Roland has introduced two new instruments in their RD line of stage pianos, the new RD-2000 EX and RD-88 EX.
The RD-2000 EX comes with two pre-installed V-Piano Expansion titles:
- German Concert V-Piano Expansion 01, inspired by concert-class grand pianos and featuring 17 ready-to-play Tones
- Essential Upright V-Piano Expansion 02, newly developed with the character of a high-end upright piano and featuring a range of 14 preset Tones
The RD-88 EX comes installed with the newly developed SuperNATURAL Acoustic Piano 3 Expansion, adding a premium concert piano option that complements the SuperNATURAL acoustic and electric pianos already included. The expansion offers 15 distinctive Tones and 20 Scenes.
RD-2000 EX Upgrade and RD-88 EX Upgrade
RD-2000 and RD-88 owners can expand their instruments with the new EX sounds via the RD-2000 EX Upgrade and RD-88 EX Upgrade on Roland Cloud. Each user-installable upgrade package is available with a Lifetime Key purchase in Roland Cloud Manager, the software portal for Roland Cloud content.
See the Roland site for details.
“New” models
C’mon Roland … You can do better!
EX is the new black for Roland this year…
I think it depends on where you’re starting on your “stage piano journey.” Its easy to get jaded about marketing, but neither of these is lacking in muscle. If the keyboard action suits you, then the huge library is impressive. Watch that newbie’s eyes pop out.
Some players may like it as a controller for a small rig or home studio. With a little juggling, you could feed a few modules or mini-synths pretty easily. Its harder to come up with dazzling new things now, so its unavoidable that a company will sometimes just buff the finish on things. Offering the V-Pianos for the previous models is a winning move.
Once inovators, reduced to this, come on Roland make an effort
The upgrade for an existing RD-2000 is 200$, and, as far as I can tell, is the same as a stock RD-2000 running OS 2 plus the two v-piano expansions. Not cheap.
And if you already paid the 150$ for the German Grand expansion alone, that 200$ seems an insanely expensive way just to add an upright piano sound…
Oh well, its not an issue for me. I prefer Pianoteq!
If you ready own the German Concert Vpiano, the Essential upright Vpiano model is only $50. Roland will email you a discount coupon.