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30th Jan 2004, 8:05am

Roland keyboard: FP5 review

Ages ago I posted a review of my Roland Rhodes 760 on Harmony Central. I was going to post a review of my new Roland FP5, but I never got around to it.

I don't have time to post a full review to Harmony Central just now, but a couple of people have asked me for my comments, so here is a brief review.

The FP5 is a slightly superior model to the earlier FP3. Pretty similar basic sounds I think. FP5 has built in speakers and USB, FP3 didn't.

It's a really great keyboard. My only gripes are that the pathetic 3 digit LED display is not really sufficient for everything the keyboard does, and the key action seems just a little too heavy for my liking. It's very nice looking, and the sounds are really excellent. I think perhaps the decay on sustained notes in the basic piano sounds is slightly too fast (matter of taste I guess), but otherwise it's very realistic. Along with the basic stuff it has a whole range of MIDI GM2 sounds, and some more besides. The session partner is fun to play around with, but not really my kind of thing.

There seems to be a limited number of setups you can save, which is a bit annoying for live work.

The USB midi port works well.

I'd definitely recommend the keyboard, I use it as my main instrument in my band. It cost me just under 1500 euros, so it shouldn't be too far away from that price in dollars.

Oh, lastly it's damn heavy - but what can you expect with fully weighted keys. Make sure you have a decent stand.