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Message: [QUOTE="Bombastus, post: 92332, member: 2178"] Roland lists 305 internal tones in the FP-40, but only 40 can be selected directly from the piano’s own controls. The remaining 265 are reached through the Roland Piano App, so the headline sound count needs a little unpacking. If you bought the [B][URL='https://goldmidi.com/community/threads/roland-fp-40-debuted-with-the-piano-sphere-learning-app.76811/']Roland FP-40 digital piano[/URL][/B] for its full sound library, your phone or tablet becomes part of the normal control path. Nothing stops you from sitting down and playing without it, but the front panel only exposes a small slice of what is stored inside. [HEADING=2]The 305-tone figure hides a 40-tone front panel[/HEADING] The directly selectable set is arranged as ten piano sounds, ten electric pianos, ten organs, and ten other tones. Forty is still enough for ordinary practice, especially if you mainly move between acoustic piano, electric piano, and organ sounds. The larger number matters once you expect the FP-40 to cover more colors. Roland counts all 305 as internal tones, yet 265 of them cannot be called up from the piano alone. You need the Roland Piano App to browse and select those extra sounds. This distinction is easy to miss because “305 tones” looks like a simple hardware specification. It is really two specifications folded together. One describes what the sound engine contains, while the other describes what the physical interface lets you reach without another device. The panel itself stays intentionally lean. You still get direct access to everyday playing functions such as transpose, split, dual, Twin Piano, key touch, ambience, brilliance, and the metronome. Sound hunting is where the design becomes more dependent on software. [HEADING=2]The app selects sounds already stored inside the piano[/HEADING] The extra 265 tones are not presented by Roland as a downloadable expansion pack. Roland explicitly labels the FP-40 as having 305 internal tones, then states that 265 are accessible only through the Roland Piano App. The app is acting as the doorway to sounds already counted inside the instrument. This matters if you assumed “app sounds” meant audio generated by the phone and streamed back through Bluetooth. Roland Piano App connects to supported pianos through Bluetooth MIDI and can call up sounds that are unavailable from the instrument panel. The phone is controlling the piano rather than replacing its sound engine. It also changes how you should think about the 305 figure when comparing digital pianos. Tone count alone says nothing about how quickly those tones can be reached. A smaller library with dedicated category buttons can be faster to navigate than a larger library that expects a touchscreen beside the keyboard. Tone choice is not just a menu-number game either. A [B][URL='https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2425073122']2025 paper on piano timbre perception[/URL][/B] linked subtle key-motion differences with timbral changes that expert listeners could reliably distinguish. For an instrument built around expressive piano playing, the useful question is not how many names appear in a list, but whether the sounds you actually use are easy to reach and shape. [HEADING=2]The split changes how the FP-40 feels in real use[/HEADING] A player who spends most sessions on one acoustic piano voice may hardly notice the restriction. Turn the piano on, choose from the direct set, adjust touch or ambience, and start playing. The app can stay off the music rest for days. The experience changes if you move through electric pianos, organs, pads, orchestral colors, or other less immediate choices during practice and arranging. Reaching beyond the 40 front-panel tones means adding a phone or tablet to the routine, opening the Roland Piano App, and selecting from there. For some players, that is normal. For others, it is friction. Live use deserves the same scrutiny. If a set depends on several sounds outside the direct 40, the mobile device becomes part of your preparation rather than an optional extra. Battery level, pairing, screen access, and where the device sits suddenly matter more than they would on a keyboard with every patch reachable from hardware controls. The design also explains why the FP-40 can look unusually simple despite carrying hundreds of tones. Roland has kept the physical surface focused on common piano functions and pushed deeper sound browsing into software. You get a cleaner panel, but the trade-off is clear when you want the full library. For home practice, the split may be almost invisible if your favorite tones sit inside the direct 40. For broader arranging or frequent sound changes, the important specification is not 305 by itself. It is 40 on the piano and 265 behind the app, because those numbers describe the workflow you will actually live with. [/QUOTE]

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