pRP8
digital piano
The Generalmusic pRP8 is a beautiful and compact digital piano. This keyboard features a great weighted hammer-touch keyboard, and it emulates quite faithfully the dynamics and expression of a real piano. The pRP8 has a set of on-board stereo speakers, that are more than sufficient for the use at home and small ambiences.
To the very top left of the keyboard we also find a useful joystick that controls pitch bend and modulation. Next to the right is a duo of buttons dedicated to transposing the pitch up and down by semitones. Then we see a series of buttons to recall the 64 factory presets accessible on board (without the use of MIDI and an external computer, which you'll need if you want to access the rest of the GM sounds on board).
In the middle of the board, highly visible is the "G P" button. By pressing it, you recall the best piano patch on this keyboard. Additional controls for split, layer, effects and touch sensitivity (limited to three settings) follow. Then data input controls, a small LED display, and finally the "Recording Studio" buttons (a simple but quite useful sequencer).
There's also a very useful, especially for the students, piano library - a recording of famous pieces by many composers. The student can follow these to improve his/her skills.
On the back of the unit, the usual suspects: MIDI in and out, stereo outputs (and inputs), damper and soft pedals, and a phone jack.
I am impressed by the sonic performance of this piano (check the demos below). It offers everything that one could need to produce and record beautiful music. I also appreciate the ease of use and the uncluttered layout of the controls: everything is easily reachable and it's a snap to configure splits, layers etc.
The polyphony is certainly respectable at 32-note, although newer pianos are capable of a lot more.
In all, I would recommend this instrument to anybody who needs
great basic sounds, quality hammer-action, and ease of use for composition,
study, and recording purposes.
sorry, I didn't have a pro-quality sound card with me, so I recorded these examples with the on-board soundcard on my laptop. NOTE that the slight noise that you can occasionally hear is not from the pRP8 but from the soundcard.
Generalmusic pRP8 Factory Demos
Here are the internal factory demo sequences, for each group of sounds:
| Sound with audio demo | My comments |
| Piano | Astounding expressivity of the Grand Piano patch in this well-known classical work. |
| El. Piano | A cool, '70s version of "The Days of Wine and Roses" showcases greatly the beautiful and realistic tone of this Rhodes electric piano. Nice GM acoustic bass and drums also. |
| Keyboard | Great Stevie Wonder-like tune. |
| Organ | Keith Emerson-style upbeat shuffle. |
| Strings | Gorgeous rendition of Vivaldi's "Primavera" (Spring) from his masterpiece "Le Quattro Stagioni" (The Four Seasons). Highly expressive and realistic strings and other orchestral instruments. |
| Choir-Pad | Soft pad and realistic choir |
| Guitar | Awesome Spanish demo, a la Los Lobos. Great congas and highly-expressive guitar. |
| Vibes | Another strong point on this keyboard, the jazzy vibraphone. |
Instrument Demos
| Sound with audio demo | My comments |
| Grand Piano (G P) | |
| Grand Piano | The best piano patch on board. I tried to use all the notes and dynamics of the keyboard, to show how expressive and realistic this G P can go. |
| Piano group | |
| Grand Piano 2 | Slightly different and more percussive piano. Optimal for pop, rock. |
| Electric Grand | The classic Yamaha CP80 sound. |
| Upright Piano | Beautiful tone and feeling... perfect for romantic classical pieces! |
| Honky Tonky | Okay rendition of an old, out of tune piano. |
| Chorus Piano | The classic 1980s trick for power pop ballads. |
| String Piano | Obligatory layer between piano and strings. A must on every synth/keyboard. |
| Jazz Piano | Great tone, perfect for 1960s jazz standards. Layered contrabass and ride cymbal on the left side. |
| Electric Duo | Electric bass and electric grand. |
| El. Piano group | |
| Rhodex 1 | Very realistic emulation of a Fender Rhodes electric piano. |
| Wurlie | It doesn't quite sound like a Wurlitzer to me. |
| Rhodex 2 | Sparkly 80s version of the Rhodes. |
| FM Piano | Classic DX7 FM piano. |
| Rhodex Pad | This sounds more like a Wurli to me... |
| Full Tine | Sparkly Rhodes |
| Rhodex Bass | Rhodes with jazzy bass and ride cymbal on the left of the keyboard. A la Chick Corea. |
| Wurlie Bass | That's what it is. |
| Keyboard group | |
| Harpsichord | Excellent sampled harpsichord. |
| Clavinet | Realistic Hohner |
| Celesta | Gentle tone |
| Grand Harp | Beautiful tone. |
| Mixed Celesta | Celesta with a choir in the background |
| Piano Harp | Mix between a piano and a harp. |
| Continum | Some kind of ethnic setup. |
| Split Harp | Beautiful setup, a soft pad on the left and the gorgeous harp on the right |
| Organ group | |
| Jazz Organ | Typical Hammond B-3 style. |
| Jazz Organ 2 | Hammond with Leslie set at full speed. |
| Theatre Organ | The Mighty Wurlitzer. |
| Pipe Organ | Nice church organ. |
| Drawbars | Classic '60s rock organ. |
| Pianorgan | Yep. |
| Organ Combo 1 | Usual bass/ride cymbal + jazz organ |
| Organ Combo 2 | Usual bass/ride cymbal + rock organ |
| Strings group | |
| String 1 | Awesome, powerful, majestic and expressive string ensemble. |
| Mellow String | Filtered version of the above. |
| Slow String | Slower attack. Great for film scoring. |
| Octave String | Again great for film scoring. |
| Stringbell 1 | Classic mix between bells and strings. |
| Stringbell 2 | And a variation. |
| Symphonic | Modern orchestra. |
| Concerto | More orchestral setups. |
| Choir/Pad group | |
| Choir 1 | Honest sampled choir. |
| Slow Choir | Same with slow attack and filtered. |
| Attack Pad | Standard soft synth pad. |
| Tap Pad | Warbly mix between pad and strings. |
| MixdPad 1 | Mixed pads. |
| MixdPad 2 | Mixed pads 2. |
| Rain Pad | Typical sound effect found in General MIDI. |
| Barchime Pad | Classic early 90s pad. |
| Guitar group | |
| Nylon Guitar | Beautiful, expressive Spanish guitar. |
| Steel Guitar | Well-sampled acoustic guitar. |
| Jazz Guitar | Nice hollow-body. |
| Strato Guitar | The classic. |
| Harptar | Cross between harp and guitar. |
| 12 String 1 | A solid 12-string. |
| Wes Combo | Obviously inspired by great jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery. |
| Country Duo | Contrabass and steel guitar. |
| Vibes group | |
| Vibes 1 | A strong sound on this keyboard. Jazzy and realistic. |
| Vibes 2 | Muted version. |
| Vibes 3 | With vibrato and FX. |
| Marimba | Cool instrument. |
| Vibes Harp | yep. |
| Vibes Piano | yes. |
| Vibes Combo 1 | Usual jazz setup. |
| Vibes Combo 2 | Awesome sounding jazz setup 2. |
- relatively light and portable;
- sounds great;
- inspirational and easy to use layout of the controls;
- wonderful weighted keyboard touch
| Features at a glance | |
| Year of release: | 200_ |
| Polyphony: | 32 |
| Sound generation method: | pcm |
| Preset memories | total of 444 tones (MIDI addressable), 64 on board presets + Grand Piano |
| MIDI: | yes, in and out |
| Sound expansion capabilities: | no |
| Sequencer | yes |
| Arpeggiator | no |
| Effects | yes |
| Touch sensitivity | yes |
| Aftertouch | no |
Available at www.generalmusic.us
- Review in "Keyboard magazine" Janfebmarch 198___
| SITE | Type of resource | DESCRIPTION |
| Home page | website. | |