Alesis NanoPiano

Presets are a piece of cake. Otherwise it's all MIDI editing which is a major pain in the hiney.

Lots of sounds, 64 voice polyphonic, decent on-board effects, simple dials for changing patches, volume, and effects. Decent demo program of a Chopin waltz is useful for comparing differetn piano sounds. No sequencing; not multi-timbral

Really good, bright, stereo piano, but REALLY bright. Dark pianos are pretty bright as well. EQ helps, but, hey, for a hundred bucks, this thing sounds as good as anything else out there other than the real thing. In my opinion it blows the micro piano out of the water. Electric pianos are OK; organs are pretty nice and the leslie effect can be controlled by your controller's mod wheel. Cool. Actually quite nice strings; synth and vox settings are mediocre. Lead synth settings are kind of fun. Piano effects and special effects settings are unuseable.

Not sure. Seems quirky. Sometimes it starts sounding like gibberish, but shutting down and restarting seems to cure the glitch.

Not much at Alesis on this unit any more. Quite a bit of documentation out there though if you search the net.

If lost or stolen I'd probably shop around a bit. It's a good unit, and the main stero piano will just blast through the mix. But I'm trying to record some "serious" pieces and -- well -- silly me for thinking any sampled instrument will cut it. You just can't get a real piano sound from a piece of plastic and ceramic...

EASY. This is the first MIDI thing I've used. I connected it to a Technics P30 digital piano and amp and had it running instantly, played with it for an hour before unsealing the instructions (this isn't the recommended procedure!). Couldn't be easier. If you are a complete MIDI dolt like me: you'll want to have or buy 2 regular 1/4" cables and 1 MIDI cable. That's all you need for an easy-to-use live rig.

No expansion or computer programming capability (well, there is but not much, and it's obviously not what this is intended for and it wouldn't be good at it).

I personally like the various keyboard sounds and keyboard combinations (layered, etc.) a lot. Definitely better than my Technics' built-ins, but they aren't great and there are only three anyhow. The other sounds are irrelevant to me: techno-synth noise for the most part, in my opinion. Depends what you want and like, I guess.

Probably good. Simple as dirt.

I think I overpaid a little but I didn't want to shop around. These were $400 units in 1997-98. Certainly not state of the art now (Jan 2002) but a great deal if you don't need or want state of the art.

I gave this one a 7 because there is no ON/OFF switch on the unit.

64 voices. Effects are easy to use.

I really do think that the sounds are the most realistic ones I ever heard.(That is: if you are used to play classical piano-pieces just like me). Only the lower notes have way too much bass and it is not possible to adjust it. Only the piano and organ sounds are good. But they are also the best ones at the market today. And believe me, I know what I am talking about after playng for more then 25 years!!!!

Own it for 3 years, and have no problems with it jet.

I live in Europe and I have been playing for 29 years.
I only use it as a sound module for my Kurzweil RG 200 because I think that the RG 200 sounds like the sounds were sampled in a tin can. I only use my RG 200 as a master keyboard and amplifier for my NANO piano. I had an ROLAND P-55 but Roland sounds to much "mass production"-like.
If it was stolen and had the spare money, I would buy a new one.

Truly Plug -N- Play

64 note Polyphony awesome, Beats my D-20.
Great effects.
Very Impressive

Love that Acoustic Piano

Have Lugged it around for 2 Months in a bookbag, No Problems

Great E-mail support!

Bought it Brand new on Ebay for 70 Bucks- For that price might just by another.

The unit is extremely simple to use. Just plug it in and select whatever sound, program and effect you want from the knobs in the front.

The module ought to have a on/off switch in the front! The unit doesn't have several features, but it's got most of the features you need for a piano module. Wouldn't say it's anything special, but OK...

I've read several articles and reviews considering this piano module. I've heard tons of good things about it, but I think it was a big diappointment!

The acoustic piano sounds which are to be the "module's strong suit", doesn't really impress me at all!! From about the C3 and brighter notes, the module sounds like a combination of piano/acoustic guitar and a sitar. I've tried to turn the knobs on this module several times to find the good sounds, but it seems to me they aren't there!

DISAPPOINTED!!! :(

Some of the other sounds seem to be useful, but I guess it cannot be more than maybe 20-30 of the 256 presets. :(

I don't know about this module. So many people find it really useful. Maybe I don't have the comon opinion considering good and bad piano sounds? Maybe it's my master keyboard (korg sp-100) that doesn't work well with the module.

My experiences with the module so far are really bad. Even though it's easy to use, the sounds aren't useable at all. I would never buy it again, but spend my money on something else. I bought it second hand and therefor I'll keep it.......

Very easy to use. Just plug the power and there you go.

Almost everything is there right on the front panel.
The only thing that is missing is the Power ON/OFF button
and a transpose knob. I don't know if there's something
wrong with my NanoPiano, but the backgroundnoise is way
to high. Even my old Roland MT-32 had lower noise than this.

I bought it mainly to get better Piano-sound, but I soon found out
that the 7 Mb pianosample was more or less unuseable. My homemade
20 Mb Roland RD-600 GrandPiano-samplefont (used with my SoundBlaster
Live card), sound MUCH better than the NanoPiano. Though some of the
bass-sounds are good, as well as for a few synth-patches.

I'm really dissapointed by this Alesis crap. I was searching for a
Yamaha grandmodule m-50, but they were soldout. If you're searching
for good grandpianosound, don't buy this. Go for the Yamaha instead,
or save some money and get a Roland RD-100 or Yamaha P-80.

Unit is very straight forward as others have suggested in this review.

I believe the polyphony was 64note. It seemed like there was an ever so small lag in responce time when I hit a key on my controller keyboard (Yamaha) and the module would sound. But nothing I could not live with.

This is the module's strong suit. The SOUNDS. I bought the unit specifically to augment the patches I had on my yamaha keyboard. The acoustic piano sounds were the BIG reason for the purchase. Very realistic acoustic sounds.

I do play live, and use the module to record in my home studio ( usually layering the nano with my other keyboard). The fact that the Nano changes programs whenever I change the settings on my Yamaha is a bit disconcerting though. It would be nice to be able to defeat the program change feature manually. No crashes as mentioned by a few in this review area.

haven't dealt with the alesis folks yet.

I think this unit is a terrific value!. I would replace it if lost or stolen!

it provides some very lush patch sounds which are inspiring for the song writting process. I was originally going to purchase the Kurzweil piano module, but this ( the Nano) seems to have more useful sounds.

Just to clarify, there IS a rotary speaker effect for the organ patches.
It is activated (and the speed of the leslie controlled) by the modulation
wheel on your controller.

This thing could not be more easy to use. Just plug it in and start playing. No on/off switch. Can't edit and store the presets. the manual is very straight forward. Not realy much to know beyond turning the knobs in this module.

64 voice polyphony, so you will not run out of voices. The Action is good, great velocity responce, but no aftertouch. Try the Rock Rhodes to realy hear this feature, I think it's very good. Only has one built in and adjustable effect that comes with each preset. Try the piano reverb effect. Wish it had a rotary speaker effect for the organ patches. No expansion in this baby, it's all there, lots of presets in 8Mb of memory. For the money, It sure does it for me.

The sounds are great; pianos, strings, etc.. the truestereo piano is very realistic, but don't play it mono. The organs are good, but lacking somehow, I wish it had a real B3 and lezlie patch. The Eps are great too. When I first tried all the presets, I got the impression that there were too much and I would end using only some of them, but after playing them againg I changed my mind, there are a lot of good patches there.

I'll have to use it more to comment here.

Nope. I'll make a comment after my first try to the alesis guys.
I think they're good.

Great piece of equipment, very good price, portable, a lot of good stuff inside, etc.. If it was stolen I would by it again. It is a very good deal if you have a not so expensive controller. This should do it for any piano player in a budget ( Like me ).

It's all knobs, volume, effect, midi channel, instrument bank, intrument program. Smile and dial. Just slave it to a controller, set the receive channel and dial in the patches. Doesn't get any simpler than that.

This is a plug and play box. It does exactly what it's supposed to do. Polyphony is what sold me, 64 voices. Not multitimbral. Each patch has built in generic effect (reverb, chorus), can't really edit them w/out a pc/mac. You can only adjust the volume level. It responds to all midi controls. I control w/a studiologic SL760. This box is perfect for low tech, live rig, which is what I use it for. I give it a 10 b/c it's perfect for how I use it.

I play blues, pop, funk, R&B, reggae and rock. The piano patches sold me. The sustain is pretty close to the real thing regarding decay. However, they sound a little bit cold, great for rock, blues, reggae, funk, but not warm enough for jazz, classical, slow songs or accompanying solo vocalists. They are very expressive though regarding velocity and aftertouch. The "Rhodes" sounds are mediocre at best. I own a Rhodes Suitcase 73 and a stage 73. The "Rhodes" sounds do not in any way sound like or react to velocity the same as a real rhodes. However, I've found that the 'suitcase' works for most tunes and w/the right eq, the soft rhodes can be made to sound pretty close. The organs are terrible unless you're playing the wedding march. The clavs are thin and cheesy by themselves, but I run it through a Snarling Dog's Super Bawl Whine O Wah and it's a different beast (no pun intended). I don't use the other sounds for live performance, but I've tinkered w/them and they are all exceptional and useful for something, they just don't fit in the genres I play. Onboard effects are okay. They do the job. I bought it for the piano. I'm very happy w/it. I've grown to like the clav and the 'suitcase' and 'soft ep' has grown on me.

This little box is hardcore!! It's fallen off of my SL760 at least 5 times from about 3 1/2 feet to the concrete garage floor, wooden stage, concrete stage, red brick stage and is still operating perfectly! I stuff it in my gig bag under my 6 lb. wah wah pedal, chords, power strip, sustain pedal, etc. It's scuffed up and road weary, but still working fine. I gig w/out a backup.

I haven't had to deal w/Alesis regarding this unit. I had to send them my D4 for repair and they had it back to be in less than a week. That's good enough for me.

I'd definitely buy it again in the event of theft, loss or natural disaster. You probably can get 'em for less than $200 now. I got mine when it first came out. I've been playing for 15 years. I play in a 7 piece band. This box is perfect for the style of music I play. I use it w/ a Roland VK-7. It handles all of the keyboard parts for Wonder, Marley, SRV, Sly, etc. fine. It's so simple to use, even your drummer will be playing w/it. I considered the Kurzweil micropiano, the piano sounds were superior but it didn't have any clav and only 16 voices. Wish it had a headphone jack. If you're a performer and don't feel like carrying around your yamaha upright or your rhodes or your hohner D6, this is the box for you!! If you're a sequencing, techno junkie, this box is not for you. I still would have bought it if it only had pianos and clav. The extra 60 something patches put it up there for bang for the buck value!