Roland Introduces HPi-7 Digital Piano at Musikmesse

HPi-7

HPi-7's LCD Display

Roland's new HPi-7 Digital Piano offers a range of new interactive features, including a wider color LCD display, Digiscore notation and "Visual Lesson," designed to make the HPi-7 suitable for learning and making music at home.

The HPi-7 incorporates a wide color LCD screen with a viewing area twice as large as the Roland HPi-5. DigiScore notation "turns the pages" of the music while playing, with notes scrolling across the screen in realtime. The larger screen allows viewing of more measures of music at once, while providing positive feedback on performance.

The new "Visual Lesson" feature acts as a patient tutor and teacher, offering three practice selections, including "Beginner's Course," "Repertoire Course" and "Challenge Course." Each course includes independent exercises, 10 songs with variable levels and "Practice," "Check" and "Review" options. In addition to the 10 songs of each course for exercise, each course of the Visual Lesson can incorporate any of the HPi-7's 170 internal songs as well as commercially available music files and SMF (Standard MIDI Files), which be downloaded from the internet.

The HPi-7 freatures Roland's Progressive Hammer-Action Keyboard with Escapement and new high-quality 128-voice polyphony piano sounds. The new velocity sensitive "Key off sound" reproduces an acoustic piano's nuances, such as the sound made when the damper touches a string to stop vibration upon key release.

The right and left hand part of all internal songs can be muted for practice and study. The onboard "Pianist" function encourages ensemble playing and "Edit" allows creation and storage of original music files on the built-in floppy disk drive. "Flash Card" and other educational games have been added to Roland's "Wonderland" section.

There are a wide range of Input/Output options, including Headphone jacks, Mic In, USB and MIDI ports. The "Mic Input with Echo" can be used for karaoke, parties and concerts, and the "V-LINK" function allows the HPi-7 to be connected to compatible video equipment for visual performances. The Connectors (Headphones, Mic In, USB, MIDI) and Headphone hook are located at the front of the instrument for easy access.