Alesis NanoPiano

You don't need a manual for this one, but as other have said the knobs are a bit fiddley.

Horrible horrible. I've played 1MB piano samples that walk all over this module.

I sold it one month after I bought it. I purchased it as a backup for my VSTi setup and perhaps as a quickie jam tool. I can't imagine enjoying playing or listening to it.

Very simple, just plug power supply, choose instrument and play. The only limit is that it does not remember the state of the "effect". No editing of patches.

64 notes poly. Built in effects for every patch (piano: reverb; organs: modulation/leslie etc.). Midi In/Out. It lacks a power on switch: you have to plug/unplug cables

Grand Piano is brilliant, good for rock and pop, not so much for classical, even if it sounds good and wide. Dark pianos are simply pass/down filtered samples of a brighter sound, not an excellent choice.
Some organs are fine, but do not expect an aggressive hammond sound..
A very nice harpsicord and "classic" lead synts (square, sawtooth etc.)

Steel solid and very small.

Neve needed!

Nice complement for a master keyboard in home/amateur use if you need a few good instruments (piano, organ). Now it is probably surpassed by more modern expanders. Anyway it is maybe the most compact module!

Yea easy to use.. except for the fiddly little knobs.

The pianos do their job. Organs are rubbish. So are strings. Some not too bad E-pianos. There is only one usable pad sound.

Piano and E piano only real things worth using, and only one of each sound slightly ok. So its pretty dismal all in all. I must confess, its almost as good as my Korg N1R.. doesn't say much for the Korg eh!

All the little knobs fall off. I hate this piece of junk. Mind you, it fits in my pocket. So not all bad.

Really bad. Don't take it unless you have nothing else.

Very easy. But the midi funcions should be better explained.

64 notes at one time makes a diffrent. Even with a bad keyboard the sounds make you get the feeling of playing on a real piano. With my Roland A33 it's like heaven. The drawbacks is the effct knob and no memory.

Sorry to see a couple of not so serious remarks from some of the reviewers (pardon my English I'm from Sweden). I love the piano sounds, very realistic for that kind of money. Yes the midrange sound is a bit weak and the strings aren't realistic, but it is a piano module. And you can't get a Steinway for that kind of money.

Nothing to complain about!

I want to buy one more for live preformence and if it was stolen I would buy it agin.

Couldn't be easier

Basic features--it would be nice if there was included a headphone jack

YUK!!!!! The supposedly fantastic acoustic grand piano is the pits! It is transposed down an octave. The other piano samples are really bad. The electric pianos are worse than most out there. All in all, I got so tired of listening to this thing that I just traded it in.

rock solid

no need to ask

I just got rid of this thing. It is not the answer to your quest for a good "piano in a box." While I know that other piano modules can get more expensive (and that this think is no worse than the Kurzwiel Micro Piano) you will be disappointed. Save up your money and buy a Motif Rack instead.

It couldn't be easier. It's on the light side, so for safety on a gig I always duct tape it to the top of my keyboard. The manual is OK. Some of the sounds seem alike to me, so I wish the manual described what Alesis had in mind when they programmed them.

They manage to put a lot into a small space. However, many of the sounds I would never want to hear, much less use. I would have opted for higher quality over so much useless quantity.

The sounds are as bad as the ones built into my computer. There is not a trace of realism in any of them. The piano sounds in my obsolete Korg 3500 blow this sucker away. I use the Nanopiano on gigs because it's so light and easy to use. But I would never do any serious playing or recording with it.

Like a tank. I've had it since 1998 and hauled it to scores of gigs, with never a trace of malfunction.

Never needed it.

I can't recommend this unit for anything except convenience. It's musically embarrassing.

This unit is the virtual definition of "Plug and Play," which is good, because the manual is pretty thin. This worked fine for me, though, because I'm the kind of person who likes to learn by playing rather than reading.

It has 64-note polyphony. The effects are pretty basic, but adequate, and extremely easy to use. No capability for expansion or programming. And I join other reviewers in wishing that it had a POWER button.

The nanopiano has some very nice pianos, EPs, organs and synth leads. The string sounds are less than overwhelming, although a couple are usable. I've used it for rock, pop and country, and it more than fills the bill.

Solid. Over the last two-plus years, this unit has survived my kids at home, drunks at gigs, and my occasional bumbling in between, and has never missed a beat. I use it at gigs with a pretty cheap midi-capable keyboard (to protect my better keyboards from the aforementioned drunks), but I do keep a backup 'board in the van. This is not a slight of the nanopiano, I just ALWAYS like to have a backup.

Never had to use it.

Considering the price, I LOVE this unit. Between gigging and home recording, it has more than paid for itself, and I would definitely buy another one, were it to be lost or stolen.

The presets are the best quality acoustic piano I have heard with the exception of the Roland JV1010. (This unit is less than half the price of the JV1010 ans does not have the live performance MIDI problems.)
There is no way to edit the patches but with 256 different
voices, for my use is live rock, country performance, I have been happy with patches provided.
The manual is a little self congratulatory, but beyond that is logical and straightforward.

The ployphony is more than adequate. The built in effects are controlled by one knob which makes them a little unidimensional but for the price and sizr of the unit are good. The Nanopiano works well with the StudioLogic SL880 controller and respoonds well to the pitch bend and modulator wheels.

The organ sounds are not quite as good as my Hammond XB-2 but are better than the Yamahas and Casios I have heard. One of the best patches is the electric piano called Rock Roads does a great job of imitating the Fender Rhodes. The Fender Rhodes made different sounds dependent on how hard you pushed the keys and the Nano Piano does this well. I like the string and synth sounds.

I have found the unit to be very reliable. It is so small that one must be careful not to step on the sound cable or power cord coming out of it or it will be jerked on to the floor. This is my own fault because the unit can be rack mounted and I had not done that but just had it sitting on top of my StudioLogic controller. It took the lickin' and kept on tickin.

I have contacted Alesis once when I thought the unit had conked out when I dropped it. They were ready to receive the unit back and repair it. But I found out that the power cord had come unhooked. So I did not need to send it back. Lost the manual. Easy to download new one from web.

I am going to buy another one for two reasons: 1.My StudioLogic has two MIDI outs and I could use a two NanoPianos on the two different zones of the controller, piano left hand and organ right. 2. If the unit does quit working there is no other piano controller out there (correct me if I am wrong: apitt@novationco.com)for hundred bucks. The closest tyhing to it that I know of is the Roland JV1010 at four times the price and I have heard and read that the JV1010 is not suitable for live perfornmance because the MIDI drops out (see reviews on this site). The rack
monuted sound modules I found at purchase time and now by EMU, Korg, Kuzweil at. al start at $500 and run into thousands. These unit have synthesizer, sound shaping, and tons of other features I would never use. The only thing I have found even close to the NanoPiano is the Yamaha MU15 Tone Generator which is priced two and one half times the NanoPiano. And I have found the piano sampling in the Yamaha products to be cheesy at best.

I'm not sure I ever even cracked the manual...

Well, yes, maybe I did. There was a bit of good-natured
Alesis flag-waving, including a gross overestimation
of how great this little guy sounds. It's not bad,
but guys -- c'mon... The Bosendorfer "phase-accurate
grand" you crow about is probably the worst of its
pianos. The manual is for telling people how it works...

That aside, it really is very simple and intuitive --
everything is what it is, and does what it does. No
mysteries, no nasty surprises. The knobs don't have any
stupid names that would confuse someone without a manual,
or any of that stuff that some manufacturs pull. Well
designed, well laid-out.

It had a decent number of features for what it was --
a very tiny, utilitarian box.

I was just plugging a keyboard into it, and running it
into a mixer, so I can't speak for any MIDI capabilities
it might or might not have. It worked fine the way I was
using it.

I had just returned a Roland JV1010, because I'm not really
a keyboardist, and therefore couldn't cost-justify a $400
module for very part-time use.

The Nano was considerably cheaper, so I tried it.

A few of the pianos sounded pretty decent, and the organs
were way less lame than the JV1010's -- a couple were
in fact quite nice.

The strings, however, were horrid -- very raspy and
lacking in dynamics. I found myself having to pound
the keys down to get the strings to fire -- they didn't
seem to respond well to touch. There was a buzzy fakeness
which just couldn't be hidden, even in a dense mix.

If I'd gotten my Nano when Mars was blowing it out at
$99, I would have kept it. I paid nearly twice that,
however, and since piano, organ, and strings were all
I was looking for, the weak string sounds were enough
to convince me to return it.

It worked fine while I had it, but I'll pass on rating this.

Pass on this, too.

I returned it, but if I saw one used for $75, I'd pick
it up for the pianos and organs. It's not a bad unit
at all, especially for a non-keyboardist who's just looking
to dabble. The simplicity is appealing, as is the compactness.
I just paid more than it was worth to me the first time.
Overall, I'd recommend it if you want a simple unit for
a few extra sounds.

Very simply to use. It's just a plug and play module. You plug it in and it's on (no power button). You select the midi channel that your device/controller is sending on and the NanoPiano receives the midi on that channel. from there you can select your group and program from the dials, or from the controller/sequencer you can select bank and program. There are 256 patches. No performance mode since it is not multitimbral.

64 note polyphony. Has an effects button which for the most part is reverb. No expasions capabilities. Not much in the way of features. just 256 patches.

I think the strings and the EP's and even a few of the organs are very expressive and very useable. I bought this mainly to free up my two other 64 note synths for sequencing. This is the unit I play with along. The acoustic grand piano on this unt is really too bright for most of my work but isn't bad in a very up-beat mix or in pop. But definately not to my liking for a solo. In fact for soloing I wouldn't even use the acoustic piano's in this module. The dark pianos sound much better to me than the acoustic grand sounds and again I would opt for a piano from my Roland's session board. But I really like the rhodes sounds in this unit. There's 3 that are very good. I prefer the soft rhodes. There is also a "No Quarter" rhodes, which isn't bad but is not exactly like John Paul Jone's. I think Jones actually played a Rhodes studio 73 through some effect that I can't think of right now. ... Anyway, I dig the rhodes sounds in this and that has made me satisfied that I bought the thing. I also really do like the organ sounds and the strings. I actually think the unit has a lot of very excellent sounds but the acoustic grand just isn't all that.

I've had it only a few days so I'll have to wait and see.

Again, I've only had the unit a few days and I've yet to call Alesis. I hope I never have to of course

I would buy it again especially for the price. I bought it for a specific use and it's doing a good job of that. I've been playing on and off for nearly 20 years. I have a Roland JV1010 and an Roland XP-50 and a FATAR SL880 controller.