The next entry in our look at Roland’s revamped line of digital baby grand pianos brings us to the GP-6 – the middle option in the line, but don’t be fooled into thinking this is a mid-range instrument.
We can say right off the hop that the pianistic experience the GP-6 is delivering has taken this Roland product in general to a whole new level of musicality, and this is before even getting into the stunning baby grand cabinetry.
This is a high-end instrument through and through and a perfect option for folks seeking superb performance and aesthetics. Let’s get into it.
Roland GP-6 Background
For people who are just coming into the digital piano world in 2023, you can rest assured that it’s a very exciting time to be a shopper. It’s to the point now where every year or so a new instrument comes out that pushes the bar higher in terms of piano realism and authenticity.
Sometimes a new model comes out that causes the whole industry to take a step back due to the significant and unexpected improvements over its predecessor. The GP-6 is one such instrument (not to be confused with the popular guitar tablature program Guitar Pro 6).
For anyone who happens to be familiar with the previous generation Roland GP-607 or Roland GP-609 digital grand pianos, there’s no question that these were well-built instruments (very low instance of warranty claims) with top-quality cabinetry. But there is something about the new GP-6 that just feels more transparent and more like a real baby grand piano.
Combined with the gorgeous grand piano profile, it seems undoubted that the GP-6 is going to be a big hit for those seeking the convenience, versatility and low maintenance requirements of a digital piano in the shape and form of a classic baby grand.
Let’s take a closer look at the key action.
PHA-50 Piano Action
Piano Reality Hybrid Premium Keyboard
The first thing to know about the action is that we’re essentially still working with a version of the PHA-50 action, however, Roland has done some rebranding with the new GP series so they’re now calling this action the Piano Reality Hybrid Premium Keyboard (PRH) to go along with this new nomenclature centered around the term Piano Reality.
The PRH is a wood/plastic hybrid action with excellent durability thanks to the wood and a longer key-stick than the PHA4 action for better overall control.
It’s on the heavier side in terms of the weight, but it’s not as heavy as the PHA4, and not even as close to as heavy as the NWX action from Yamaha for example.
Dynamic Sensor Acceleration Technology
The above being said, this isn’t the exact same PHA-50 Roland has used previously as they have actually updated the algorithms that interpret the data from the key sensors. Roland is referring to this as their Dynamic Sensor Acceleration Technology.
The end result is the sense that is more bandwidth with which to work in terms of sensitivity levels in the mid and upper mid-range. With the PHA50 previously, this range sort of felt like there were very wide jumps, which made quite a few people actually favor Kawai’s all-plastic RHIII action due to its better sensitivity.
With the PRH action there now exists an almost perfectly linear relationship between the physical input of the player and the volume output of the sound engine, which is great from a MIDI controller perspective.
Center Pin, Escapement and Ivory Feel Keys
The PRH action retains the other crucial specs of the PHA-50, one of which is the presence of a back center pin. This pin adds a great sense of lateral stability, and also greatly preserves the long-term durability of the action.
Next, the escapement is also incorporated into the action, and this simulates the physical sensation of an acoustic grand piano action. Escapement also can help add control when playing at dynamic extremes.
Finally, the keytops have simulated ebony and ivory to ensure just enough glide even when finger moisture starts building up.
So we can say that while the PHA-50 wasn’t necessarily a great action for classical music (many internet forums agreed), all of the positive aspects have been retained here with the Piano Reality Hybrid action, and the improved sensors make this action now very suitable for classical.
Piano Sound
Piano Reality Modeling Premium Sound Engine
The GP-6’s tone engine is also getting the new Piano Reality labelling, however, in this case, the sound engine isn’t just a tweaked version of the SuperNATURAL modeling engine, but rather a whole new algorithm they are calling the Piano Reality Modeling Premium Sound Engine.
Compared to the SuperNATURAL modeling engine, the tone here is much more balanced and nuanced. They’ve gone with a multi-channel tone production system much like Kawai first introduced with their highly regarded Novus series pianos.
A multi-channel signal essentially allows for a much more complex and sophisticated piano sound, and that really comes across here.
To complement the improved algorithm, they’ve also increased the complexity of some of the secondary tones coming from the pedals, damper systems and various resonance engines, further increasing the overall realism.
Many of these internal modeling settings can be edited via the Piano Designer feature, allowing you to customize the piano tone by tweaking things like the lid height, key-off noise, hammer noise, damper resonance and many more.
Polyphony
On acoustic piano tones, this engine is capable of completely limitless polyphony. Is this overkill? Perhaps, but it simply speaks to the processing power of the engine.
On non-acoustic piano tones, polyphony is still a very considerable 256 notes.
Speaker System
The GP-6 boasts a premium 5-speaker system. This might be a little confusing if you look at a GP-6 in person because there only appear to be four speakers in total, and one of them actually isn’t a speaker at all, but rather a tone port.
So, what’s actually going on here is that there are two upward-facing speakers, downward speakers, and two nearfield speakers inside that serve to activate the cabinet and deliver a real sense of cabinet resonance directly toward the player.
The multi-channel signal paired with digital as opposed to analog amps is really delivering powerful sound. The rated power output is 85 watts, but Rolands tend to be underestimated in regards to power output compared to other manufacturers from our experience, so we suspect that it is even more powerful.
Other Sounds
Outside of the acoustic piano experience here the tone is no longer modeled but sampled. The selection of tones is a fairly typical complement of Roland sounds, such as e piano sounds, organ sounds, strings, electric guitar, synths and more.
There are 324 sounds in total so there’s definitely a lot of variety to choose from, though of course no one would confuse the GP-6 with having an arranger keyboard-like selection, but that isn’t the point of the GP-6 anyway.
Features/Connectivity/Cabinetry
User Interface
Roland has discarded almost all of the buttons that used to occupy the front panel on the GP series pianos to go with a much more stripped-down look with every controllable via touch screen.
This approach is very in vogue right now with most digital piano manufacturers going with a sleek, minimalist aesthetic. You can also turn off the illumination of the display to almost entirely do away with the digital look altogether.
Features
The functionality is otherwise fairly similar to what you would get out of past Roland products. There’s a very large library/playlist of songs with 394 in total, so the GP-6 is going to work excellently as an instrument for entertaining at your next dinner party.
Basic features like a metronome, onboard rhythm patterns, dual, split, Twin Piano and Transpose are also present.
Connectivity
The GP-6 has a fine complement of connectivity options. For starters, there are dual headphone outputs as is common these days, a DC in for the power supply and a stereo mini line in.
There are also the ever-important discrete 1/4” (L/MONO, R) line outputs, so if you’re considering the GP-6 as a performance instrument for a venue or music institution, that important box is checked.
Next up are USB Type A and B. USB Type B essentially works as your audio and MIDI in and out, while USB Type is a memory port wherein you can transfer audio and MIDI files.
Bluetooth
The GP-6 is of course also equipped with Bluetooth MIDI and Audio. Bluetooth Audio allows you to stream music from a smart device such as an iPad through the piano’s superb speaker system – another huge plus for entertaining.
Bluetooth MIDI allows you to use apps, such as the new Roland Piano App for iOS and Android. You can control the entry functionality of the instrument via this app, such as the Piano Designer function, which is just much more fun to control on a smart device.
Cabinet/Finish Options
The GP-6 has received an updated cabinet with added beveling and other subtle details. The structure is extremely solid, yet easy to assemble, and they’ve gone with a very strong steel set of legs.
The GP-6 will be available in both polished black and polished white.
Closing Thoughts
We’re extremely impressed with what the GP-6 has to offer musically speaking. It’s a big step up over the previous generation models and is quite a bit more advanced than the next model down (the new GP-3.)
When you look at the price and compare the overall musical offering, the premium required for the shape and meticulous polyester finish (which is quite expensive for manufacturers to pull off) is actually quite reasonable.
We expect the GP-6 to be a popular instrument both with brick-and-mortar retailers, as well as online retailers like Sweetwater.
Thanks for reading!
