🎹 Roland Tone Engine Comparison | SuperNATURAL vs V- Modeling vs ZEN-Core vs PureAcoustic 🎹

🛒 Get the Roland FP-90X Digital Piano▸https://geni.us/Roland-FP-90X
🛒 Get the Roland FP-30X Digital Piano▸https://geni.us/Roland-FP-30X
🛒 Get the Roland Fantom 8▸https://geni.us/Roland-Fantom-8
🛒 See More Roland Digital Pianos▸ https://geni.us/Roland-Digital-Pianos
💕 Subscribe to Merriam Pianos HERE ▸ http://bit.ly/SubscribeMerriam
🔔 Click the 🔔 bell to be notified of all videos! ▸ http://bit.ly/SubscribeMerriam

Comparable Alternatives:
🛒 Roland FP-60X▸https://geni.us/Roland-FP-60X
🛒 Yamaha P515▸https://geni.us/Yamaha-P515
🛒 Kawai ES920▸https://geni.us/Kawai-ES920
🛒 Yamaha DGX-660▸https://geni.us/yamaha-DGX-660

#roland #digitalpiano #rolanddigitalpiano

0:00 - Introduction
0:58 - Playing Demo on the Roland FP90x SuperNATURAL piano engine
1:19 - Playing Demo on the Roland FP90x Pure Acoustic Modelling piano engine
1:40 - Playing Demo on the Roland Fantom V-Piano piano engine
2:00 - Playing Demo on the Roland Fantom ZEN-Core piano engine
2:20 - Video Overview/Roland Tone Engine discussion
3:47 - Roland Pianos Featured in the video (Roland FP30x - Roland FP90x - Roland Fantom)
5:22 - Recording and Technical set up for the video
5:55 - Headphones Used in this video Sony MDR 7506
6:24 - Piano Sound Review Roland Fantom
10:00 - Roland SuperNATURAL piano engine on the Roland FP30x
11:53 - Roland Pure Acoustic Modelling piano engine on the Roland FP90x
13:28 - Sound discussion on the Roland SuperNATURAL, Acoustic Modelling, V-Piano, and ZEN-Core tones.
14:50 - Stage Grand piano tone on the Roland Fantom
19:35 - Roland SuperNATURAL piano engine demo
24:00 - Sound discussion (Dynamics, Clarity)
25:04 - ZEN-Core piano engine discussion/DEMO
28:57 - ZEN-Core conclusions/discussion
31:12 - Outro - please LIKE and SUBSCRIBE

Hello, and thanks for being with us at the Merriam Pianos YouTube channel! In today’s video, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know about the four Roland piano tone engines currently available in their digital piano lineup.

We’ll be covering the V- modeling engine, SuperNATURAL sample-based engine, PureAcoustic modeled engine and finally, their ZEN-Core synthesis engine.

Please like, subscribe and hit that notification bell!


Overview
Roland is a huge player in the digital piano realm, offering a full line of home digital pianos, stage pianos, and portable digital pianos. We tend to focus on their 88-note options on this channel, and we’ve recently been getting asked to break down the differences between the various sound engines Roland offers in their 88-note pianos.

Roland currently offers no less than 4 different engines for generating acoustic piano tone across their lineup, so we figured we do a deep dive here so you can hear and understand the exact differences between these sound engines.

Featured Pianos
The pianos we’ll be featuring in the video are the Roland FANTOM 8 workstation, which features the ZEN-Core synthesis engine and the V-Piano modeling engine, the FP-30X, which features the latest version of their SuperNATURAL sampling engine; and finally, the FP-90X which features the PureAcoustic modeling sound engine.

Recording/Technical Set-Up
All three of these instruments have been captured through analogue stereo inputs into the same audio interface, so the recording quality and technique is the same across the board.

All 3 instruments are being played on their default settings, meaning we haven’t gone in and tweaked things in Piano Designer, nor have we added any effects.

Piano Sound Playing Comparison
Here are the specific patches Stu plays through the demo section of the video.

Playing Example #1: V-Piano Engine - Stage Grand Patch
Playing Example #2: ZEN-Core Engine - Acoustic Pop Piano 1 Patch
Playing Example #3: SuperNATURAL Engine - Concert Piano Patch
Playing Example #4: PureAcoustic Engine - Default Patch

Observations
The two cleanest sounds with the highest resolution are definitely the two modeled engines - the V-Piano and PureAcoustic engines. The fidelity is very high, and there’s no loss of clarity at any part of the sound.

Between these two engines, the V-Piano has a lot of color, but the tonal variance from soft to loud is narrower than on the PureAcoustic engine. Having a narrower tonal range makes sense for recording purposes, which is why Roland uses this engine in their FANTOM 8 workstation keyboard.

If we were picking one purely for solo piano playing, we’d have to go with the PureAcoustic as it’s a more intimate, versatile option.

With the ZEN-Core and SuperNATURAL engines, the experience is very different. At lower volume levels, there’s a sense of air and space that’s coming through by virtue of these being sample based engines.

There’s also a grittiness to the sound on the SuperNATURAL that we really appreciate that tends to be absent from modeling engines, though the dynamic control of sampling depth is just not on the same level as the PureAcoustic.