I see it as a major flaw as well. And our RD-700NX not having at least a simple MIDI recorder, as well as MIDI => WAV rendering (even though it can play MIDI and record WAV, but not do both at the same time) has me shopping around for used cheap laptops. Grrr.

I was even thinking of building a simple MIDI recorder / player with an FPGA evaluation board (I have a few laying around on my workbench). No need for any MIDI protocol intelligence if it simply deals with bytes and timing. I was thinking it could store the MIDI byte along with a 24 bit timing value, with the timing value used to retrieve the byte at playback. 0.1 ms resolution would give a longest possible silence of ~27 minutes before the 24 bit timer rolls over.

One can get around the need for file system support by only using it as a real-time record / playback device - record the DP, play back to a PC sequencer, edit on PC, record the PC sequencer output, play back on DP. Kind of a MIDI mule (which is what I was going to name it if I built it).

Perhaps I'm missing something here, but what would be the point? Couldn't you just connect the DP and PC directly? If you're doing to build a portable MIDI player/recorder, it needs to support USB storage in my opinion.

Do it man - the cat's getting bored.

Cheers,
James
x

DP is upstairs, PCs are downstairs. It's a bit less effort bringing the NX to the PCs (rather than vice versa) but still more than I like to expend for quick tests and the like.


USB file system support means an imbedded processor and Linux.

A simple real-time player / recorder is just a bidirectional serial port, buffering in RAM, transfer to / from SPI FLASH, and a few state machines. I could probably build it in a week or so, but it's enough effort that I keep putting it off. I'm kind of shocked that there isn't at least one inexpensive commercial solution, but I guess laptops killed the portable sequencer market.

Hello everyone,

Just to say I went for the FP4F after all for all the reasons mentioned above, I have ordered it and it's already on its way from Germany.

I'm acting like a baby lately, I can't wait to get it!

A big thanks to everyone for pointing the (perhaps) obvious to an untrained eye.

Good luck with your new board hypercube, I'm sure you'll enjoy it! What I love about my FP4F is the weight...it's really very light for an 88-note weighted digital piano. My back is already thanking me for it.

However - and I knew this before I bought it - the action itself is quite 'heavy'. If you're looking to strengthen your fingers it will certainly do this...I find it a breeze playing pieces on other keyboards once I've mastered them on the FP4F. I'm seeing this as a positive at the moment!

Thanks sh1!

I happen to suffer from a sailing back injury at the moment so I'm already thanking fate for making me choose the light version ;-)

I know, the original FP-4 felt heavy to the fingers but also realistic which was also a plus for me. The FP-4 is the only one I could get my hands on so I suppose I'm waiting for something similar from the FP-4F too. Playing on acoustic pianos is something I'm working on again; plus I'll move my acoustic upright Yamaha to my place, at some point. So I was looking for a heavy DP in the first place...