“I’ve been using a self contained Roland keyboard at home for years. You know, the kind with built-in speakers and a cabinet. Recently I purchased an A90 thinking I would be getting a major upgrade to my piano sound. While it does a lot of things really well I like the piano sound in the older unit better. Why wouldn’t the newer instrument sound at least as good as the old one? Could it be that there sounds are tuned to sound best out of these self contained units?”
It is unlikely the Roland sounds are tuned to the amp/speaker system in their keyboards. It is far more likely the amp/speaker system is tuned to accentuate the sounds in the best possible way. If you are comparing the sound of the Roland unit as it comes through its own speakers to the sound of another unit through whatever playback system you have it is very likely that the biggest variable is the playback system itself. Assuming your older unit has a line level output I would suggest recording both of them and then listening to the playback to better analyze the sonic differences. Some of what you hear is psychological. Once you divorce your listening from the act of playing and actually feeling the vibrations in the keys from the built in speakers you may be surprised to find how similar they are. Many pianists hate the “sound” of electronic keyboards, but we find this is often due to the mechanical feedback of the playing process, not the sound itself. Once they hear the piano recorded it is much more difficult for them to discern the difference.
Most manufacturers do not develop many new sounds for the different instruments they make. The same Roland piano sound usually will appear in most of their instruments that come out in a particular time frame. Every so often a new “killer” sound is developed and it starts to show up in the new instruments. In many cases the older version is still in there for a while so it’s possible you need to dig deeper into the A90 to find what you are looking for. A lot of times the first, or more easily accessed sounds, are the ones geared towards the type of player the keyboard is marketed to, in this case the player who plays on stage a lot (the A90 being a very powerful master controller). A piano sound ideally suited for a live combo situation will sometimes sound thin and lack the sweet decay a concert pianist would prefer. Try some of the different sounds and, if possible, go in and learn some of the parameters you can adjust to drive the sound in the direction you think it needs to go. You’ll find it is a very flexible instrument that will let you modify the sounds a great deal.