Stage Pianos

[Nickie Koskinen]

Ifyou're a classical pianist, all you will ask of your stage piano is that it feels incredibly authentic to play and sounds like a concert grand! This is where models such as the Kawai MP 11 SE fit in.

Instead of loading their stage pianos with a fixed set of sounds, many brands are now curating huge online libraries of tones that can be downloaded from the internet. These sounds can be swapped in and out of their stage pianos at will. Collections like these are constantly growing, so look out for this feature if you need a vast amount of sonic versatility.

The 88-key models are aimed squarely at pianists, and it's likely they'll come with hammer action, weighted keyboards to give that acoustic grand feel. The smaller sizes are aimed more at organists and synth players (or pianists with not much room!). They tend to be fitted with waterfall or synth-type keybeds.

The very best stage pianos have a deep feature set conveniently hidden behind a simple, logical top panel. You'll just want to be able to select patches quickly, recall favourites/scenes, work with zones, layers and splits and make some on-the-fly adjustments. The top panel should be working with you in this regard, not against you.

Looking at buying one of the best stage pianos? Perhaps, you're getting back into gigging again, or you've got a cushty number working in a theatre or a place of worship. Maybe you're planning to take your band out on the road for the very first time, or you're a singer songwriter who dreams of having an instrument more versatile than a guitar to accompany you.

Unsurprisingly, stage pianos are biased towards producing fantastic piano sounds, both acoustic and electric (EP), and they'll almost certainly boast some wonderful organ models too. That may be enough for you, but if you work in theatre you'll want a whole orchestra under your fingertips - everything from reedy woodwinds to pizzicato strings. Some stage pianos feature a broader range of sounds than others, so you'll need to pick wisely.

Wow, if this isn't the most unique-looking stage piano out there, we don't know what is. As you'd expect, befitting its retro styling, there is an eclectic collection of vintage sounds here including almost every American tine and reed EP, as well as a Japanese electric grand. Then there's the clavinets, tone-wheel organs, Vox combos and tube organs, the 70s analogue strings - the list goes on.

Roland says it has developed the RD-2000 to deliver the best possible playing experience for performing pianists, as well as the finest piano sounds for their audiences, regardless of genre. Here, it's all about the piano sounds. The somewhat plain looking top panel features a strip of eight rotary encoders, a panel of nine sliders, buttons for selecting banks/sounds, three mod wheels/levers and a small screen.

Casio markets its PX-S3100 as both a domestic portable digital piano and a professional stage piano, giving it a split personality that, once you understand it, makes more sense than you'd expect. Released in October 2021, this affordable 88-key Casio is really just a mild refresh of the PX-S3000 piano introduced at NAMM in 2019.

The Numa X Piano GT is a slightly different take on the stage piano. Not satisfied with it just being a performance-ready keyboard, Fatar-owned Studiologic has developed the Numa X Piano GT to assume the role of mixer and audio interface too.

Its predecessor featured highly in this guide previously, so what improvements can potential owners of the fourth generation Nord Stage look forward to? Well, the sample memory has been doubled, with an extensive new collection of samples available, but the emphasis seems to have been on the layout of the front panel, which has been redesigned from the ground up to improve onstage workflow.

Easy to see on a dimly-lit stage, the LED faders allow you to blend multiple elements of a patch in real time during a performance. Each layered sound within a patch has its own dedicated FX controls right in front of you on the panel.

The Stage 4 comes with complete access to the extensive Nord Piano Library, which is chock-a-block with grand pianos, uprights, vintage electric pianos, harpsichords and clavinets, and now features dynamic compression and Unison on the piano section.

It has access to the Nord Sample Library, a go-to collection of guitars, orchestral strings, brass, accordions, tuned percussion and woodwind. The Stage 4 also gets Nord's award-winning B3 Tonewheel organ simulation, with fully LED illuminated physical drawbars across all models.

The control panel is orderly and coherent, and the quality of the knobs, sliders, switchgear and OLED screens is first class. All sorts of sophisticated splits, layers, songs, seamless transitions and crossfades are possible without laborious menu-diving. The quality of the keyboard, indeed the whole unit, is faultless, but that's to be expected at this price.

As you'd expect, befitting its retro styling, there is an eclectic collection of vintage sounds here including almost every American tine and reed EP, as well as a Japanese electric grand. Then there's the clavinets, tone-wheel organs, Vox combos and tube organs, the 70s analogue strings - the list goes on.

All can be soaked in retro warmth by the similarly vintage amp section that includes models with familiar names like Twin, Tweed and AC30. Then, there's that glowing 12AX7 valve to add some smooth drive when needed.

There's no LED screen - the top panel is so well-thought out the SV2 doesn't require one - and it lacks a pitch bender and mod wheel, but you can hook three foot pedals up to control everything from sostenuto to wah.

If internal speakers are a deal-breaker, for a little extra outlay you can plump for the SV2-S model, also available in both 73-key and 88-key flavours, which comes in a cool, silvery Airstream-style finish.

Roland says it has developed the RD-2000 to deliver the best possible playing experience for performing pianists, as well as the finest piano sounds for their audiences, regardless of genre. Here, it's all about the piano sounds.

You're very much in the driver's seat with the RD-2000, the multi-function rotary knobs and sliders provide plenty of hands-on granular control for sounds and effects. They are all tracked with LED indicators too, so it's easy to keep an eye on your settings under dim stage lighting. In fact, almost every control on the RD-2000 is lit.

The keyboard is Roland's premium PHA-50 progressive hammer-action model with escapement and wood/plastic hybrid keys with ivory feel. This gives a 'grand' feel, so acoustic pianists will be right at home. Organists and synth players may need to adjust their playing styles accordingly.

There are two sound engines. Roland's V-Piano engine takes care of the acoustic models, while its SuperNatural engine delivers the electric pianos. V-Piano sounds are entirely modelled, which gives the added advantage of full-keyboard polyphony for a fuller, more authentic acoustic piano experience. SuperNatural sounds are partially sample based and have a max polyphony of 128.

It's a given that Roland has chosen to shine the spotlight brightly on the piano sounds with the RD-2000. Nevertheless, it also features an additional 1,100 sounds that cover everything from vintage synths to brass. You can map different sounds to eight separate key range zones and save up to 100 different snapshots of your entire keyboard setup, making performances less of a performance.

Yamaha has specified a triple sensor, graded hammer action keyboard on the CP88 model because it's the one most likely to appeal to pianists. The very similar, but more compact, CP73 features a balanced key action more suited to EP players. We found both to be fast and expressive, just different.

Back to the sounds. You get six premium acoustic grand pianos and three uprights, mostly based on classic and current Yamaha models. There are a further nine EP models plus a host of organs, FM pianos and more. Finally, the Sub section reveals an entire library of synth and orchestral sounds that includes a seemingly infinite variety of pads, leads, strings, brass and percussion.

Released in October 2021, this affordable 88-key Casio is really just a mild refresh of the PX-S3000 piano introduced at NAMM in 2019. The refresh sees an improved grand piano tone, a speaker upgrade, Bluetooth enhancements and some small cosmetic changes. All minor stuff, but welcome nonetheless.

Although the PX-S3100 betrays its amateur leanings a bit with its onboard speaker system, 200 auto-accompaniment styles and dual-headphone outs (one for teacher, one for student), the range of sounds on offer is a decent 700, a big improvement over the cheaper PX-S1100 which only offers a rather paltry 18 tones.

The Grand Piano Concert patch is full, resonant, harmonically rich and detailed, thanks to Casio's 'multi-dimensional morphing technology'. Technobabble aside, Casio has worked hard to capture how the timbre of a note changes over time, depending on how hard the key is struck.

Just be aware that Casio have had to make some, well, let's just call them optimisations, to squeeze an entire 88-key weighted hammer action keyboard into such a small enclosure. Some users seem to love the action, but others are less keen, so it's worth trying before you buy.

First the basics. This is a handsome looking keyboard that looks particularly characterful with its wooden end cheeks, coloured LED encoders and colour screen. It's refreshing to see a brand moving away from the usual mono black slabs of plastic and aluminium.

The premium Fatar Grand Touch graded hammer action keyboard with escapement and aftertouch feels fast and expressive, authentically like the real thing. Moving up, the top panel is remarkably spartan. There's a master volume, four rotary encoders with coloured LEDs, a TFT coloured screen surrounded by input and navigation buttons, a main dial/joystick, an eight-button sound bank and finally encoders for insert effects and master effects.

3a8082e126