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Sound:
I've owned two other digital pianos, and each has been from a different era. Compared to those, I'm very pleased with the MP70's upper and lower octaves in terms of clarity, sound, and expressiveness. I'm not initially liking the MP70 sustain pedal as much as the prior pianos I've owned, it seems to cut off with far too much of the pedal still pressed.
Feature:
Twin Piano as a teaching function seems fairly useless, however the ability to define separate instruments on both registers could be interesting. Two track recording is nice, but AFAIK they are completely separate things, you can't record track #2 while listening to track #1 for example. The instrument selection is small but typical with all the typical ones that you might expect.
Ease of Use:
Many features aren't exactly intuitive; buttons have multiple uses which make it difficult to remember how to do some things without checking the manual first. Things seem unnecessarily buried when they could have just put another button on the thing.
One other note I'd like to make is the proximity of the buttons to the keys, as well as the button sensitivity. I've only owned the piano for a few days but on more than one occasion, while moving my hands by a few octaves, my fingertips have brushed one of the buttons, causing it to immediately trigger. It's an annoyance to me, but maybe desirable to the right person who needs to change things on the fly (but you'd probably own a different model if that was the case).
Quality:
Because the sides of the keyboard are thin sheet metal, they can be bent or dented. This is especially true of the rear panel, since it is so large with so few supports. The sliding key cover arrived skewed such that it would not close or retract completely. Pulling very hard on the appropriate side caused the gearing to slip and even out, but just the fact that it would be misaligned through shipping makes me wonder about its quality.
Value:
Compared to other companies' offerings at this price point, I would expect Roland to include a bench with this model. The lack of one hurts its comparative value, as do its non-intuitive method of reaching some of the options and functions
The Wow Factor:
The piano looks very nice, thanks especially to the full modesty panel. However the image on the product page is somewhat deceptive, as there is still a two inch gap at the very top because of some engineering oversights (the power cable needs to be inserted in an area of the keyboard that is forward of the panel and requires a space to pass through). I would have preferred a gapless design to enhance the look of quality. The gold-toned pedals are interesting but a bit tacky when complemented by the ebony finish of the stand, a silver would have been more preferable to me.
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Sound:
The sound of this piano is the best of all digital pianos I have used. Roland did an excellent job with the low and high pitch notes by making them sound like a real grand piano. On many digital pianos the low and high ends notes often sound rather phony.
Feature:
The features on this piano are better than I would have originaly expected. After figuring out how to use all of them they can be very useful, especially the transposing feature. The only complaint I have about the features is there are not very many different instruments.
Ease of Use:
This is a relatively simple piano to learn to use even if you don't read the manual.
Quality:
The quality does need some improvements but it is still better that most other pianos. When I received my piano it had a small scratch on the music stand, and the pedals could use some improvements to make them more sturdy.
Value:
The value is excellent compared to other brands, but, they should include a piano bench.
2 of 2 people
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Sound:
The mellow piano voice sounds more realistic than the default grand piano voice, which seems to hit some tinny resonances on some combinations of notes, and some voices actually rattle the cabinet. (This is less noticeable or unnoticeable on headphones.) This unit does not have a honky tonk piano voice as such, but that can be realistically simulated by adding Chorus effect to either standard or mellow piano voice. It's worth studying the manual to understand how to nuance the chorus, reverb, and pedal sympathetic resonance effects, as this is not obvious from looking at the panel but adjustments of these do make a nice difference in the sound.
Feature:
Roland packaged a pair of inexpensive headphones with the keyboard stand in mine, which was nice. A very useful feature is the ability to temporarily lock out the panel controls so that a stray finger bump against the panel can't change the settings in the middle of performing a song. It's got a headphone hanging hook, which provides a fine place to keep the headphones (as long as one doesn't have curious, cord chewing cats around the house). The least useful feature to me is the idiosyncratic voice pairings that are brought up through some of the voice variations; I wish it allowed me to mix and match choosing at least two from all the possible sub-voices. I don't think I'll ever use most of those voice pairings. I'd also like to see the keyboard split mode let me transmit on two different midi channels, for the keyboard to let me choose a single midi channel to receive on, and for the keyboard to have a way of saving voice related settings across powered-off times. Some of the useful features require cryptic combinations of button presses to access; this unit could use a panel overlay like the old HP2700 had which explained more about alternative functions of the buttons.
Ease of Use:
For the simple player, it comes up in an immediately playable mode with a piano voice at medium settings which sounds mostly OK. Most but not all of the features implied through the labels on the panel are intuitive. The manual is clear, but could use an index. The assembly instruction sheet said nothing about a mysterious part that upon careful perusal of the manual turned out to be the headphone hanger. The keyboard has a good rebounding feel as opposed to earlier models that felt flat, it is easy as almost any digital or acoustic piano keyboard to play adeptly.
Quality:
This is an inexpensive unit, not in the league of the HP series, and it shows. Some of the voices, such as low organ, make the cabinet rattle even at moderate volume. The pedals "creak" with the unit sitting on carpet, until the adjusting wheel is turned down so tightly that the unit has to be lifted off the floor to allow the wheel to be turned that far. The keyboard cabinet finish looks like varnished paperboard (the stand finish is better). The modesty panel, which is otherwise nice because of its height, is flush to one side of the stand but has a visible gap on the other side. It would be OK for home or light studio use, but on the road I think its case would get rapidly beat up. The panel buttons don't seem too puny compared to some earlier Roland items I've had where the buttons internally had little flexing plastic legs that would eventually break with use -- time will tell on these.
Manufacturer Support:
I rate this as good because I've purchased service parts for other Roland products from Roland, which can be done over the phone and the people will help you determine what part number you need.
The Wow Factor:
It demos quite well in a showroom. I rate it only middle because I only needed one to replace an older Roland unit sitting in a studio so that I could bring the older unit back in my house.
Overall:
I'd probably keep it until it became unrepairable or else till I came across a far better sounding unit selling for a similar price.
5 of 6 people
(83.33%) found this review helpful. Did you?
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