Founded in Osaka, Japan, in 1972, Roland has a decades-long commitment to superb sound and intuitive keyboard technology. Its staff includes both engineers and professional musicians, ensuring that its digital pianos are always on the cutting edge of modern music innovation.
Its digital pianos are reliable and versatile; whether you're a total beginner or a seasoned professional, Roland has the perfect set of keys for you. While its price points tend to sit on the higher end, these are digital pianos that are built to last, making them a solid investment for years to come.
If you're looking for deep, nuanced tones and realistic key action that feels and sounds like an acoustic piano, look no further than Roland.
All digital pianos aren't created equal, not even within the same well-regarded brand. In crafting our ratings, we examined a variety of criteria in order to produce the most honest, accurate assessments as possible. We looked primarily at the following five factors:
We know choosing a digital piano gives you a lot to consider. Let this guide remove the guesswork.
The Roland FP-90 is one seriously sleek-looking piano. More importantly, it rolls incredible sound, customization, touch, and connectivity into one intuitive, sophisticated package. Built on the SuperNATURAL piano modeling sound engine, it produces warm, rich tones that effortlessly mimic an acoustic grand piano. Over 300 instrument sounds are onboard, as well a bevy of effects and special features. A series of sliders, for example, enable quick changes to various components, such as part sliders that let you tweak the volume balance between tones in split or dual mode. This opportunity for impromptu adjustments is an exciting add-on, especially for live performers.The standout feature of this digital piano is how fantastic it feels to play. The FP-90 sports top-of-the-line PHA-50 key action with Escapement, wood hybrid keys, and ivory/ebony simulation; it's as close as you can get to the real thing in a fully customizable digital package. Despite its heft, this is a gigging musician's dream piano — but don't let that stop you from setting up this monster of musicality and modern design in your home, too.
This feature-filled stage piano is Roland's midrange option in its popular RD range. The RD-300NX comes loaded with many of the same features as the RD-800, including the robust SuperNATURAL sound engine, which provides rich, colorful grand piano sound. It's no slouch in the digital effects department, either. It includes a library of 939 tones, including a wide array of voices, GM2 tones, 23 rhythm kits, and several other options that enable you to customize your sound, such as compression, chorus, and reverb. With its grade and weighted key action, the RD-300NX's Ivory Feel-G keyboard looks and feels like an acoustic piano.While the RD-300NX lacks some of the features and effects of the RD-800, it's lighter, more portable, and, most importantly, more affordable. If you're looking for a feature-filled digital stage piano that's more the Audi of Roland pianos than the Porsche of Roland pianos, this is an attractive, versatile, high-powered option.
If you're a musician looking for a feature-packed piano that can keep up with your creativity, then the Roland RD-800 may be the digital piano for you. Like the rest of this list, it's powered by the SuperNATURAL engine, which delivers deep, expressive grand piano sound, and it comes loaded with more than 1,100 additional sounds, including modern synths and virtual tone wheel organs, as well as a host of digital effects, such as the ability to split and layer tones. This isn't a piano for beginners.The RD-800 is designed for live performance, and playing it feels tremendous, thanks to its PHA-4 concert keyboard with Escapement and Ebony/Ivory Feel that boasts outstanding touch detection. It's one of the most authentic-feeling digital pianos on Roland's roster. The bright, colored LCD display is user-friendly and offers outstanding clarity, even in dim studios and darkened music venues, and it includes storage for 200 live sets. While it comes with a heftier price tag, this incredibly customizable concert piano is the cream of the digital piano crop.
The Roland RD-64 is the RD-800's more-affordable cousin. It features fewer digital effects, but it packs a ton of realistic tone into a compact, highly portable package that's suitable for both studio and stage musicians. That superior grand piano sound is thanks to the SuperNATURAL engine that powers the piano and combines with the RD-64's responsive Ivory Feel-G keyboard to produce nuanced, vintage sound. Playing it feels completely natural.The RD-64 may be designed for mobility, but it still comes equipped with 12 tones, including organ sounds, as well as EFX1 and EFX 2 processors and stereo reverb. With its lightweight, space-saving design, it's easy and inexpensive to travel with, and it takes up very little real estate in your home, making it a great option for the musician who's always on the move.
For an affordable home digital piano, the Roland RP-102 is an attractive option that packs several of the FP-30's features into a console model, such as the SuperNATURAL sound engine, which produces a bright, vibrant sound. The PHA-4 Standard keyboard with Escapement and Ivory Feel produces realistic sensitivity. It's also one of very few digital pianos at its price point that recreates the sympathetic string resonance of an acoustic grand piano. This glossy black cabinet model sports three fixed pedals and a half-height back privacy panel.While the RP-102 isn't stuffed with flashy features, it does include 15 built-in instrument sounds and more than 200 songs for you to play along with. What's more, its Bluetooth and USB connectivity mean it's easy to boost its productivity by syncing it up to popular apps such as GarageBand, FlowKey, and Roland's own instruction app — Piano Partner 2, which allows you to record your own MIDI performances. It's a solid choice for beginner and intermediate players.
The Roland FP-30 is a versatile budget buy that doesn't have the oomph of some of Roland's higher end models, but it's still an impressive digital piano. It runs on the SuperNATURAL sound engine and comes equipped with a trim package of 35 onboard instrument sounds. Its Bluetooth and USB capabilities mean you can easily expand your library, though. The biggest drawback with this relatively inexpensive option is sound customization; while you can tweak the brilliance and reverb, its missing many of the settings and effects that its peers pack.The FP-30 is a good option for the mobile musician on a budget, as well beginner and intermediate players. It's lightweight, compact, and thoroughly portable, which means it won't take up too much space at home, and you won't have to invest in a back brace to carry it to practices or gigs. Its PHA-4 Standard key action feels natural, too, and offers three preset sensitivity settings for you to choose from.
While the Roland F-20 is affordable and designed with the beginner in mind, it doesn't skimp on the features. Its sound is fueled by the same SuperNATURAL sound engine found on higher-end digital pianos geared toward the pros, and it comes stocked with a tidy range of effects, such as onboard rhythm kits, voices, and app integration. That's about it, though; there's no LCD display, Bluetooth connectivity, or MIDI inputs and outputs, and you can't undertake any sound editing.Perhaps most importantly, though, the F-20 feels great. Its Ivory Feel-G touch technology— the same touch tech used by the RD-300NX — provides realist key action, and the unit itself is sturdy and durable. New to piano? This may just be the lean, mean starter piano for you.
A Roland digital piano is an investment. Before you buy, let the following questions guide your research:
Doing your homework before you buy ensures that you'll pick the perfect digital piano for your ability, purpose, and price point. Plus, it's never too early to start getting excited about your next step on the path to digital piano world domination.