Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Roland KR-33 or else ...

Hi ye'all,

First, I'm not native English so please don't mind my Engrish.

We have a Roland KR-33 piano.
A very nice machine, no complaints whatsoever. Been with us for years now and is used almost every day.
In the past we had some issues with dead keys but I fixed the contacts with a carbon pencil. As I said, a fine instrument.

However, our son (now 11) has had piano lessons for a few years now and wants more. He wants more buttons like a keyboard with rhythms and different instrument sounds.

My question to Piano World forum readers is now ...
What should we do?
- Sell the old faithful Roland KR-33 and buy a new or maybe some used digital keyboard? And what keyboard should we look for in your opinion?
- Or use the 3 midi connectors on our Roland KR-33 and expand the instrument by buying a kind of synthesizer or computer with some software to take full advantage of our existing digital piano? And what equipment should we look for in this option to upgrade our Roland KR-33 with keyboard functions?

The rest of my family still wants to play (very close to) a piano if you know what I mean.

Many thanks in advance for your reply.

Have a nice day,
E. la Roy.

You could connect this keyboard via midi to a software piano run from your computer, yes. Galaxy Vintage D or Ivory II are considered excellent on this forum: better than most (or all) digital pianos, in terms of piano reproduction quality.

However, your old Roland keyboard has two disadvantages as a digital piano: only 76 keys (rather than the standard 88) and more seriously, it does not have a piano hammer action keyboard. This is not good or even adequate for serious piano study, in my opinion. You need an action closer to that of a real piano to play in a balanced way, and to master tonal change.

So it would be ideal if you could get a new digital piano (or find a newer second hand one).

Adequate: Yamaha P95/ Casio PX (various models) Casio CDP (various models)

Good: Yamaha YDP 161/ YDP 181/ p155

Excellent: Kawai MP6/ Kawai CA (various models) Yamaha CLP (various models - some better than others, quite honestly) Roland HP (various models - eg HP 505) Roland FP7f

Hi toddy,

You're the best!
Thank you for your advice, it will lead us to a fine choice I'm sure.
If it raises more questions, we'll be back.

Have a very nice day,
E. la Roy.