The Korg B2 Digital Piano is all about comfort, feel and quality sound. By tailoring the B2 towards individual practice and intimate, un-amped performances, Korg has prioritized the simple enjoyment of playing piano. They omitted some professional stage and studio features, and that appears to keep the cost competitive for someone who needs a keyboard with realism. There is an immediately satisfying weight to the hammer action keyboard. The B2’s 88 keys are natural feeling as advertised, and become heavier or lighter depending on the register you’re playing in. The result is expressivity that’s nearly impossible to achieve with the semi-weighted keys one finds on most consumer-grade keyboards and MIDI controllers. Lovers of grand pianos might find that the keys have a slight springiness to them. I wasn’t bothered at all by this – the keyboard is a joy to play.
The on-board sounds are immersive replications of classical, jazz and electric pianos, organs, harpsichord and strings. The harpsichord sound includes the sound of plectra coming back to rest, a nice detail. Chorus and reverb effects can be turned up, down, and off – an inclusion that makes the B2 a more useful tool for recording.
More sounds and features can be accessed by using the USB port to sync to phone apps and DAW’s. Remember to keep the manual on hand, since features such as the metronome tempo are mapped to specific notes on the keyboard. As for the previously mentioned missing professional features:
Most artists working in a production studio would like the B2 to have a 6-pin MIDI port for easy connection to other sound modules. There are no pitch and mod wheels, which takes it a notch down in the field of MIDI controllers. Someone looking to take the B2 on an amplified stage would like see left and right .” outputs. Some minor issues: There is no onboard power transformer – make room for a wall wart. Headphone cables might be less likely to collide with the player’s hands if the jack were on the front. The keyboard also makes a short buzz sound when powering on, even if the volume knob all the way down. Hardly a big deal, it just seemed to take away a bit of polish from an otherwise well designed and expressive, natural feeling instrument.
