Is the RD-700GXF exactly the same as the RD-700GX with RD-700GX1 SuperNATURAL Piano Kit installed?

I think so, but have learned to never assume where music technology is concerned . . . .

Thanks,

Lawrence

By all accounts I've read that seems to be the case. Last week I spoke with the keys guy at the local Guitar Center and that was his understanding too (FWIW).


When you ass-u-me, you make an ass out of u and me.

One of the worst supervisors I ever had took incredible glee introducing me to that, with a dry erase board involved and everything. Ugh...


On Topic:

1. Does anyone here think the PHA II in the GX is better or worse than the PHA III in the HP-307?

2. Are PHA II/III definite "things" or can they have options such as ivory feel and escapement either present or missing?

3. The GX has PHA II with ivory feel & escapement, and the HP-307 PHA III with ivory feel & escapement. Am I correct in assuming (oops!) that the difference between the II and the III is a note repetition sensor? Is this a big deal or not?

4. I believe the SN kit for the GX includes piano voices that are not in the HP line or any of the other SN products, true?

1. I like PHA II just as much, maybe even slightly more than, PHA III. Action in RD is quieter...a product of the construction, not the action no doubt but worth mentioning.

2. FP-7 has PHA II without escapement or ivory. I'm not aware of any PHA III without escapement or ivory.

3. Yes, there is an additional sensor on the PHA III and I feel a difference but it is very slight indeed and er, difficult to even describe. Maybe PHA III is slightly more percussive, tiny bit less damped feeling. Or I might be imagining that. The faster repetition the PHA III enables is real enough though...it is a very fast, agile action.

4. SN on the RD certainly provides more piano voices than HP-307...I can't comment about other SN equipped Rolands.

Steve

I'm working from memory here, but I believe there is one sample set in he HP-307, but three in the RD-700GX, so it would be natural to expect more piano voices in the RD. Somewhere, a patch list comparing the two was recently posted.

Thanks Steve!


So if someone offered you a choice of either, you would pick the PHA II because of the feel, correct? How big of a deal is the third PHA III sensor in your opinion?


Anything about the RD in particular that you don't like?

Well, the case/structure the action is in plays a part. I can tell you I would probably pick PHA II in the RD over the PHA III in the HP-307 - this choice based mainly on noise because to be fair I find both are a pleasure to play. It would be an impossible decision between the RD and the PHA III in the V-Piano for instance. I'm not at all bothered by the additional sensor but this would certainly become significant to someone with the technical ability to exploit it. I think though that there must be some pretty talented players out there quite satisfied with PHA II.

About the RD-SN and not liking anything...mmm...Nothing intrinsically wrong with the APs that can't be tweaked out by using the piano designer function...as I've said before I set the touch offset to something approaching heavy to ameliorate against the tendency for the tonality of the APs to transition to a harsh metallic twang in the upper midrange at velocities that I personally feel are too low. And, I would install a further piano voice with a completely different basic sound signature...I like what is on the RD but the voices are a bit samey...Grand Piano1 is a little different in my opinion to the others but still, cut from mainly the same cloth I guess. In terms of the SN EPs I find them noisy when played using default effects/simulations and again, the Rhodes voices are basically similar. That said, though I initially found the SN EPs to be disappointing they have grown on me and they are very tweakable. There is no SN DX EP and the Yamaha Electric Grand (non-SN) emulation is ghastly. Don't ask me about clavs or organs...I never use these sounds at all so don't feel it would be right to comment.

But I do see the above as fairly minor gripes to be honest, it is a very versatile and rounded product. It is nice to finally find a hardware stage piano that really can hold its head up against a decent sample library.

Cheers,

Steve

It would be interesting to know if the RD700GX supernatural piano voices are usable via MIDI without problems.

As these stage pianos are intended for professional use, I would expect this, because almost all non-classical music productions use MIDI heavily.

Peter

What if there was the option to get either PHA II or III in the RD, would you have a hard time picking then?


So even the "SN06 UprightPiano" preset sounds highly similar to the grands? I too would certainly like as many different pianos as possible, but I'd settle for one really good one over a bunch of lame ones.


To me Yamaha seems to be coming at things from the physical side, making things that feel like a real AP when you play them, with somewhat less emphasis on quality sound. Roland seems to value the sound first and foremost, but doesn't slack in the keys department. For my own selfish reasons I highly prefer the second approach.

I really wish I knew what Roland was going to release next in terms of stage pianos with the SN sound and good keys. I watched some videos of the Fantom G8 the other day - the big color screen and the ARX plugins seem really nice.

SuperNATURAL Piano Kit
is it really that good?
someone here said

"you are getting a Gx because of this (SN Piano)"
Im quite happy with the Expressive Grand

but is it really worth the money?

Watch this video and report back:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSr1onqpEZk

hey.. both sounds are fine with my ears.. i dunno..
maybe i am not that familiar enough? LOL

may i ask you whats your input about the two..
what are the characteristics of each sound in your opinion?

thanks much

EDIT: The SN Piano is quite more rich in sound in the video.. but both are great for my ears..

I have the SN kit installed in my GX. Is it worth it? Definately. I was quite happy with the stock acoustic pianos, but the upgrade kit has opened a new door, leading to even greater enjoyment when playing the GX.
John Sr.

I suppose I'd pick the PHA III, probably due to the knowledge that it is technically capable of more...but in terms of pure feel under the fingers I don't have a strong preference...they are both very fit for their purpose.



Yes I find the upright very similar tonally. I see the whole SN thing as one piano but rendered several ways...there is more than just EQ differences but not really anything that develops into a completely different piano.

And to others wondering if the SN engine is worthy of all the fuss I'd say...yes. It is the biggest single advance in terms of pure tone generation that I have experience of in hardware pianos. To put this into context I have owned Roland RD-600, Korg SG-Pro-X, Yamaha P200, Yamaha P80, Yamaha GranTouch GT2, Yamaha Clavinova CVP-405, Kawai MP-9000, Kurzweil consoles, Technics console, Roland V-Piano, modules including GEM Real Piano, GEM RP-X, Kurzweil Micro-piano and Micro-ensemble, Yamaha P-50m, Roland P-55 etc etc.

The Supernatural sound is far ahead of these others in a technical sense...those that do not like it simply don't like it...and that is absolutely fair enough because you either make an emotional connection to the sound of a piano or you don't. But take it from me, TECHNICALLY, the Roland is the state of the art at the moment.

Cheers,

Steve

wow.. those words are teasing me to buy the SN kit.. lol
but hey.. K-RD700GX1 is not yet i think available here in our country.. dang

thanks for the input..

My personal opinion is that only difference between PHAII and PHAIII is the third sensor for quicker repetition (the same difference like yamaha's GH and GH3).

Does anybody here have picture of PHAIII action??

Here's one of the PHAII:



Probably highly similar? That looks like a sensor under there on that inclined PWB. Anyone know how the mechanism works?

Here is another picture of PHAII:



Maybe some brave RD700GX owner with screwdriver should make us few pictures...

THAT'S the one I was looking for, thanks! The gray thing is conveniently transparent, and they show the key both up and down.

Here's a video of it:


Combining your better picture and the video I think I see how it works. A little prong hanging down from the key apparently presses down on the white plastic thing, which has a metal weight on the other end. They use a conductive rubber plunger thing against the PWB for velocity sensing. From your picture I think they hinge the white thing differently for the white / black keys, which is good, as often white & black keys are treated the same, which gives the black keys a mechanical disadvantage.

The little prong looks kind of weak, and I really hate conductive rubber / PWB switches as they aren't gas tight and the rubber can leach and cause conductivity issues. But I guess everyone else is doing this too.

Great video I have to find the way how to slow it down step by step...

In Casio PX330 was conductive rubber too. Yamaha has some platic "bolster" with 2 or 3 contacts under rubber cap (I'll have a look in when my P155 will come ). There was one thread on this forum where are pictures of disassembled GH3 action. The only difference is Kawai AWA Pro / RM3 action which has real wooden keys. There are probably some kind of optical sensors.

What's very interesting on PHAII is their hammer splited in 2 parts. They've got plastic part connected by pivot with the metalic counterweight. So when the key is pressed then first only plastic part is moving and in middle of the track also metalic end is lifted up. It could probably simulate escapement effect. Otherwise I don't see any other mechanical part which should do that.

The sound is different as a stereo perspective and reverb but the general quality with the thin and tin sound is still there. Dewster, listen carefully to your DPBSD test with the velocity layers - there is no audible switch however when the velocities approach higher values, the sustain of the notes is extremely thin and artificial, probably too much postprocessing was applied to the sound. Now compare to any of the Ivory files and you will see that the sustain there is woody, consistent with the attack and much more full-bodied as a whole.

Hmm. Here is the layer test from various DPs with smoothly blended layers, all highly compressed to remove long term variation in loudness:

http://www.mediafire.com/?znlyttnkztx - RD-700GXF (GX w/ SN card)
http://www.mediafire.com/?mmdwgzjgnww - CP1
http://www.mediafire.com/?wdzzr3tjymy - CA63

They all get kind of "clangy" at the end, but nothing is jumping out at me as particularly obnoxious from the RD. The RD gets "clangy" more linearly and a bit earlier than the others do I suppose, but you could probably tame that with the velocity curve. Maybe I'm not listening for the right thing - perhaps someone with better trained ears could point the pluses and minuses here? Is this comparison group even valid?

I do notice issues with the RD SN sound in videos, something like a "chiff" or white-ish noise sound during louder attacks - it's really obvious in the "Always On My Mind" melody line in that video - but I haven't heard this in any MP3s so far so I'm assuming it's an artifact from the movie compression process.

Dewster, could you put also same isolated and normalized velocity layers tests for Synthogy Ivory for comparison? In the three files above I find this artificial note sustain in both CA63 and RD, but not in CP1 which to my ears sounds best in regard to the note sustain at mid and high velocities (however CP1 sounds most monotonous of the three, but is otherwise a great sample with no nasty postprocessing). Maybe that has something to do with the original pianos sampled, but I am currently listening to the Ivory tests (although not normalized) and I find the sound there more like that in CP1.

dewster, I'm sure you're already well aware of this, however assuming you are referring to the Roland video clips on YouTube, the audio/video quality can usually be increased considerably by selecting a higher resolution.

Ideally, you should download the maximum resolution video in MP4 format (there's lots of information about this procedure online), and perhaps even extract the audio track in order to assess the instrument's quality. And even then, as you note, the compression used in the video means that any analysis should be taken with a pinch of salt anyway.

Cheers,
James
x

They all use these excepted those that have optical sensors.
If it has optical sensors, be sure you see it in the advertising and be sure it is nearly unpayable ;-)
If you dont see it, then it has rubber contacts.

But there is an important difference: Some have only rubber coated with a conductive black color. This can wear out very soon.

Yamaha and Kawai, so far I have seen, use solid conductive plastic. This doesnt corode and wear is neglectable. Gas sealing is not required. This material is highly reliable. It is for example also used in servo potentiometers in heavy duty applications.

More probable to fail is the carbon contact on the Pcb. Once I had to repair broken contacts on my Yamaha CVP.
They lost connection to the PCB traces...

I have now also seen how Kawai does it. The carbon is very unlikely to break, because it is printed onto copper on a large area. Cannot loose contact.

A 0.1 - 0.2 mm thick conductive Plastic is glued into the rubber bubbles.
I am hopeful the glue will not become loose one day. If yes then this will last forever. If not, then I need to find a method to re-glue it.
But frankly said: I have never seen a report about an AWA keyboard with contact problems. So I think this will last forever ;-)

Sure CyberGene!

http://www.mediafire.com/?nozmymt2jnz - Ivory Bosey
http://www.mediafire.com/?mmyri5zqttt - Ivory Italian
http://www.mediafire.com/?vmn2l4wt4yh - Ivory Steinway

And to shake things up a bit, a kabillion real layers:

http://www.mediafire.com/?mmhwtkyytk2 - Vienna Imperial

Thanks! Yes, I've seen the conductive rubber / carbonized trace thing in remotes (some of which gum up and fail quite regularly, others hang in there).


Yes, conductive plastic can be quite reliable.


Either that or they will all crap out at once!

The Ivory Bosey sounds rather bright on its first layer. It would be interesting to know the velocity levels of the first layers. Obviously, they can't start ppp, they have to compromise. That's what I love about the VI, its expressiveness at the extremities is maintained.

I've not yet seen an obvious issue addressed. The RD-700GX with SuperNATURAL Kit installed will have it's expansion slot filled and no longer available while I assume an RD-700GXF would have an available expansion slot. That empty slot has value. So if they were equal price I'd want the "F" version

No, it's my understanding that the RD-700GXF is just an RD-700GX with the SN kit already installed in one of the two SRX expansion slots. That's it. The only reason to buy it is if its street price is below the GX and SN kit sold separately (or if you can't handle a screwdriver).

I would say it's a great time to get an RD700GX. I went to my local music store (Sam Ash in my case) and they said that they are selling out the RD700GX so they gave me a great price. I asked if the GXF was coming in and he said it was going to be $2800 but didn't know when to expect it.

Given the huge discount on the 700GX right now, I'm getting it and then I'll upgrade with the SN kit. My total should be in the low 2k range with this combo as copared to $2800 for the newer 700GXF model (unless of course you can get the new model at a significant discount). I'm extrememly excited because I've wanted the 700GX for about a year and the price is finally where I'm comfortable getting it.