Reface CP visits Sicily

[lerber3]

I play piano jazz. Every fall, my wife and I travel somewhere in Europe for a few weeks, and every year I go through piano withdrawal. Sure, I usually find a crappy out-of-tune piano or two along the way but big altered jazz voicings sound like poo without perfect tuning. I have always wanted a truly portable keyboard that fits in a suitcase, so I decided to check out the Reface CP to see if it was a toy or a musical instrument.

 

I was a bit skeptical about the mini-keys and the 3 octave range, but when I demoed it in the store (through a really nice keyboard amp) it sounded amazing. The Rhodes and Wurly sounds are accurate, and the keyboard response is pretty decent to make them sing or bark in a controlled manner. The clav is basic, but with a touch of Wah you can make wonderful porntastic souds. The effects are actually pretty rewarding to work with... drive adds some grit, chorus/flange can be subtle or over-the-top, tremolo is authentic, and the delay has both analog (short) and digital (longer delays with squelchy pitch shifts if you twiddle the delay). There is not a lot of volume from the tiny built-in speakers, but it sounds very full through headphones. It seems pretty well-built and runs of 6 aa batteries or AC (but Europe is 220 v so I've been running on batteries, which have lasted for quite a few hours).

 

Anyways, thumbs up to Yamaha for making this keyboard... It doesn't replace my Electro or Stage, but it is a truly portable keyboard with decent sounds and surprisingly not-crappy action that you can travel with to relieve your keyboardy musical needs. Surprisingly, it is pretty easy to adapt to the small keys and short keyboard (ok, 3 octaves kinda sucks to be honest)... and I can reach Rachmaninovesque octave-and-a-half intervals.