Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Does someone know Orla Stage?

And what about this brand: Orla, it is Italian.

Has someone tried one of these pianos?
http://www.orla.it/eng/products.asp?...79000393C807AC

I'm guessing all the models in their line-up use basically the same tone generator, which appears to be fixed at 64-note polyphony.

Most new digitals are up to 128 note, with some going as high as 256.

If I'm not being too inquisitive, why are you interested in these instruments as opposed to something by more established makers like Casio, Yamaha, Roland and Kawai?

Snazzy

Just because I have no more money

Does someone know Orla Stage?

I think I met her once...

That crazy button accordion arranger is really something to behold!

http://www.orla.it/eng/products.asp?id=E0CE50E44DDF9846B20537AFF2F9E7D2

But the sounds are terrible. The pianos have a really short decay time, the chapel organ is too chuffy (sounds like Zamfir), the choir voice is too stretched - I could obviously go on and on.

Probably a total of 1k sample memory in there. Not their fault however - DP sample ROM is apparently more difficult to manufacture than plutonium.

Might have impressed someone fifteen years ago.

Ok, apparently it is not a serious option...

Thanks for your responses

Not necessarily, Dewster is notoriously critical of DP sounds and would probably say much the same about Yamaha, Roland, Korg and Casio sounds.

They sounded OK to me, the pianos certainly aren't the best available but the best are also a lot more expensive than these - presumably anyway I haven't been able to find a price. They use Fatar actions too which are good quality.

More important though, what do you think of the sounds, it's you who will be playing and listening to them after all! They seem to be an established make for organs if not pianos. If you can find some to try I'd at least consider them but I'd be cautious about buying unseen!

BTW 64 note polyphony is lowish by todays standards but it's OK, the Korg SP250 only has 60 note but it's a very nice instrument.

No disrespect, but no, no, a thousand times NO! The piano sound on any decent Yamaha, Roland, Korg, Casio, etc. is 1000% better than what I'm hearing on the Orla sample page. I mean, listen to that piano, the decay drops like a rock and they are doing their best to cover it up with quick notes and lots of key-up / pedal-up damping. It's just atrocious.

In fact, all of the sounds on the Orlas are some of the worst, cheesiest sounding patches I've ever heard on anything. I'm talking 8-bit Fairlight territory *shudder*.

Help me out here people, this isn't just me doing my usual rant, go to this page and see if you can find anything that you would ever want to intentionally listen to for ANY length of time:

http://www.orla.it/eng/audio.asp


I thought Fatar was an almost universally hated piano action?


Excellent advice.

http://www.youtube.com/user/MusikSchmidt#p/search/0/ty172NSKqAU

Decent stereo demo of it...I've heard a lot worse!

Steve

PS, have just played some of the demos on Orla's site, link posted by Dewster above...some of the sounds are excruciating!

Yes but you said the same thing about the piano on the Korg SP250 which many consider to be a great sounding piano. I'd agree the Orla piano doesn't sound good but if Sarasa is on a tight budget (and they apparently are) and these are cheap they might be worth considering. Actually I quite like the Piano2/Honky Tonk voice and the organs. The church organ doesn't sound remotely like a pipe organ but it's still quite a nice noise.

As for Fatar I have no experience of them but I was advised on a couple of forums and via reviews that Fatar/Studiologic make good controllers and supply quality actions to other manufacturers.

Korg uses Fatar actions, which is one of the reasons I avoid them.

They used to use Yamaha actions, back when Yamaha bought 40% of Korg's stock, and Korg even produced a few FM synths at that time.

Nowadays, and back on their own, they've taken a step backwards (no doubt to cut costs} and gone to using Fatar.

Not a good move, I'm afraid.

Snazzy

Interesting, I'd not heard that can you reveal your source? I'd heard rumours that they used Yamaha actions but I've also heard it disputed.

Incidentally, from my reading the Korg RH3 keyboard is generally rated as excellent especially for the price.

For instance, I believe pretty much everyone knocks Nord for using Fatar actions.

Several music dealers have told me about Korg's move to Fatar...one of the contributors to another forum (Synth Zone) I'm on is a dealer, and he confirmed it as well.

The Korg M1 used a Yamaha keybed (DX-7's) as did their 88 note weighted action(but not hammer) T1 and subsequent models(similar to Yamaha's KX-88).

They have been slowly replacing the Yamaha actions on their other instruments.

I thought most people knew that Korg used Fatar. The biggest drawback from outsourcing, is the lack of control over quality.

Snazzy

It's all relative.

Most, if not all, DP piano sounds aren't very good compared to what the same or less money can get you on a PC (the dewster's v1.0 rant).

The SP250 piano sound isn't very good compared to other DPs in its price range (IMO).

The Orla piano sound isn't very good compared to anything in any price range, down to and almost including free toys (IMO). To me, it sounds almost as bad as the SoundFont piano used by the Windows MIDI player.