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Hello Digital Piano forum

I am looking to buy a portable digital piano and have narrowed down my search to the Kawai ES-6 and Roland FP-7. I have played both of them and although they are individual in the way they play and sound, I am struggling to decide between them.

What I am requiring from my piano:
Good action and good piano sound
Good rhodes type organ sound
Can be used as a midi controller (with Logic Pro on an Apple Mac)
Internal speakers sufficient for an acoustic set
Good sound through a PA
Able to pre-record a backing track/drum beat to play along with would also be handy to have but not at the expense of other requirements

I will often be needing to be a one gal band on gig nights and would dearly love authentic sounding instruments and backing samples. Nothing kitch, cheesey or a bad imitation.

I will be playing them both again soon. If anyone has any experience or advice on either option, be it good or bad, I would be grateful to hear it.

Many thanks for your help

Have a look at this link to do with Kawai digitals:
http://www.uk-piano.org/piano-forums/vi ... f=9&t=6877

I have no recent experience of Kawai digitals although I would like to track them down during the Easter holidays. There are good reviews about the FP7 but again, no personal experience. I will say that reviews about it mention that the weight of the instrument make it slightly undesirable for gigging. The build-in speakers are no doubt to blame for that.

I am personally interested in the FP7. The sound vibrations from the built-in speakers actually make the keyboard feel slightly more authentic and piano like.

Read my review about the FP-7. I finally got to try on last week.

The ES-6 is still unknown to me although I have heard the samples online. Unfortunately, it sounds like it's missing something. The tone seems to skim over the top of the resonance and stringy tone of a piano. Too mellow and bland for my liking.

Many thanks Mark

I have decided to go with the Kawai ES 6. I will let you know how I get on with it.

In case it is of interest to anyone, the last time I went in to try out the keyboard, I found out that it has a rotary effect which you can access from and on/off pedal plugged into an input in the back. I'm not sure how to access the rotary effect otherwise, but it was enough give a little more variety to the organ/epiano sounds.

The piano sounds are really impressive from this keyboard, even just through it's own speakers. Also, I learn't that each of the piano sounds are able to be modified by 4 settings, so quadrupling the piano sounds available. You are able to get some quite dark gritty sounds from it as well as full grand sounds, and I heard some wonderful jazz, funk and honky tonk played on it! I'm dreaming of the day I can play like that. Through headphones the sound is even better, which I'm assuming might be reassuring for anyone wanting to rigg it up through a PA system.

My playing ability will not able to do it justice for a while as I'm still very much a beginner, but when you hear someone who can really play put it through it's paces, it's quite something.

I hope this is helpful.

Roland seem to be rather over-priced unless you are lucky enough to find "B-stock" or ex-demo stock, and even then, still slightly expensive.

I'm not keen on the Kawai sound when you move up to the top end of the keyboard - too mellow, even when struck hard for my liking. Yamaha tone is hard to beat to my ear!