Roland FP-40 Digital Piano With Piano Sphere

1 Sep, 2026  No Comment


Roland unveils FP-40 digital piano and Piano Sphere App.

Today, the Japanese manufacturer Roland, has expands its FP series with a new release: FP-40.

The FP-40 is Roland’s first piano with built-in Wi-Fi. Why does a piano need Wi-Fi, you ask? Well, the FP-40 is launching alongside Piano Sphere, a free app for iOS and Android that’s designed to help you learn the instrument and develop your skills.

Connecting to your piano over your home network (or Bluetooth), Piano Sphere provides real-time feedback on your playing, and is able to create personalized tuition plans based on your skill level and musical preferences. Roland says it’s not just a companion app, but a “complete ecosystem” that brings together your piano, lessons, songs, and progress in one place.

Developed in partnership with tuition platform Skoove, Piano Sphere features a library of step-by-step lessons and skill development tools, alongside 100 songs covering everything from classical to pop hits. Users can upgrade the app to access over 1000 more songs and additional courses as they progress, and are encouraged to advance through their learning journey with gamified features such as streaks and reward badges.

The piano records your playing history through Piano Sphere even when the app isn’t open, allowing you to take a backwards glance at your development, and thanks to its Wi-Fi connection, FP-40’s firmware is automatically updated over your home network – Roland promises that the piano will “continuously evolve” with “new services, feature enhancements, and ecosystem integrations”.

There are plenty of digital pianos out there built to help you learn to play or improve your playing, but very few of these feature built-in Wi-Fi – most rely on Bluetooth MIDI for a wireless connection or a wired MIDI or USB connection.

Sitting squarely in the middle of the FP range between the FP-30X and the FP-60X, the FP-40 features Roland’s Piano Reality sound engine, introduced in 2024, which is a first for the FP range: the other models in the series have either featured Roland’s SuperNATURAL or PureAcoustic engines.

Roland tells us that Piano Reality combines sampled sounds with modeling tech from its high-end GP Series grand pianos to capture the “depth, detail, and tonal character of an acoustic piano”, delivering “smooth response, natural resonance, and rich dynamics”. 40 different preset sounds are accessible from the piano, with an additional 265 available through the existing Roland Piano App.

FP-40 also benefits from an upgraded speaker system, arranging its dual speakers (each powered by a dedicated 12W amplifier) in a redesigned internal layout that’s said to produce a clearer and more spacious sound with a deeper low-end.

Those are some respectable upgrades, but FP-40 isn’t all new: it features the same PHA-4 Standard keyboard that can be found in the FP-10, FP-30X and FP-60X models. This triple-sensor system delivers fully-weighted hammer action and escapement, along with an ivory-style feel applied to its plastic keys, but sits below both the PHA-50 and Hybrid Grand in Roland’s lineup of digital piano actions.

The Roland FP-40 is available in both black and white models for $749.99 on Amazon site. Find out more on Roland website.

AUXY Debuts Svensson 49 Keyboard Instrument

30 Apr, 2026  No Comment


Ahead of Superbooth 2026 – scheduled on May 7-9, 2026 in Berlin – Auxy unveils Svensson, a minimalist keyboard built for instant music-making.

Today, Auxy has announced the release of the Svensson 49. It’s a 49-key home digital keyboard designed with a focus on accessibility, simplicity and ease-of-use, equipped with a built-in speaker and a semi-weighted, velocity-sensitive Fatar TP/9S keybed.

Auxy partnered with Cuckoo on the development of Svensson, a well-known YouTuber in the world of music technology. Cuckoo was the lead sound designer responsible for creating Svensson’s bank of around 100 presets, which are divided into four categories: Drums, Bass, Bread and Butter.

The first two are self-explanatory, and the other two cover everything else that falls outside of those categories: keys, leads, pads, plucks, organs and more, spanning both acoustic and electronic sources. Svensson’s sounds have a distinctly organic and expressive quality, with a touch more personality and character than the presets you’ll find in the average home keyboard; it’s clear that a lot of love went into designing these.

Developed in-house by Auxy, Svensson’s polyphonic sound engine uses a combination of samples and wavetables. Each sound has three macro controls – Tone, Mood and Shape – and each macro has been customized to offer a tailored variation on each sound, dialling in effects on an independent per-preset effects chain covering reverb, delay, chorus, phaser, compression, EQ, and various styles of distortion and saturation.

Svensson is equipped with a multi-track MIDI looper that can play four different sounds at the same time, and each of those sounds can be looped in multiple layers, with no limit on length. There’s a metronome onboard, a tempo control, and the looper has smart quantization that can be turned off.

Loops can be stored on Svensson to revisit later, and you can trigger loops from its memory via the keyboard.

Cuckoo Demonstrates Svenson 49 Walkthrough Video Below:

Svensson’s looper is triggered when you start playing, and can be used to go back and retrieve ideas you just played without hitting record.

On the hardware side, Svensson 49 is a sturdy instrument, with a metal chassis and solid oak sides, and the interface is clean, stylish and uncluttered, in keeping with the theme of accessibility. Auxy says that particular attention was paid to the design of the speaker, crafted by Swedish speaker guru Ingvar Öhman, which is “surprisingly loud” and benefits from a bass port on the instrument’s rear.

Connectivity includes two ¼” line outputs, a 3.5mm headphone output, and a sustain pedal jack, along with USB-A and USB-C for power.

Svensson is currently in pre-production, and preorders for a first limited batch will start soon, with shipping set for early fall 2026. While a final price hasn’t yet been determined, it’s expected to be around €899/$999.

“We struggled to find products that combine ease of use, inspiring features, and a quality build,” said Auxy’s Henrik Lenberg. “There are some great digital pianos out there, but we wanted something with more playful features, a broader range of sounds, a smaller form factor, and a design that feels at home in your living room.

“We wanted to make a great instrument for playing at home. Something that invites you to play and create in the moment. No need to read the manual or connect other gear. No menus to dive through. No modes to get stuck in. Just play, loop, and explore your musical ideas.

“A lot of music technology has been shaped around the idea that everyone can be a producer and make tracks for an audience. That’s great, but I think we’re moving in a direction where more people want to take part in music again, not only as listeners. People want to play to have fun, to be present, to learn, or to connect with others. Svensson was made for that.”

Find out more on Auxy website.

 

 

 

Korg Unveils Liano Live! All-in-One Piano Ahead Of 2026 NAMM Show

15 Jan, 2026  No Comment


Ahead of the 2026 NAMM Show, Korg has unveiled Liano Live! the All-in-One portable piano.

We live in the era of multi-disciplined creators – many musicians are now equally adept at producing video content, for example – and, naturally, this is having an impact on the kind of products that are being designed and released. Korg’s new Liano Live! digital piano, for example, an evolution of its original Liano, which was released in 2022.

Built for pianists who want to livestream and/or record their performances, this promises to give you everything you need to make it happen. It ships with a mic and stand and has a built-in mixer, so you can set the volume and reverb levels of your vocals and the piano right from the instrument itself. It can be connected to your phone, tablet or computer with a single USB-C cable.

As if to reinforce the fact that this is a keyboard built for livestreaming, there’s an on-air button that triggers instant global muting. There are also 10 built-in rhythms and 76 one-touch sound effects, six of which can be assigned to dedicated buttons.

But what of the actual piano bit of the Liano Live!? Although the 88 keys don’t have a hammer action, they are full size and velocity-sensitive, and there’s 120-, 60-, or 40-note polyphony depending on which sound you have selected. There are eight of these (acoustic and electric pianos, organ, guitar, strings, bass/piano and drums/SFX), and they can be dialled-in from a clearly labelled knob.

Obviously, you’ll want to play the Liano Live! at home as well as to the online world, so a pair of front-facing speakers is onboard. It’s also properly portable, running on six AA batteries for up to six hours when you’re away from a main power source. It’s compact and light, too – a mere slip of a thing at 7cm thin and a weight of 5.9kg.

Connectivity includes USB MIDI and audio, headphone, damper pedal, line in and line out (you can adjust the USB/line input level with a dedicated slider). As well as the mic and stand, you also get an AC adapter, pedal switch, cables and a music stand in the box.

There’s also some software – Korg’s Module and Gadget 2 Le apps – and a 3-month subscription to Skoove, the online piano lesson platform.

The Liano Live! is available now priced at $599.99/£549. Find out more on the Korg website.

 

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