Roland FP-30 Digital Piano Review

If you’re looking for a piano that works great for beginners as well as experts and still doesn’t break the bank? Well, lucky for you we are going to breakdown one such keyboard in this Roland FP-30 Review.

You’ve probably seen the Roland FP-30 with a lot of music bands but the latest developments by its contemporaries have made things quite difficult for it. It has been mostly compared with Yamaha P125 and Kawai ES-110. Therefore, in this Roland FP-30 Review, we are going to show you where it stands now and is it worth buying today.

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Features Of Roland FP-30:

Since we’ve said it before that the Roland FP-30 is good enough for beginners and experts, meaning it’s an intermediary Keyboard. Therefore, it’s neither expensive nor that great for experts. So, if your skill level has reached its peak, then this may not be the right keyboard for you. Now that you’ve considered that we can dive down deep into its features.

Aesthetics

The Roland FP-30 is a good looking and compact piano but looks much like its contemporaries. Its panel has 13 illuminated buttons that allow accessing a function but in combination with a specific key. Although it might seem a little hectic for complete newbies, this system of navigation is very common in keyboards. It is only a matter of a few sessions that even a complete newbie will become adept at it.

It weighs 31 lbs. which does make it a bit heavier than its competitors. However, that’s not heavy enough to not be considered portable. You can easily carry it with you to your jam sessions or performances. After all, it’s given the label of “stage piano” for no reason.

Although its compact size allows you to place it on any table or desk, we would still suggest you buy a proper stand for it. It comes in two colors; black and white.

Keys and touch sensitivity

The Roland FP-30 is a full 88 keys weighted digital piano with five sensitivities. Its equipped with Roland’s proprietary hammer-action known as the PHA-4. The touch sensitivity is as great as that of a real piano; heavier on the low notes and lighter on the high notes. Also, the harder you press the keys the stronger the note. This is a very useful feature to have in a digital piano.

To make the Roland FP-30 look more like an acoustic piano, the keys have been painted ivory. Roland claims that the keys have better grip and moisture absorbing feature. However, we don’t feel that this claim stands out to be true.

It also features the split and dual modes. The split mode divides the keyboard into two halves; one half for one instrument and the other half for another. Whereas the dual-mode provides you with an ideal student-teacher learning. The escape effect in this guitar is also worth appreciating.

Sound quality

The sound quality is the most defining element of a keyboard or any instrument for that matter. An instrument can have the most innovative features but if the sound quality is not good enough, it’s not worth considering. The good thing about Roland FP-30 is that its sound quality is good.

Its equipped with 35 high-quality sounds and a polyphonic memory of 128 notes. Although these numbers are less than some of its competitors, the quality is great. Its brightness can also be adjusted at three different levels.

It’s also worth noting that the Roland FP-30 is equipped with the company’s proprietary SuperNATURAL piano engine which has been proved as a powerful machine in producing sound and processing multiple functions at once.

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Other features

The Roland FP-30 comes with a sustain pedal. However, we believe that this sustain pedal is not good enough and that you should buy another one. A good sustain pedal will cost around €30.

It features two 4.75” and 11-watt speakers that produce high quality and a high volume of sound. Although, this is usually enough for a hall in case a concert can plug in external speakers.

It also features a microphone that records everything you play.

Connectivity

The Roland FP-30 features a USB MIDI output for computer connectivity. It relies on programs like Sibelius for music composition. However, for music editing, Cubase and Ableton work well.

It also features Bluetooth connectivity which is an even faster way of transferring data and you can transfer data to your mobile as well.

Issues

Although there were no main issues with the Roland FP-30, there were mostly small ones. One of these small issues is the lack of external outputs which inhibits connectivity to multiple devices at once. Also, the ivory keys are cosmetic and do not display the real effect.

One main issue that we can think of is the competence level of Roland FP-30. It cannot compete in the sound quality and other essential features with that of the high-end pianos. However, that’s understandable given the price range. Even if the Roland FP-30 was €150 costlier, it would still be competitive with keyboards of this price range.

Roland FP-30 Overview:

Pros And Cons Of Roland FP-30:

Now that we have explained all the features of the Roland FP-30, we would like to boil them down to the pros and cons to make things easier for you.

Pros

Compact and portable
Good sound quality
Weighted Keys
Affordable
Good touch sensitivity
Bluetooth connectivity
Good looking keyboard with illuminated LED buttons
Full 88 key digital piano
Can work for beginners and professionals alike
Split and dual modes
Recording microphone
Good speakers
Comes with a sustain pedal

Cons

Not ideal for experts
Other instrument sounds are not good enough
Lack of external outputs

Conclusion:

As you can see that the pros far outweigh the cons in our Roland FP-30 review. This shows that Roland FP-30 is a keyboard worth buying. It does have a few limitations but given the price range, you can’t expect more, especially considering that its competitors are expensive than the Roland SP-30.

We hope we have answered all your queries about the Roland SP-30 but if you still have some questions unanswered, let us know in the comment box below and we would love to answer them.