I'm buying a digital piano VERY shortly, but for the sake of curiosity (extenuating circumstances dictate that the answers might not change anything in my purchase) I'm curious about the different output functions. I'm fairly newbish in the market.

Terms

MIDI - understood, controlling MIDI etc. etc.
USB-MIDI - What does this mean?
USB - ?

I'm looking at composing, and was hoping to find a digital piano that could directly input what I'm playing, as I'm playing, into my computer, like in some sort of actual audio format as opposed to midi. Midi being a personal peeve, I find it deadening to any life I try to put in the music I write. I'm looking at buying a Roland fp-5 for sake of it not being overly expensive (i'm a student), and when I asked the salesman at long and mcquade about pianos with direct non-midi inputs, he pointed out a yamaha, and the roland which I had already been observing. The yamaha out of my taste, I decided on the roland. Yet, when I check the back of the piano, and on the net, it indicates "USB-midi". I'll prolly end up buying the fp-5 anyways, but...

Is there a such thing as a digital piano with a direct input (like .wav or something)? And if so does the Roland have it with its "USB-midi" interface?

Hi there,
I checked out the web site, and what I learned is:
FP5 has built in USB MIDI interface. All you need is a USB cable and hook it up to your computer. After installing driver on your computer, you can use your computer to record midi messages and playback midi songs on your digital piano. Meaning, your computer can record the notes you are playing and playback those notes. If you have MIDI software like SONAR, Digital Orchestrater, etc.. you can edit those notes and playback and print it out.. whatever you want.
The audio function is line-in function. You can hook up your stereo output to the piano and it can act like small audio system. You can hear songs from speakers and you can play along at the same time. You can not load wave files to the piano. ( you need sample player or synthesizer for this..)
Easy way to record your music playing would be to have some sort of audio recorder or computer sound card audio-in and record the music from the piano(with or without mixing with external stereo source).
Hope this help.

Thx for the obvious effort you put in responding ...computer sound card audio-in...like the USB port of the piano linking to the sound card audio-in? I think that makes sense

oh..
What I mean is audio out of the piano to audio in of your computer sound card.. connected with regular audio cable.. and record your music at the computer..
Just like a tape recorder..
USB port is useful with midi only..
Good thing is that you can hook up your lap top to the piano directly with USB cable.. You don't need additional USB-MIDI interface unit.(traditional digital pianos need this interface to hook up to a computer without MIDI port..i.e. laptops)