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Pretty amazing freebie for RD-88 owners (or other recent Roland hardware) until Jan 31: https://lp.roland.com/zencore-fully-loaded

(Thanks to A/Scott for finding this)

Hello everybody

I'm planing to purchase this boy. Only downside is no music stand. Was anybody able to make custom one or anybody have any suggestions?

Sorry if this seems like a dumb question. What are the Roland pianos, specifically the ones in the RD88, based on? Steinway? Yamaha? Young Chang? Seriously, I understand there is synthesis involved but do they use a basic sample of a real piano? If so, what is it?

Thanks for any replies.

Definitely not a dumb question. Roland’s web site says RD88 uses “Supernatural Pianos & EPianos”, with a vague reference to “the long history of RD pianos”. I may be mistaken but except for RD2000 which has 2 sound engines - 1 sample, 1 modeled - I think RD models are based on samples. This gets to your question - which Piano[s] did Roland sample?

My HP508 is for now one of the last Roland console models ever based on samples. When i bought it, it was said to be “based on Steinway pianos” but this is different than saying “Roland’s samples were taken from a brand ___ model ___.

Maybe Roland was for some reason prohibited from publicly disclosing what brand piano they sampled, but since they do not have their own AP models, it becomes increasingly apparent that Roland’s sample-based DPs were always based on SuperNatural secret sauce samples and Roland newer modeled-based DPs use a different secret sauce based on what a generic, computer-simulated GP sounds like.

PS. My hunch is that this horse has already been beaten to death multiple times in previous threads; here is an excerpt from one.

“Roland doesn't disclose to anyone which instruments they use for their benchmark sound (for either sampled engines or modeled).”

http://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/2915691/2.html

Ah, I don't doubt it. It's just hard to search for on this forum. When I did a search for "Roland RD-88" I couldn't even get anything with that heading to come up in a query. Took several different queries to find any RD-88 threads. Anyhow, thanks for the info about Rolands big secret. I kinda figured as much, but thought I'd ask. A lot of their piano sounds do sound more Steinway than anything else. Maybe Kawai. Their may even be a hint of Yamaha on some voices. I have not owned a Roland product in many years.

My first stage piano when I was 10, was a Roland EP-20. The last one I had was the original RD-300. Many other keyboards at different times. Had a Kurzweil PC1X that was a great stage piano/keyboard for it's vast amount of voices but I absolutely hated the action. I currently have a Yamaha P95 - just suits my lifestyle and simple requirements for a portable piano. This RD88 really piques my interest/curiosity though.

Quick question: does the RD88 actually have sympathetic resonance? People speak about it (I've seen several statements that it improves upon the RD2000), and the manual has an effect called sympathetic resonance, but what's described is damper resonance which triggers when pedaling. Most other DPs and VSTs I've worked with or read about over the years distinguish between the two. If I recall correctly, even the RD700NX and other older RDs were spoken of this way in the marketing and such. With the RD-88, all I see are references to resonance with pedal down.

EDIT: I now see looking more closely that the manual's description of Sympathetic resonance includes a parameter for "cabinet resonance: depth of the resonance when the damper pedal is not pressed." That seems like it may answer the question, but I'll leave it here because I still feel a little uncertain because of my past experience with these sorts of things so any insight or confirmation would be appreciated.

FWIW and IMHO --

I think "string resonance" has become the industry-standard term for the pedal-up resonance between a struck string, and other strings with their keys held down.

If the RD-88 spec doesn't use that term, it's a good bet that the RD-88 doesn't have that feature.

I had a quick look at the Parameter Guide of RD-88 and there is a section on sympathetic resonance. RD-2000 parameter guide also has a section on sympathetic resonance parameters and also string resonance setting for both, V-pianos and Super Natural pianos. I have no idea what each one is and what each is for.