Roland FP-E50 Review

This is my review on the Roland FP-E50 digital piano. Does my Yamaha DGX-670 finally have some competition?  We’ll have to see . . . Now the first thing I need to mention is I didn’t buy this piano, but my local Long & McQuade store did me a big favour and let me rent this piano even though it’s not part of their normal rental pool, so thanks a bunch to them you can check them out at www.long-mcquade.com.   

Where Does It Fit In The FP Line?

So where does the FP-E50 fit into the well known Roland FP line of portable digital pianos?  Actually, it’s kind of out on its own, because while it shares a lot of the most important features of the FP line, it also has some very unique features that the rest of the FP line does not.  Given its feature set & price point, I’m expecting the FP-E50 will take away a LOT of sales from the FP-30X and even the FP-60X; personally, I’m not sure why anyone would buy an FP-30X anymore – we’ll see why in this review.  

So just to quickly outline the Roland FP line: it starts with the FP-10 at only around $600USD, which is a pretty bare bones piano as far as connectivity, number of sounds and user interface go; BUT the FP-10 does offer some great quality basic sounds from Roland’s Supernatural Sound Engine, and also offers Roland’s fully weighted & graded PHA4 triple sensor hammer action with escapement, so for $600USD, that’s probably the most realistic acoustic piano action money can buy, along with some pretty high end piano sounds.  Then the FP-30X at about $750USD has the same PHA4 action, and adds some much needed connectivity and some more sounds, but only a SLIGHTLY better user interface (to be honest I’ve always been quite critical of the FP-30X’s user interface for the price, and . . . my opinion hasn’t changed).   Then the next in line is the FP-60X at about $1000USD which also shares the PHA4 action but adds even more sounds, a mic input, and a much improved user interface over the FP-30X.  Then the FP-90X is the top of the line at double the FP-60X at around $2000USD; the FP-90X is in a totally different league than the other FP pianos so I’m not even going to talk about it in this review. 

So where does the FP-E50 land?  Price wise, it lands right in between the FP-30X and FP-60X at about $900USD.  So . . . why do I think this piano is going to cannibalize the sales of the FP-30X and the FP-60X?  Well . . . it has the SAME PHA4 action, and Supernatural piano sounds, but for only $100USD more than the FP-30X, it has a feature set that quite frankly blows the FP-30X away, and even tops the FP-60X feature set in almost all areas (except for the speakers). 

Feature Summary

So to quickly sum up what you get with the Roland FP-E50

• Roland’s PHA4 triple sensor fully weighted and graded hammer action with escapement
• 256 notes of polyphony
• Over 1000 Sounds, coming not only from the Supernatural sound engine already found on the FP line, but ALSO from Roland’s expandable Zencore sound engine
• If you’re into tweaking your piano sounds, there is piano designer functionality built right in
• You get some really cool arranger and accompaniment features that you do find on other arranger keyboards, but then you get a couple of unique and REALLY cool features: a unique interactive mode AND a built in chord sequencer which quite frankly I find amazing!
• You get pretty much every type of connectivity you would need, including LR line outs, Bluetooth in for streaming, a mic input with effects and even harmonies AND an audio interface built into the USB to host port which is huge
• You get 256 “Scenes” which are basically registrations to save and quickly recall custom settings
• AND you get a GREAT user interface with lots of panel buttons and sliders, and a large menu screen

Step 1: Update The Firmware!

OK I rarely talk about this kind of stuff, but there are some large bug fixes in the firmware on the FP-E50, so the first thing you should do is press MENU, then INFORMATION and check the current version your piano shipped with; this piano came with version 1.01 when I rented it.  Then compare that to the most current update available on Roland’s website (if you google: “roland fp-e50 firmware update” you’ll find the right site).  At the time of this video, the current version was 1.1.1 and it had some fixes for things I ran into while preparing this review.  So if you need to run the update, download the zip file from this site, and then copy the “.BIN” file to the root folder of a USB flash drive; then with the power off on the piano, connect the flash drive and power it on WHILE HOLDING DOWN the Mic FX button.  Then you will see messages on the screen as the update gets underway (once you see “UPDATE” on the screen, you can let go of the button).  It’s NOT fast, it takes about 5 minutes.  Once it says “Update Finished”, turn the piano off and on again, and then you can check the version again in the INFORMATION menu to confirm it worked. 

User Interface & General Functions

On the left side you have 2 wheels, and there’s a handy “wheel mode” button right beside the wheels; this button actually does 2 things (and it’s not obvious without reading the manual); but there are 2 “modes” the wheels can operate in: a default mode which is the usual pitch bend and modulation, and then there is an assignable mode, where you can choose between some cool assignable options, like controlling layer volume, rotary speed for organs, mic fx and all sorts of on the fly manipulation of the accompaniment such as relative part volumes, or even how busy the accompaniment is. 

So to CONFIGURE what assignable options you want, you press and HOLD this button until the menu appears where you can make your selections; and then you can switch back and forth between the default mode and the assignable mode (the button will light up while you’re in the assignable mode). 

Then the next section is a group of volume sliders – this is awesome, and it’s something that in my opinion should be mandatory on every piano in existence; simple easy ways to adjust all your common relative volumes on the fly without having to deep dive into a menu (this is actually a feature you see on stage pianos like my Yamaha CK88).  There’s a master volume, a volume for your keyboard voice, another for the accompaniment, another for song volume if you’re playing back a song from the piano’s onboard memory or from a USB flash drive, and there’s also a volume slider for the mic input which is awesome to have at your fingertips.   One thing missing here though?  A slider for a layered volume would have been super nice (although you can configure the wheels to take care of that if you want).

Then you have a bank of really nice soft touch backlit buttons (another handy stage keyboard feature) where you can navigate between your MAIN voice categories; and if you press the same main category button repeatedly, it will move between that category’s sub categories which you can use to speed up your voice selection.  Now note that there are some numbers on the panel below these buttons – just remember that for later in the review.  Above those buttons you have a “one touch piano” to quickly return you to the main Concert Piano voice, there’s an ambience button to turn ambience (which is Roland’s word for reverb) on or off, or like many of the other buttons, you can long press it to deep dive into a menu to make edits to the reverb choices available.  Note that this is a GLOBAL reverb, so it will toggle reverb on or off for EVERYTHING, including the mic. 

Then there’s the split and dual button; not sure I’m a fan of combining all of this into one spot, but . . .if you press it once, you’re in split mode (not sure why they chose a synth bass as the default but you can change that of course); and to set the split point it’s easy and intuitive, just hold the SPLIT button and press a key where you want the split point to be.  Then to enter Dual mode (which is layering 2 voices), you just press the button again; it defaults to strings, but you can of course edit that as well.  Then we have a transpose button, and I really like how Roland implemented this – you can set a transpose setting by holding this button and pressing any note, and it will save a transpose setting relative to middle C; so for example, if I press D it will transpose up 2 steps.  But the cool part is that will be saved, and then you can turn that setting on or off quickly by pressing the Transpose button again.   Then we have a Favorites button; this is a cool extra feature on the FP-E50 where you can easily store and quickly recall just your favorite tones.   This is different from the scenes which are basically registrations – they not only store a voice, but store all your other settings that you’ve customized.    

The next section of buttons is for working with the rhythms and accompaniment & the chord sequencer, as well as your “Scenes” or registrations.  I’m going to skip this section for now because I’ll be going over it in detail later.  Then we have the screen and the menu navigation buttons to the right of it that I already went over. 

Then on the right side we have the menu button – you can long press this to enter Bluetooth pairing mode.  If you just press the menu button then you have the following options:

• BlueTooth for adjusting some settings or to enter pairing mode
• Input volume; this is where you can customize 3 input volume levels: the Bluetooth input volume, the aux in volume and the USB audio in volume – the only one of these you’d ever likely need to adjust is the USB audio in; that’s because if you’re using the Bluetooth or 1/8” audio in options, you can just adjust the volume on your device; but with the USB audio in, you won’t be ABLE to adjust the volume on your device
• The next item is Roland’s piano designer where you can fine tune your piano sounds by raising the lid, adjusting types of resonance, etc – I never do this kind of stuff myself, but it’s there if it’s something you’re interested in, and having it built into the piano is a nice feature; with the FP-30X you can only do this using an app on an iPad
• Then we have a menu for Scene Editing and another for the chord sequencer; I’ll be going over both of these in detail later in the review.
• Then in the system menu you have some submenus:
  • General: you can adjust things like touch sensitivity, master tuning, what scene you want loaded when you turn the piano on
  • Sound: You can adjust the hammer response – a larger number here is supposed to introduce a delay between when you press the key and hear a sound (I tried it at both extremes and couldn’t hear a difference) and some speaker options:
    • Speaker switch just turns the speakers on or off
    • If speaker auto mute is on then the speakers turn off when headphones are connected
    • There is a separate EQ for the downward facing speakers if you have the piano on a desk vs. a stand
  • Equalizer to customize the EQ
  • Metronome setup (not sure why this is in here, because you can get at it from a button on the panel as well)
• Song Utility
  • This is to work with your audio recordings either on internal memory or a connected USB flash drive (you can rename, delete or copy songs; I will be going over that in a bit)
• Utility
  • You can factory reset, backup or restore your default settings, format a flash drive and also import or export scenes or a setup for your piano

To the right of the menu button we have a metronome button that you can press to start and stop the metronome or long press to configure the metronome for time signature, patterns etc.  Then there is a tempo button where you can press it to adjust the tempo using the arrow buttons, or you can long press it and then use the ENTER button to tap a tempo.   Then there is a section of buttons for working with songs (play/stop, ff/rew, rec etc) which I will be going into later in this review.  Then there is a mic FX button where you can configure your mic effects – as with many of the other buttons, you press the mic fx button to toggle the effects on and off and long press it to customize your effects.  I’ll go a bit more into the mic effects a bit later.  Then we have the power button on the far right and that’s it for the user interface. 

I have to say this is a great user interface; even if I had NO interest in ANY of the TONS of additional features that the FP-E50 offers over the FP-30X?  I would STILL GLADLY pay an extra $100-$150USD to have a decent user interface on the FP-E50!

Key Action

The Voices

So what is Zencore?  Well I’m definitely not a specialist on this sound engine, but it is a cross platform synthesizer engine you’ll find in a number of different Roland products, the Roland Fantom, RD-88 stage piano, as well as the Jupiter and Juno series.  And one of the biggest benefits of the Zencore engine is that it is expandable; you can import new sounds from “Roland Cloud”, and there are also Roland apps and hardware that allow you to create your own sounds from scratch which can also be imported into Zencore keyboards. 

So to sum up the over 1000 built in sounds, you get:

• 38 pianos
• 34 electric pianos
• 36 strings
• 184 organ and pad tones
• 726 synth/other tones (which includes 64 drum kits)

And for those who like to fine tune their piano sounds, Roland’s “Piano designer” is built right in to the piano, so for the Supernatural sound engine voices, you can do things like raise the lid of an acoustic piano etc; with the Roland FP-30X, you need an iPad app to do the same thing.  

So I already went over how you can navigate through sounds in the user interface part of the review, so let’s go ahead and hear a handful of the sounds.  Since I’m more of a piano, electric piano and organ guy those are the voices I will focus on, I’m definitely NOT a synth player so I won’t be demoing any of those.  One thing I will quickly demonstrate though, is how much better the acoustic piano sounds with the Supernatural engine are than the piano sounds that don’t come from that engine; that makes it super clear how awesome the Supernatural engine is for piano sounds.  And that’s fine; that’s actually what makes the FP-E50 such a cool piano – you’re getting the best of Roland’s pianos, AND you’re getting an expandable synth engine that excels at the non piano sounds as well; so . . . let’s check it out!

Connectivity

So for connectivity, the FP-E50 kind of knocks it out of the park, it has pretty much everything you could ask for:

• L/R line outputs for proper line level connections to external audio equipment, like amps, PAs, mixers etc. 
• 2 headphone ports (on the front); something cool that Roland has always done is include both standard headphone jacks – a ¼” and a 1/8”
• A generic ¼” sustain pedal port + triple pedal port for a Roland triple pedal unit.  Now included pedals on most digital pianos are usually the cheap little plastic switches, my Yamaha CK88 stage piano didn’t even include one of those, but . . . the little pedal that comes with the FP-E50 is kind of the cheesiest included pedal I’ve ever seen; I’m not sure why Roland even bothered actually – you will DEFINITELY want to be getting at least a generic sustain pedal, or even better the Roland DP-10 pedal which supports half pedaling
• 1/8” audio in for streaming in audio from a device like an iPad
• USB to host port for transmitting MIDI to a connected device, but the cool thing here is that Roland is finally catching up to Yamaha and is including and audio interface built into this port which is a HUGE feature.   This not only allows you to send high quality direct audio (including anything being streamed in, the mic audio etc) direct to a recording app on a device, either a DAW app or even the camera app on your phone to easily make high quality piano videos; but the other thing this does, is if you aren’t happy with the 1,000 + sounds on the FP-E50 and want to trigger MIDI sounds in a sound bank app on a device using the FP-E50?  The audio from that app will come straight back through to the piano speakers, headphone outs and line outs . . . without any lag! 
• USB flash drive that allows you to move various files including song files on and off the piano, and also allows you to do firmware updates. 
• Bluetooth (Audio Only-for now?)
  • both the manual and Roland’s website say that the FP-E50 supports both BlueTooth audio (for streaming audio in from a device) as well as BlueTooth MIDI to send MIDI data wirelessly TO a device; the Bluetooth audio works great, I’ve been using that a bunch while renting the FP-E50, but . . . a Bluetooth MIDI connection does not show up on my iPad or iPhone, and I have heard a number of other reviewers say the same thing. 
  • Maybe this will show up in a future firmware update; I’m not too concerned about that anyways, I don’t use MIDI much and when I have tried Bluetooth MIDI it is ALWAYS too laggy to be of any use – I ALWAYS use a cable when working with MIDI. 
• Mic input WITH gain and a bunch of effects; and I’m super impressed with the mic connectivity, especially the gain – it is SUPER loud compared to the mic inputs I’ve used on my Yamaha PSR-EW425 keyboard and even my Yamaha CK88 stage piano; both the Yamahas do work great, BUT they don’t have quite the volume level at their disposal that this Roland has, so . . . well done Roland.  Keep in mind though, that there is no phantom power, so you can’t use a condenser mic with the FP-E50 it has to be a dynamic mic.  

Rhythms & Accompaniment

To choose a style, you can move your arrow on the screen to the category and then navigate by category and then move it down to the style itself to move within the category.  And if you want to see all the styles available within a category at once, just press the ENTER key.  To customize how chord detection works and that type of thing, it’s kind of surprisingly buried in a menu that you need to deep dive into; press MENU – SCENE EDIT – ARRANGER SETTING; now you have access to customize the arranger features. 

So for chord detection, the FP-E50 is a very unique keyboard (and in a good way if you’re a piano player like me as opposed to a hardcore arranger keyboard player), and that is because unlike any arranger keyboard I know of, with the exception of “Easy” mode, no matter what chord detection mode you choose, you always hear what your left hand is playing!  On any other arranger I know of, that typically only happens in some type of a “full keyboard detection” mode; with all other modes you’d be using your left hand to trigger chords without actually hearing the notes your left hand is playing.  So on the FP-E50 you have the following options:

• Standard will only detect notes played below the split point, so in your left hand; see how if I play a full chord in my right hand, nothing is detected; most arranger keyboards will work similarly to this mode, except you wouldn’t be hearing what you play in your left hand; and you will only get a “full chord” recognized if you play 3 notes (example: if you play just C&G you will get a “C (3)” chord (“C with no 3rd”)
• Intelligent is the same as standard except when you play less than a full chord in your left hand it will guess at a chord for you, so if I play C-G it will give me a C Major
• Easy: This is only available in split mode, and this is the only mode where you don’t hear what your left hand is playing.  And this is one of the modes I really dislike on any arranger keyboard where you have 2 key shortcuts to trigger types of chords where the keys actually have nothing to do with the actual notes in the chord (to me this is just training you in some bad habits – it’s much better to actually LEARN how to properly finger chords).  Whatever the right most note is that you play will be your root note.  So for example a C note alone gives you a C major chord, that’s fine – but for a C minor, you also press any black key to the left of your C; for a 7^th chord, you press any white key to the left of your root note. 
• Pianist: chords are detected from the entire range of the keyboard, but only if you play at least 3 keys 
• Pianist2 is an interesting option; it works the same as pianist but will also include any notes that are still sustaining in determining what chord is being played

Which mode works best for me might differ from song to song depending on what I want to play, but I would probably use either intelligent or Pianist2 most of the time. 

Interactive Mode

This is super cool; if you turn on interactive mode, then the volume of the accompaniment will increase or decrease (it is subtle, but it definitely does) relative to how hard you are playing in your right hand; and depending on how you play in your left hand, the accompaniment will adjust to how busy you are playing (there are 3 levels, simple, normal and “extravagant”).  So if I play simply in my left and then start playing a crazy bass line you’ll hear the accompaniment change.  This is really cool because other higher end arranger keyboards may have a similar feature, but they usually will just be moving back and forth between the accompaniment variations based on your playing, but with the FP-E50 it will adjust WITHIN a variation so that’s super cool. 

Chord Sequencer

Ok so now on to one of the most unique features on the FP-E50, and one that I was super excited to check out, because it is RIGHT up my alley – and THAT is the chord sequencer.  So I am big into playing along with backing tracks for songs; I’ve bought premade ones off of awesome websites like karaoke-version.com, and I’ve also used programs like iReal Pro or Band in A Box to make my own backing tracks.  So in case you’re not familiar with programs like Band In A Box, it allows you to input a chord chart for an entire song, and then choose various accompaniment instruments and styles that will play that chord chart for you – you can go into as much detail as you like customizing those tracks buy adding in fills, breaks etc to come as close to the actual song as you like.  Well the chord sequencer on the FP-E50 basically amounts to having an app like band in a box . . . BUILT INTO THE KEYBOARD!   You can input a full chord chart, and do a bunch of customization to it, and then . . . CHOOSE A STYLE ON THE FP-E50 AND PLAY THE CHORD CHART WITH THAT STYLE!  And, you can also still take advantage of the built in accompaniment functionality like interactive mode and variations.  THIS IS A MASSIVE FEATURE! 

(To see this feature in action instead of reading about it, go to the YouTube video and find the appropriate link in the description)

So there are 3 different options for using the chord sequencer:

• Preset A: these are presets that are like “mini” songs /chord charts that are named after, and as such intended to be used with styles on the piano.  So for example, you can select a style like “Piano Ballad” on the main menu, and then press the SELECT button, and from the PRESET A list scroll down to “Piano Ballad” and choose that.  Then when you press ENTER, I get the chord sheet on the screen. 
  PIC OF PIANO BALLAD CHORD CHART
  Now, I can turn on the chord sequencer and then when I press the play button to start the accompaniment, since the chord sequencer light is lit, instead of the FP-E50 trying to detect chords I am playing, it will ignore what I’m playing and just play through the chords as shown.  And within these chord sheets, there can also be fills, and changes in the variation (and you can change the variation manually if you want as well).  Also note that the interactive mode can also be used in the chord sequencer to modify the accompaniment to match your playing intensity.  Keep in mind you don’t HAVE to use matching styles with these chord chart presets, they’re just made to match but feel free to switch them up.  
• Preset B: Instead of “mini-songs” named after styles, these are common chord progressions from various music styles that will play over and over with any accompaniment style you choose; this is a GREAT tool for practicing solos or comping styles
• Preset C: These are user presets/chord charts; you can create these from scratch, or start with any of the built in presets and start modifying them and then save them to the user section

In the YouTube version of this review (link at the bottom of the screen) I do an in-depth demo of editing an existing preset chord chart as well as creating a new chord chart from scratch; if you’re interested in that, go to the YouTube video and look in the description for the link to “Chord Sequencer”.

Creating / Editing Charts In Excel

You can actually create chord charts in Excel and save them as CSV files to import into the piano!   Now I have to admit I was pretty excited about that ability – I was ASSUMING it would be way easier to edit these in Excel than on the keyboard . . . but as it turns out, editing these on the keyboard is actually not that bad; if I owned an FP-E50, I’d probably get pretty fast making these after some practice. 

And the other side of this is . . . from what I can tell so far, editing these files in Excel is NOT very intuitive after all!   Now I do have to say that I could not find ANY documentation on Roland’s site (or anywhere else online) on what the proper file format is for these files, so to try and get an idea I exported one of the existing chord charts from the piano TO a CSV format so that I could see what it looked like (hit MENU – UTILITY – IMPORT/EXPORT; then you mark the one(s) you want to export by highlighting it and pressing (2), then I press ENTER to save it to the flash drive).

So here’s what this looks like in Excel – so looking at the file format, the piano editor is a far better visual representation of the song than what you see in excel, where it appears that instead of seeing chords in a nice sequence, they get broken up into new sections whenever there is a variation regardless of where it is in the song, so . . . at least for me? . . .  this is pretty hard to read.  What would REALLY make this feature even SUPER amazing is if Roland was to create a standalone app for pcs or tablets with a nice visual editor that could then generate these files to export back to the piano.   So . . hope you heard that Roland!

Songs

This is where you can record and playback songs (or backing tracks if you have some saved on your flash drive that you want to play along with).   Now there is no built in MIDI recorder on the FP-E50 which is rather unusual; you can ONLY record audio tracks (while this is a bit unusual it’s right up my alley, I always tend to prefer working just with audio tracks than MIDI files). 

If you long press the SONG button you get a piano demo (I think this is included for stores to play when customers want to hear the piano, but other than that, it’s kind of useless).  When you just press the SONG button there are three sections: a preset section with 3 songs; once again, I’m not sure what the point of these are, they are just songs you can listen to if you feel like it; then the next section is all the songs you have stored in internal memory, and then the 3^rd section is all of the songs you have stored on your flash drive. 

So to record a song, you record it first to internal memory, then if you want you can move it to the flash drive either as a way to back it up or to then move it to another device to share or work with further.  And when you record a song, it records EVERYTHING you hear; the piano, the accompaniment, any audio you’re streaming IN to the piano via BlueTooth, the mic etc.  It’s super simple to do; just press “Record” – you can start the recording by pressing the flashing play button, starting the rhythm or starting to play the piano itself.   Then just press stop to stop the recording.  Then just press play to take a listen . . . .  Then if you want to move these files off the piano to the flash drive, press MENU, then SONG UTILITY, then you can rename songs, delete songs or choose COPY and it will be copied from the onboard memory to the flash drive.   I ABSOLUTELY LOVE the simplicity of this it’s AWESOME!

Mic FX

You can toggle the mic FX on and off just by pressing the Mic FX button, and to edit them you long press it.  When I first saw that I though “that’s a great way to have implemented this; you can quickly and easily turn off the effects to talk to people in between songs, and then turn them back on for the next song”; BUT . . . I noticed I was still hearing some reverb, and sure enough – when you turn off the mic fx, it turns off all of the effects . . . EXCEPT for the reverb; so to get rid of all the effects on the mic INCLUDING reverb it takes TWO buttons presses; the mic FX button to disable or enable all effects BUT reverb; and then the ambience button to disable or enable reverb on EVERYTHING (including the mic).

But anyway on to what the effects are (and there is some VERY cool stuff in here) – harmony,  voice transformer and vocoder. 

Harmony – so the first option in harmony is the ambience send – this is how much reverb to apply to the mic.  Then for types there are a bunch of options for duets, trios, quintets etc, and you even have options for how close to your voice the harmonies are.  Harmony level allows you to adjust the relative volume of the harmonies, and direct level is the relative volume of your voice before the effects are applied.  Then you can also configure a chorus level as well as a compressor and a noise suppressor.  Now in testing this out, I’m not a great singer so maybe that’s why, but I actually find it super easy to lose my place and go totally off key if the harmonies are too loud or too “busy”.  If I was to use this piano to perform with, I would probably stick to one of the duets or trios, and would probably need to reduce the harmony volume a bit, but wow what a great feature this is to have

Voice Transformer – with this you can bump your voice up or down an octave (for someone like me with virtually no range this could come in handy).  Then the “formant” option is to make your voice more feminine or masculine; to be honest to me this just sounds kind of like a robot effect as opposed to masculine or feminine.  Then the “robot switch” option will remove any pitch from your voice and make it all monotone – kind of strange but its there if you want to use it.   Then you can also have a harmony setting, and apply compressor, chorus and noise reduction.   

Vocoder – this allows you to sing or talk and specify what notes you want to set your vocal pitch to by playing the piano. 

Scenes (Registrations)

OK so now onto the Scenes, which are basically Roland’s word for registrations to save your current setup.  There are 256 scenes you can save which is awesome, and it’s SUPER easy to do.  So the first group of scenes are actually defaults you can play with; they match the names of the rhythm styles and also the built in chord sequencer charts; so basically, you can choose one of these and it will not only load that style, but it will ALSO load the corresponding chord sequencer chart (same thing we did manually in the Chord Sequencer section), as well as a “style appropriate” voice setup as well.  Then the next bank contains the user scenes that you’ve created and saved. 

As I mentioned, it’s super easy to use; just make all the changes you want to pretty much ANYTHING on the keyboard (voices, style, chord sequencer chart, mic settings etc) and then just LONG press SCENE (be careful not to just press and release scene or all your changes can be lost easily).  Then you can give it a name, and that’s it! And to recall ALL those settings, just press “Scene” and go to the user preset section, choose your scene and all your settings will be restored!

Other Things To Mention

Speakers

Portability

While the FP-E50 is lighter than my colossal Yamaha DGX-670 (which weighs in at FIFTY pounds), it is still on the heavy side for a portable piano at 37 pounds and it is pretty bulky.  My Yamaha CK88 stage piano at 25 lbs is pretty easy to haul around on a weekly basis going to band practices, but that extra 12 lbs actually makes a big difference; I know lots of keyboard players haul around gear that’s way heavier, but for me?  The weight would probably be a dealbreaker if I was going to use this with a band as a gigging instrument.

Roland FP-E50 – The Verdict

So, what’s the verdict on the Roland FP-E50? 

I LOVE this instrument, I think it’s a fantastic product, and is by FAR my favorite Roland I’ve ever reviewed. 

• Great sounds both piano and non with the 2 sound engines
• Awesome user interface with a decent screen and tons of controls and sliders right on the panel to minimize any need for menu diving
• EVERY type of connectivity you could possibly want, including a really well done mic input with impressive gain and some cool effects
• Excellent arranger features with pianist friendly chord fingering modes, and the added benefit of the interactive mode
• Chord sequencer is an absolutely AMAZING feature especially for people like me that like playing along with backing tracks
• Super easy to use audio recording feature
• Audio interface built into the USB to host port.  

All of this for only $100-150USD more than the FP-30X makes it an absolutely fantastic value!

Are There ANY Negatives?

Only 3 in my opinion, and they’re not a big deal. 

1. Weight; while I know many keyboard players are used to carrying around 50 lb keyboards, I find the FP-E50 at 37 lbs to be pretty cumbersome to haul around, especially if it was on a regular basis.  My Yamaha CK88 weighs about 25 lbs, and that 12 bs makes a big difference; I take my CK88 to weekly band practices and don’t find it cumbersome at all  
2. This is only a negative to people like me that enjoy playing organ songs; it would be super nice to have seen some drawbars and other organ controls available (the organ sounds are fine and totally usable, but it’s pretty limiting when you don’t have drawbars)
3. Downward facing speakers (and this might just be MY personal opinion). The speakers themselves are a decent power level, and sound just fine, but I have never been a fan of downward facing speakers – I wish if companies were going to do that they would at least include some player facing speakers as well.  

But, are those negatives significant?  Not at all, the Roland FP-E50 is pretty awesome all things considered.  

What About The Competition?

Well to be honest at first I thought this piano was a direct competitor to my Yamaha DGX-670, but after spending this much time with it, it really does kind of sit out there on its own; if anything it’s more of a competitor to something like the Casio PX-S3100.  And why do I say that?  Well, I think the FP-E50 is perfectly suited as a stage piano for a solo artist or a duet or any other setting that wants to make use of backing tracks, because of the good quality arranger features and the chord sequencer.  And while the Casio PX-S3100 does have great sounds and arranger features, the Roland is a FAR better choice with the mic input and better user interface; the Roland is $200USD more than the Casio, but I would totally recommend spending that $200 if that’s the kind of feature set you’re after. 

And as far as the Yamaha DGX-670 goes, it to me is more of a home recording studio solution given it’s monstrous size and weight at 50 lbs, and it has a pretty robust 16 track MIDI recorder onboard that the FP-E50 doesn’t have. 

So, would I buy a Roland FP-E50 for myself?  To be honest, no I wouldn’t; but that’s nothing at ALL against the FP-E50, I just happen to personally prefer lighter actions than Roland’s PHA4, and I really need the organ drawbars and controls.   But those are just my personal preferences and needs, which doesn’t mean the FP-E50 isn’t an amazing piano (because it IS)

So that’s pretty much it for this review, if you liked the content feel free to smash the like button and subscribe to my channel, that does really help me out.  I’ve left links in the description below to check out current prices on the FP-E50 and other items I’ve mentioned in this video in your area, as well as some links to online piano training that I recommend.  So thanks again for stopping by, happy piano playing and have an awesome day!

There are links below if you want to check out current prices in YOUR area on the FP-E50 or any of the other pianos I mentioned in this review, and I’ve also left some links to some online piano training that I recommend.

Thanks so much, and happy piano playing! (and piano shopping 😉 )

Links To Check Out Current Pricing:

(please note that as an affiliate I earn from qualifying purchases)

Roland FP-E50

Roland DP-10 Pedal

M-Audio Pedal

Roland FP-30X

Yamaha DGX-670

Casio PX-S3100

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Piano Training I Recommend

I’ve taken a number of online piano courses; the ones I’m listing here are my favorites and I can highly recommend any of these if you are looking for some online training to get started on learning piano, or to take your current skills to the next level.

Video Version Of This Review