Roland RD-700NX 88-key Digital Piano

The greatest thing about this is the feel of the keys and their touch sensitivity. I never played a keyboard where you could control so nicely the dynamics. The internal sounds are nice and profesional sounding but i wasn't blown away by any particular patch. The instruments are all standard; there are no advanced synth sounds so the palette often feels limited. The embedded effects are very handy and easily dialed in with accessible knobs. The pianos are decent sounding but nothing beats the sound of sampled instruments like the Ivory II Italian Grand piano and Native Instruments Alicia's Keys piano (sold separately). I carry my laptop around anyway to access more sounds easily. It is very heavy but I don't plan to gig with it. Quick acces to instrument patches with programmable buttons is very useful. The ability to use three control pedals allows for more control. I don't regret the purchase. It is indeed a fine instrument. I play through a pair of Rokit 8 studio monitors and often through Senheiser's HD650 headphones which i highly recommend. Look elsewhere if you are driven by advanced synth sounds.

I must say, the purchase of the NX700 was the result of a long evaluation process. I had owned Clavinovas for years, the last one being the 509 which i had to sell, because i moved to another country with different voltage.I just play for fun and mainly piano stuff, so this is what was critical to me:1. Great mechanics / feel / expression.2. Great piano sound.What was important as well:3. Ability to play layered and set this up quickly (intuitive fast UI)4. Useable other sounds.5. Well working with MIDI so I can hook up my computer and maybe also hook up Pianoteq in case i want another piano sound.In all categories i have been positively surprised and i must say its a very inspiring keyboard, i play a lot more and longer, that i believe is as close to a grand as it can be. Unfortunately i didnt have a chance to play the VPiano, so i dont know about that.Details:1. The mechanics are great. I felt it immediately when playing it in the store. The feel of the keys is nice, the weight is good, it just feels right. Most importantly, vs the Clavinova i owned before i feel my expressiveness has multiplied. I can accentuate so much finer that i felt a little bit dumb of not having evaluated alternatives earlier.2. The sound is just plain awesome. Its a massive upgrade to my previous Clavinova i found. Almost all pianos are really usable = sounding great. (btw, not sure why there are so many honkey tonks in there, no idea who would need that)The parameters are very rapidly tuneable and i do it often (modify the lid (close/open) a little, string resonance, stereo-ness...)I feel like it really shows, that its a modeled and not a sampled piano. I believe this is why its so expressive.3. The layering, like almost everything (i guess thats why its a stage piano), is quickly set up and changed. I often play jazzy stuff with a base in the left hand. Its fun. Also the midi control is quite good, you can set up the up to 4 layers in midi completely differently. Quite powerful.4. Many of the other sounds are quite usable, but what i like to do most is modify the synths. There are knobs with which you can tweak the filter, cutoff, effects etc. in realtime - like a small synth. For me atm its exacxtly the right thing. For sound designers its probably way to limited.5. Already talked about midi in (3), but what was especially important is that i got a low delay (few ms) for use with Pianoteq and other instruments. I am quite pleased. The RD native driver and my normal work notebook with ASIO installed yields no audible or perceivable (when playing) delay. Excellent!Negatives: No Loop sequencer and multi-track recording. Didnt find any option to turn off all lights, i am covering the keyboard with an elegant scarf now if i want to play in the dark.I have some electrical problem that was present since the fist day, i believe the casing is somehow electrically charged, but i didnt hand it to support yet, because i didnt want to give it away yet... :-)The device is quite heavy, you need a stand that supports it.Noteworthy mentions: The equalizer happens to be very handy as well.It has many more features that are supposed to be cool, but i wont write about, because i dont use them.Summary: I wanted a grand piano (sound, mechanic) without the burden (weight, bulkyness) and a lot of flexibility paired with ease of use. I exactly got this.Notes: connected via cinch XLR->Cinch cable to my amplifier. Using latest 2.0 firmware.

I have been using a Roland FP8 digi-piano for the last 20 years and played it through a Peavey KB300 amp with great results and sound but I have recently bought a Roland RD700NX and am having bother getting as good a live sound !! I have tried my RD700NX with several amplifiers and still havent got a sound like that through headphones. Why is this ?? I have tried a Peavey KB300 amp and a Roland KC350 amp but neither have given good live piano sound.I have tried the Roland CM220 monitor system and it did sound great in the music shop but I'm not sure how big a venue this set-up would work in.Any views on what is the best amp for live use - mostly in church settings.

I have recently replaced my Roland RD700 SX with the NX as my main stage piano. I also own Yamaha and Korg pianos but for stage use the Roland is the best I have experienced.It is heavy, but the build quality is great, as is the sound and action. The sounds can be edited to suit your amplification and in layer edit mode you will find a total of 1000 of these. You can then store any sound to a user mode, making live use on the fly very easy.The four banks of sounds can be split or mixed and you can put any combination of these together for your convenience.Out the box the piano sound is great, but with a little editing of the eq section I was able to get it exactly to my liking.The sound focus means that you can bring the sound forward in the speaker to cut through the mix when playing in a band for your solo and then bring it back when required. There are many other edit functions, too many to list here, you can download the manual to see these.As a stage piano I think the NX is one of the best out there in the current market, I tried out all the latest models from the main manufactures and this one came out on top for me.

If you are looking for a piano but don't have a space for a grand piano then this is the one. It sounds very beautiful and still has elements of keyboard such as rhythm and different sounds of other instruments. The only thing is there is no built in speaker so you would need a keyboard amplifier for the output or a headset of course. Also There is no where to put song books and would have to buy a separate stands. Other than that, I enjoyed this piano very much!!