FA-07 Keybed vs Jupiter 80.

It's more similar, if not the same, as the Jupiter 50, from memory the 80's are a 'better' key than the JP-50. But the -07 is definitely a big improvement over the -06, hard to compare to the -08 though as it becomes very subjective at that point as to how you like your keys.

The -07 is quite a light key but it's reliable and consistent across blacks and whites alike. I'm pretty sure the JP-80 like you have is heavier action, and has waterfall keys? I've only ever played with the JP-50.

The FA-07 action is definitely not the same as either the Jupiter 50 or the Jupiter 80, and IMO, not nearly as good as either of them. It actually reminds me more of the FA-06 action than the Jupiter 50 action, in that the rear portion of the keys is very unresponsive, which is particularly problematic if you're going to be playing piano on it.

The forthcoming Roland VR-730 will have a different action (waterfall, unlike any of the above three... and if it's like the one in the VR-700, a pretty nice one, too). Or maybe consider looking for a Jupiter 50. (I might sell mine...)

Other reasonably light 7x key non-hammer-action boards you could look at would be models from Kurzweil (Artis7, SP4-7) and Nord (Electro 5D-73 and the Stage series).

No, you're probably right that it's not exactly the same, but from my perspective it's more Jup 50 than FA-06, that's for sure. I think from what you've described that the length maybe shorter than the Jupiter 50 perhaps? Do you have them both at hand to compare? I'm curious if the key is physically different, or whether a velocity curve adjustment helps align them both?

Of course, from a piano perspective there is a much different satisfaction level, but personally i wouldn't go to a synth action keybed and expect precision piano playing from it.

It's good to hear feedback comparing the two directly, as i could only do it in store, and they were either end of the showroom which made it really hard to get a direct comparison, -06 to -07 were next to each other and you could definitely notice a difference.

Skijumptoes wrote:

No, you're probably right that it's not exactly the same, but from my perspective it's more Jup 50 than FA-06, that's for sure. I think from what you've described that the length maybe shorter than the Jupiter 50 perhaps? Do you have them both at hand to compare? I'm curious if the key is physically different, or whether a velocity curve adjustment helps align them both?

I do have them both at hand. The key lengths are about the same, just shy of 5 1/2" for a white key, however the feel is very different. The Jupiter 50 keys feel roughly the same from front to back. The FA-07 keys become increasingly resistant toward the back, such that the back two inches or so feel very little like the front (getting worse as you go further back).The Jupiter 50 keys also feel more solid, and are more resistant to side-to-side wiggle.

Thanks for that, that's very interesting to know, appreciated.

Here's some comments on the FA-07 that I recently posted on the Sound on Sound forums, thought I should also post them here:

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I had a play of an FA-07 at Synthfest last weekend. A big thumbs-up for the keyboard action.

First I played it with some synth and organ sounds. It was very good. I'm not putting it in the class of best-ever actions, but it was good, especially given that's it's not an high-end machine.

Then I played it with some piano sounds. This was a revelation. It was one of the best ever synth-style keyboards I've ever used for playing the piano. Things that are normally a struggle on a semi-weighted action worked really well on this, and I happily played away for quite a while.

Of course these things are to some degree subjective, and I'm speaking here as proper piano player, who has grown up on real pianos and who prefers weighted keys for piano parts. I can't guarantee that this action will work for those players who prefer semi-weighted keys over weighted keys even for piano. Maybe you won't like these. But for me, it worked extremely well. And not because the keys were really heavy and more like weighted keys. They weren't, they were definitely synth-style, they just had the right sort of action and release for piano, as well as for other sounds.

For comparison, I also played a Kronos 6 in the Korg room. The synth action on that was a bit on the ordinary side, I thought. Not terrible, but a bit average, and disappointing given the price. I wasn't expecting it to be any good with piano, but surprisingly, it was pretty decent with piano, which made up a bit for it being average with other sounds. But it wasn't as good for piano, or other sounds, as the FA-07, and given that the Kronos is a high-end keyboard, whereas the FA-07 is a budget keyboard, Roland have really won out here.

Although I already have an FA-08 I'm happy with, in most circumstances I'd be happy to gig with an FA-07 instead (unless I was doing some really demanding piano parts).