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#Roland #FA08 #DigitalPiano

Hi everyone, and welcome to another digital piano review here at Merriam Pianos. We’ll be dovetailing our Roland FA-08 unboxing video with an in-depth review of the instrument here.

The FA-08 is an 88 note workstation/synthesizer. While it’s positioned below Roland’s top of the line Fantom instruments, the FA-08 is still built for professional use. We’re going to do a deep dive here and I’ll pass along all of my impressions.

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Piano Action:

The FA-08 uses Roland’s Ivory Feel G Keyboard, which was originally introduced with Roland’s Fantom G series in the late 2000’s. This action is essentially a precursor to the PHA4 action you’ll find in many current Roland models, though it actually feels quite similar to Roland’s higher end PHA50 action. The Ivory Feel G action features escapement, and it’s medium weighting should be able to accommodate many different types of playing styles. This instrument isn’t really intended for a classical player, but this action would be serviceable for those purposes.

There’s a subtle texture on the white keys, and a matte finish on the black keys that actually reminds me of Kawai’s RHIII action featured in their CN series, and the Nord grand that uses the RHIII action. Like the other Roland action, the edge is a little sharper than the more rounded edges you’ll find in a Kawai. Overall, this is a really solid action.

Piano Sound:

A really cool thing with the FA-08 is that there are several different pre-loaded sound engines to choose from. We’ve got SuperNATURAL Acoustic, SuperNATURAL Synth, SuperNATURAL Drum Kit, PCM Synth and PCM Drum Kit, which when added together amounts to a whopping 2000 sounds. As you can hear as I play through various patches the overall sound quality is very good, even if some of the patches sound a bit dated.

Another cool thing here is that you can layer up to 16 sounds at once, and the customization is almost endless with the ability to split the keyboard up into different velocity layers and different key ranges. It’s essentially like having access to DAW software loaded right into the machine. For people who are putting together intricate live sets, the amount of customization available here is a huge plus. The sequencer works off of the exact same 16 track assignable architecture.

Piano Features:

Beyond the tone and the action, a huge part of a workstation is everything that goes on behind the scenes. The sampler, sequencer, arpeggiator and rhythm generator are the bread and butter of what you can do with a workstation. Everything’s laid out very logically from a user standpoint; all of the live controls such as sound selection are located on the left hand side and middle of the instrument, while everything related to the sequencer can be found on the right hand side.

The sampler offers up 16 pads and 4 banks for every song, and is very straightforward to use. You can assign various patches to the sampler for quick navigation among the various sounds in real time. It’s also really easy to create a drum track through the rhythm pattern editor. You can select up to 4 rhythm patterns, an intro and an ending. The built in arpeggiator is also super intuitive and easy to use, with lots of variations available.

In terms of connectivity you’ve got USB in and USB out, a port for an SD card, standard MIDI and a port for a triple pedal. You can also record straight in from a microphone or guitar which makes it a really handy recording device. There’s also a stereo line in for the same purposes, and a main ¼” stereo out, as well as a headphone port.

Conclusions:

All in all, this is a great 88 note workstation. It’s lighter than many other 88 note options, so it’s a huge plus for anyone who requires portability. The action is one of the better ones available in a workstation, and overall quite satisfying. Despite being a few years old, this instrument still holds up really well overall. One final thing I’ll mention is cost; for what you get, this instrument is priced very competitively.

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