Spider wrote:Interesting they resurrected the "compact" version after the not-so-successful Piano 2 HP.
How do you know the Piano 2 HP was not successful? If only based on the fact that there was no 3 HP, that could also have resulted from how such a model would have stacked up in price/features versus the concurrent version Electro HP. The Electro/Piano balance has shifted over time as feature sets have changed, and they may have simply felt that the Electro HP sufficiently addressed the market for an HP-based piano. That is, there wouldn't have been sufficient price+feature differentiation between the two to have it make sense to continue to offer both, once the Electro was also possible of doing a split or layer (introduced on the E5). But now, a dual-panel implementation would also re-introduce a more substantial feature differentiation between this piano and the Electro 6, besides basically just not having the organ.
Spider wrote:The thing is, I've almost never seen a high-end FATAR piano action (TP/40 and variants) in less than 88 keys. Literally the only one I can think about was the HA action in the old NS2 (not EX).
Also the Kurzweil Forte 7.
Spider wrote:Yeah, interesting that they are bringing the two-panel architecture also to the Piano (and so, arguably, to the future Electros? They have always shared almost all features with the Piano and Stages).
I suspect not. Getting back to what I said above, I think the re-introduction of a 7x piano supports the idea of their aiming for more significant differences between the Piano and Electro series, not making them more similar, to avoid too much overlap. You'd be back to the Electro and Piano differing by little more than the presence of the organ engine.
I also think a change like that might raise the price of the Electro, which is already premium priced enough, I don't think they'd want their entry bread-and-butter board to be more expensive than it is. I think bringing it closer to the Stage 3 in price and functionality is an unlikely goal.
As an aside, I'm not sure dual panel would even be a good idea for an Electro. I've seen numerous posts over the years from people who think the Stage is too confusing, lacking the relative simplicity of the Electro, and I think a lot of that comes from the dual panel architecture, which immediately leads to controls not doing what one may expect because they are affecting the "other" panel. Dual panels may not be a good idea for what is essentially their "My First Nord" product. As it is, I also see complaints that the Electro got too complicated as soon as they added the ability to split/layer (i.e. play more than one sound at a time). There are people who miss the simplicity of the Electro 4 and earlier. I think they probably want to be careful about adding complexity to this board. I suspect that is why the Set List mode of the Electro 5 disappeared from the 6 (though it basically survives in the Stage series as Song mode).
BjoernFromEarth wrote:In advanced mode, the CP series can also play two Acoustic Pianos or two Electric Piano at the same time. You can shift Acoustic Pianos to the Electric Pianos section and vice versa.
It also works the other way, allowing you to play one piano/EP sound and two "synth" sounds. Any combination of three of its sounds.
). Then reasons would still remain for us to choose the Stage. Exciting times!*
