lots of pinky in that one) . I've also delved into Jon Lords "Highway Star" solo. That ones a bitch.....

[dumeril7]

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that if you tried that lick on several genuine grand pianos, you probably wouldn't be able to pull it off on most of them either. And if you tried it on a synth-action keyboard, you could play it no problem. Does that mean the synth-action is "better"?

 

Some actions are simply faster than others, but faster isn't necessarily universally better. There's almost always a tradeoff in terms of feel, or velocity response, or durability, or whatever. As in most things, its a compromise and we just make decisions based on the attributes that we prioritize as most important.

 

D7