Studiologic Numa X Piano 73 Review

CyberGene · 2023-03-14T13:47:40+00:00

Intro I received the Studiologic Numa X Piano one week ago, had one rehearsal with it and gathered some impressions. At the bottom of this review I've put a background section about how I ended up with it after changing numerous stage pianos and keyboards for the past 2 years and ultimately downgraded from a wonderful Yamaha CP88 that costs more than 2 times the price of the Numa. First Impressions The piano looks very compact and at a first glance it gives the impression of a 61-key keyboard. Funnily enough I also purchased a 61-key soft bag that happened to be a perfect (albeit a bit tight) fit for it, the Gator GKB-61 Slim. So, they managed to squeeze a 73-key stage piano with a hammer action in the absolute minimum dimensions which is fantastic. It fits sideways in the trunk of my car. Even if it was 1cm longer it would have been too big already, so a great luck to have one of the shortest possible 73-keys pianos at 105cm. Also it's very light at 11.7kg and my back is thanking me. Looks very solid, all metal body with two plastic side panels. The two sticks look flimsy and I'd prefer proper mod/pitch wheels but I can forgive it considering how compact it is. The included piano style sustain pedal is also very lightweight. It's not a half-pedal though. However the piano supports continuous pedals, and there's an optional triple-pedal that can be purchased separately. And here comes the first surprise: I couldn't turn the piano on. I tried, I checked the adapter, the cables, the connection, all seemed good but the piano just couldn't turn on. There's a very small power button that's just a "soft" button you push (it won't stay pushed, instead there's electronics that's supposed to detect that you're pushing it). So, that made me experiment a little and it turns out I have to press it very slowly for the piano to turn on. The detection happens halfway through the travel. However turning the instrument off is the opposite: it happens regardless of how quick you press the button and again it happens halfway through the travel. I wrote an email to Studiologic describing this and other observations (see further) and received a quick response from their product manager Gianni Giudici who is very responsive and friendly. He explained they implemented a protection logic and so this behavior is expected and there's no issue. I haven't noticed the same behavior with my Numa X Piano 88 when I had it, so I believe there's certain variability or they changed the detection logic. I also find it a bit odd that it's so difficult to turn the instrument on and so easy to turn it off, should be the other way around. It would have been great if they used an internal power and not an adapter but in that price range that's the norm. User Interface, controls There's a nice color OLED screen. A lot has already been posted about the new concepts of the Numa X Piano called UXLogic and how intuitive it is. I can confirm that. Of course, it's not as intuitive as the Yamaha CP88 where you have many encoders and buttons for most of the functions, however given the limited number of knobs and buttons on the Numa they managed to make it very easy to follow and get used to the main concepts which include encoders that can be both rotated and pushed, the main one can even be tilted up/down/right/left, etc. and you can always see on the screen what functions can be used by each control (push, rotate, tilt sideways, press and hold). Each zone is color coded and the LED-s around knobs change to denote the zone. I have a red-green color blindness (protanomaly) and was worried if I may have difficulties with the zone colors but that's not the case, although I have some problems distinguishing between the yellow and the green colors... But you can always see which zone is selected through the corresponding button anyway. The encoders have a nice tactile click on rotation, so it feels very nice and easy to scroll through menus, change instruments, values, etc. However I must admit that the main encoder that is used for navigating between sounds, would very rarely click backwards before going one click forwards and thus it negates itself. That's annoying and I think I've read other people mentioning this problem too, so unfortunately it spoils a bit the good impressions about solid and firm feel of the controls. Keyboard Action This is Fatar TP-110 which is the successor to the TP-100LR. Since I've owned a SL73 with TP-100LR which I hated for being extremely heavy and sluggish, I can confirm the TP110 is an apparent improvement and feels much better. It's still on the heavy side but is certainly not sluggish to play, bottoms out harder than before and I like that very much. It feels lighter than the action of CP88 which some people find too heavy. I love the action in the CP88 although it has pretty high initial resistance. There's something in the CP88 action that makes it more realistic and more reminiscent of a real piano action than TP-110. On the other hand I still find TP-110 better than most entry level actions such as GHS, so ultimately TP-110 is a good middle ground action that should be pretty universal. It's easy to play fast, as well as to play soft and expressively, with a good dynamic response. It also uses triple sensor and you can replay keys without releasing them fully. I could repeat keys as fast as I could. They have improved the touch response with their newer firmware versions and I found it pretty good, although by default it might be slightly on the overly-sensitive side but this can be tweaked. Surprisingly for a hammer action, it also supports channel aftertouch and it's very easy to control, you don't need to break your fingers to activate it. It's not smooth as my Hydrasynth, however for a hammer action it's great and I used it to control a software synth for which it worked good (had to smooth out the response in the synth though). Name any keyboard with a hammer action in the €1000 price range that supports aftertouch! Since it's a 73 key version, the range is E-E which I understand is how the Rhodes pianos are. As a classical pianist used to 88-keys, I find it slightly confusing, I'm not used to that and I often find myself pressing the wrong keys in the two ends. I'd much prefer if it was C-C, having slightly more bass keys down to the nearest C, and won't mind sacrificing the high keys instead. Sounds Pianos - first the good part. There's a huge variety of piano samples to cover different characters, bright and dark, modern and classical, upright pianos, etc. They all have high quality to them and I can easily find myself using any of them for different purposes. There are also optional sounds that you can download from the website and install and there's around 1GB of user memory for those. As a matter of fact I found the best piano sounds to be the optional ones, especially the Japanese C-183 (apparently a Yamaha). However there's a certain dullness in all pianos when played quietly in the bass. I understand it's a mix of sampling and modeling, and AFAIK the piano engine is inherited from the (now defunct) GEM brand and includes some sampling/storage/compression optimizations that make it possible to fit a lot of samples in a small footprint (the optional pianos are around 100MB each) and this is a speculation but I think they do some spectral compression stuff or something which I'm afraid is responsible for the slightly odd response when playing quietly, especially in the bass. I get the feeling the pianissimos in the bass are just the regular mp samples but replayed quietly, I don't get a soft and dark character. It's not the end of the world though, since it's a stage piano, so these details would be hard to hear in a live situation. You need to be nitpicking with headphones at home. However I think you may have to test it thoroughly yourself if you're looking for the ultimate piano replacement at home. It may work for you or not. The piano resonances are modeled and to my ears they sound very nice. There's only damper resonance (which confusingly they call string resonance) and no (per key) string resonance. There are also pedal noises which are absolutely annoying when used with the included pedal, way too loud and almost machine gun-like if you press/release the pedal quickly. Furthermore, the default degree of that effect for all pianos is too high and there's no global way to turn it down, so whenever you start creating a new performance, you have to turn that down. If you save the performance it will get saved though. I recorded an example of the machine-gun pedaling and sent it to Gianni and he responded that indeed it doesn't sound good because the piano pedal is only a switch and the pedal noises would sound much better with the optional triple-pedal where a degree (hence velocity) of the pedal can be detected. He said they may add a global setting to turn down the pedal noises. Electric Pianos They are fully modeled. I'm a huge sceptic about modeled acoustic pianos, and by an extension the electric ones. However the three Rhodes models sound rather good. I think the default presets they created are a bit too bright and bell-like for my taste but due to the modeling I was able to change crucial parameters of the hammers and tines and make my own Rhodes sound which I really love. I still think the sampled Rhodes pianos in the CP88 have an edge but it's not a really big difference. On the other hand I was able to hear the sample switching in the Yamaha, whereas here all is smooth thanks to the modeling, there's nice bark, I hear some randomness simulated. Maybe modeling is already there when speaking about electric pianos (not yet for acoustic pianos but that's another topic 😉). I'm not a huge fan or Wurlitzer, so can't speak whether it's good or not. There are also some so called "Hybrid FM" pianos where a (sampled?) attack from FM pianos is followed by the modeled Rhodes engine. Some of those are interesting, others are rather lame. Other sounds - Haven't dug too much into them, the tonewheel organs sound good to me and the Rotary simulation is pretty good with smoothly changing low/fast speed assigned to the mod stick. Gianni himself is a top-notch Hammond player (look him up on YouTube) and he said he programmed those patches himself. There are some synth sounds, including lead synth sounds but those don't have portamento and are not monophonic which makes them really not fun to play. There are some nice pads and strings though and many other sounds which I haven't had chance to use so far. Features The most important feature for me about this keyboard, and I need to stress this out, is an absolutely terrific 4-zone external MIDI implementation with class compliant USB-audio support. It just blows the CP88 out in the wind! Although the Yamaha also has 4 external MIDI zones and USB audio, those are buried in the menus and are very hard to use. On the Numa X these zones can be treated in the same way as the internal ones: you can easily turn them on and off during a live performance from the main zone knobs, you can control their volume through the same knobs, you can assign each of the four knobs (in zoom mode) to configured MIDI control changes, you can easily set splits. Basically, there's no difference between an external and internal zone. This is just the perfect stage piano to integrate with software synths! I'm so pleasantly surprised that this fact alone makes me a huge Studologic fanboy! I played a rehearsal where I had two internal zones (Rhodes and an acoustic piano) and two external MIDI ones going through the USB (carrying both audio and MIDI) to my Mac running Logic Pro X with two instances of U-He Diva. It was divine! I could easily turn on/off each of these zones thus creating splits and layers on the spot and Diva is probably the best sounding plugin I've ever heard, so it was all a dream to me. The other guys noted how well I sounded. Another mind-blowing feature on the Numa X is that when you switch off a zone (internal or external) and if you have some keys held, it won't cut them off as on the Yamaha CP88 where the zone on/off buttons would just interrupt the entire sound including effects instantly in a very ugly audible way. In the Numa though, it's very well made with the zone just paused for receiving further keyboard input, however the currently held keys would still keep sounding and any note releases will be preserved, along with the effect reverb tails, etc.. And when you combine that with what I described above: turning zones on/off while I was playing, it just made for the smoothest possible experience. Kudos to Studiologic! The various effects are very high quality and equivalent to those in the CP88. However switching between effects while playing would lead to some click and pops which is unfortunately something where it's worse than the Yamaha but I believe changing effects that are applied to a sound during playing is not a very common scenario anyway. There are two effects per zone + global delay and reverb + EQ. The various reverbs are of especially high quality. The drive/amp simulations are also pretty good. The Numa X has 4 mono inputs that can be combined into two stereo inputs and those can go through their separate effects, a mixer and EQ, unlike the Yamaha which just routes the audio input to the output. There's a software manager for updating the firmware, uploading optional sounds, managing performances, etc. and it looked nice and intuitive. Part of the "features" is how responsive Gianni Guidici is, their product manager. He responds quickly through email and answered all my questions, he promised they will review my suggestions and he even invited me to their headquarters when I visit Italy next time 🙂 Conclusion In my previous review of the Numa X Piano 88 I approached it as the ultimate piano, from my point of view of a classical pianist looking for the best piano experience and that was wrong. And I was disappointed. However this time I purchased it, and am reviewing it, as a gigging stage piano. It doesn't disappoint and impressed me enough to keep it and love it! The Numa X pianos are stage pianos for live performance (solo or in a band) and they have some terrific features that are unmatched for the price. They nevertheless have some quirks and peculiarities and I see some people having quality issues, so you should be cautious. BTW, the highest E key on my Numa had loud thump on release. I unscrewed very slightly one of the side panel screws next to that key hammer and that solved it. Apparently the hammer was touching the screw 😀 Gianni swears this is not the way it's designed and must have been caused by transportation. I don't know what the truth is but I don't care, I fixed it and I'm OK with a screw being slightly loose after all, there are so many of them on each side panel and they have no weight bearing or structural function, they are only used to hold the side panels to the body. I love Italian things and I know they have their own mind from time to time 😉 Italians seem to posses great engineering skills but maybe the quality isn't exactly a strength. I'm glad to know that the piano is entirely made in Italy since I can't stop repeating how much I love Italy 🇮🇹❤️ Background For those who might miss the context, here's some perspective. I needed a portable instrument for occasional jams, no professional usage. Mostly pop/funk type of music with jazzy feel, Rhodes sound being the most used sound. I would best describe myself as a classical pianist, I only like real grand piano actions, I have a Yamaha AvantGrand N1X which is my main instrument and I consider all digital pianos unsatisfactory 😀 But for my gigging purposes I didn't care much. So, for the last two years I went through the following instruments: Studiologic SL73 Studio - awful keyboard (Fatar TP-100LR), heavy and sluggish. Yamaha MODX6 - surprisingly playable keyboard, despite considered the worst synth action in the Yamaha line. Fantastic sounds. But very unintuitive for live playing and hard to understand all these convoluted concepts. Might have been good as a preset-machine but I didn't like the idea and sold it. Yamaha YC61 - liked it a lot, especially the waterfall keyboard which was perfect for piano playing. Didn't want to sell it but 5-octaves were too limiting for piano and Rhodes playing. Yamaha YC73 - great, although a bit expensive for what I needed. The action was OK. It had a defect and I had to return it. Since there were no other available units, had to find some other instrument Numa X Piano 88 - I posted my experience here The keyboard action is OK, probably better than YC73 but not by much. Lukewarm acoustic pianos that always sounded dull to me. Pianissimos were very weird and a bit odd to control. Rhodes is OK, but the one in Yamaha is better and more varied. The interface is not as intuitive as advertised, less intuitive and direct than Yamaha. Also had some sound artifacts but I was on the initial firmware version. Returned it and decided to go back to Yamaha. But at this point the only available Yamaha stage piano was CP88. Yamaha CP88 - fantastic instrument! Great piano action (although on the heavy side), excellent pianos and Rhodes. A dream instrument, really hard to find any complaints. But... Way too heavy and caused some pain in my back because I have a herniated spinal disc. Couldn't fit in the trunk of my car, so I had to fold down the backseat and thus lost seats and I drive my bandmates in the car. It was sad but I sold it and purchased the Numa X Piano 73.

CyberGene

https://studiologic-music.com/blog/2024-09-02_numaxpiano24/

Numa X Piano 2.4 - Acoustic Modeling update

Acoustic Modeling is the technology that makes every acoustic piano sound of Numa X Piano so real thanks to an accurate mix of sampling, wave shaping and physical modeling.

We are excited to announce Acoustic Modeling 2, the most significant update for acoustic piano sounds, included in the firmware 2.4 for Numa X Piano and Numa X Piano GT.

New Sympathetic Resonance

When you press a key of an acoustic piano, other strings vibrate sympathetically, creating a complex, rich sound that’s greater than the sum of its parts. With the new algorithm introduced in Acoustic Modeling 2, Numa X Piano can now reproduce the complex interactions between strings, achieving a rich and nuanced tonal depth that dynamically responds to your touch.

Rewritten String Resonance

The String Resonance algorithm has been completely rewritten to enhance the realism of sustained notes and chords by accurately simulating the vibrations of all strings as you play.

Enhanced Duplex Resonance

The Duplex Resonance now emulates the additional harmonics produced by the strings even more accurately, resulting in a richer and clearer sound.

Repeated notes detection

The firmware update 2.4 also brings a significant improvement in the detection of repeated notes, greatly enhancing the responsiveness and accuracy of the keyboard. We made sure that notes played quickly, especially in techniques such as ribattuto, are captured with precision, allowing seamless repetition without losing the clarity or intensity of each note.

CyberGene

@David B , I believe the improvements related to the repeated note detection are thanks to you 🙂 I remember that we discussed it privately but you can clarify what the problem was. This update is apparently important even for people who use the Numa as just a MIDI controller, even if they don't care about the piano engine improvements, since admittedly the onboard pianos are not on par with software libraries.

David B

CyberGene @David B , I believe the improvements related to the repeated note detection are thanks to you

Back in March I opened up a tech support ticket with Studiologic regarding the lack of finger sustain on their triple sensor TP400 action. It was contrary to the way triple sensor actions are supposed to work and it did impact single key repetitions. I was fortunate enough to try a beta version correcting it and give some feedback. The beta version I tried had some problems. I haven't downloaded the official update yet, but I'm very excited to see how the latest version performs. I appreciate how Studiologic is working to improve their products and provide new piano libraries to download. It's a holiday here in the US (Labor Day) so I'll have most of the day to mess around with it.

God Bless,
David

jdg78

CyberGene Thanks for the tip - downloading it now.

Also, thanks to their release notes, I've learned a new word: "ribattuto"

In all my years of piano playing, I don't think I'd ever come across this term before. 😮

CyberGene

jdg78 Also, thanks to their release notes, I've learned a new word: "ribattuto"

In all my years of piano playing, I don't think I'd ever come across this term before. 😮

Same here. Had to search it. I’m still not sure what it means. I believe it’s fast repeating patterns/notes, maybe accelerating from a slower tempo…?

jdg78

CyberGene Same here. Had to search it. I’m still not sure what it means. I believe it’s fast repeating patterns/notes, maybe accelerating from a slower tempo…?

Yeah, as far as I can tell, it seems to mean a gradually accelerating trill, but I'm not 100% sure either.

In any case, I've downloaded the update and have been playing around for a bit (in MIDI controller mode only) but I can't say I detect much difference in the response towards repeated notes/trills, although it never struck me as having been especially deficient in this area before.

CyberGene

jdg78 if I recall correctly from @David B, it wasn’t possible to repeat the keys with a partial release (what is one of the main advantages of triple-sensor keyboards). Or maybe, it was possible but would always send note-off before the new note-on. For legato playing you only need repeated note-ons without note-offs in between.

David B

I'm going to download the update shortly, but previously it did not allow you to repeat a note while the previous note was sustained. Acoustic pianos and probably every other triple sensor action will allow you to lift the key slightly before dampening the note and allow you to re-trigger that same note again.

It's not just single key repetitions that this impacted, but also trills with the sustain pedal not pressed. For example, if you wanted a smooth legato connected feel to your trills without pressing the sustain pedal. It wasn't possible because you cannot re-trigger a note without completely dampening the previous note. Hopefully, this has been remedied with the latest update.

For me it was not really that big of an issue based on the music I play and my skill level. However, it bothered me in principle that the triple sensor action didn't work the way it was supposed to. Why could other manufactures get it right and not Studiologic?

God Bless,
David

David B

Looks like they solved the finger sustain issue. I would say it performs better than Roland's PHA50 in this respect. Previously on the TP400/Numa a note would dampen if the key was raised 2/16ths from the key bed. You couldn't repeat a note until 2/16ths either, ergo, no finger sustain.

Under firmware 2.4 I still have to lift the key 2/16ths before I can repeat a note, but the big difference is that the note won't dampen until the key is raised ~4/16ths from the keybed. That means I can now perform single key sustained variable repetitions without using the sustain pedal just like on an acoustic piano. This translates to midi/virtual pianos as well.

I think it's better than the PHA50 in that the release distance is greater on the TP400 before the note dampens. Therefore, it's easier to get wider variable velocities out of single key repetitions when executing finger sustain. On the PHA50 the distance between repeating and dampening a note is shallower thus limiting the velocity/volume in which you can repeat a note using finger sustain.

Essentially, the TP400/Numa plays more like the acoustic grand piano in my church in regard to finger sustain. Kudos to Studiologic. I'll keep playing around with it today and hopefully no issues emerge.

God Bless,
David

Guin0416

Looking forward to updating as well. How about the new Steinway D patch? Is that part of this release or will that be a standalone?

David B

Guin0416 How about the new Steinway D patch?

I've been checking their site and haven't seen it yet. It's not part of the 2.4 update.

God Bless,
David

Guin0416

Anyone playing the Numa in a band setting? I’m struggling with the volume getting overwhelmed by the other instruments, even cranking the main volume knob (going directly into the board). Wonder if a dedicated amp is required…

PeteTheGreek

I play regularly with two big bands - they can get loud. I use an Aspen Pittman SpaceStation V3 amp and have no problems being heard. It has stereo sound from one box. Highly recommended.

But before spending the money on that, maybe you just need a signal a boost before connecting to the PA. A simple active analog mixer should do the job. This would also let you connect to the main board via XLR rather than 1/4", which can avoid hum, signal loss over longer distances, etc.. Whenever I connect directly to the PA (and am not using an amp) I'll use an old Mackie mixer my brother gave me - it's overkill, but it's built like a tank, has a built-in power supply, and does the job (and was free). All of the smaller mixers use an external power supply, so if you go that route try finding one that uses the same power supply as the Numa (12V center positive barrel connector). That way one spare power supply could be used for either the mixer or the keyboard.

PeteTheGreek

There's a new firmware for the Numa X Piano - 2.4.1 - to fix a problem when split and transpose are both enabled. I had set up a split with the left side shifted up one octave. This meant that the two sides of the keyboard had exactly one octave of overlap in the actual notes that they could each play. Within this overlapping octave, I noticed that if I was holding a note on the left side of the split, and then played and then released the same note (meaning the key that was exactly one octave higher) on the right side, the note on the left side would stop playing (even though the key was still held down on the left side). This was occurring for all but 2 of the notes in the overlapping octave.

I reported this problem yesterday and it was fixed within 8 hours. Amazing support! Thank you, Gianni Guidici.

Fixed note-off interferences between ZONES with Split and Transpose enabled.
Fixed note-off sent by few keys of the middle octave despite all MIDI disabled.

Only snag was I had to reboot the keyboard twice after applying the firmware update. But it fixed the issue.

Guin0416

PeteTheGreek Great suggestions- will give it a try. Thanks!

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