I don't think this keyboard has anything to do with whatever Roland is working on as a new high end arranger. I do think that this keyboard presents alot of bang for the buck compared to other Roland keyboards. The sounds are very much out of the VA7 engine and although you can't make styles from scratch, there are so many Roland styles available on the web that for me, most of my customers can get whatever they need without having to make their own. Also, if you are a roland user with other keyboards and you want a light weight unit to take to partys, etc., you can make your styles on a big G1000, etc. and play them via the floppy drive or a laptops USB port.
I'm not at my store at this moment but I think this is a larger and brighter display then the EM25, but I might be wrong. I have no EM25s left to compare it to.
I was impressed yesterday with the total package at an impressive price for what Roland has done in the past that I didn't look to see what you could and couldn't do with style track volume, etc. parameters. I tried to play with sounds, styles and tried out the sequencer. I did find that using the function button was quite easy because their are two levels of left and right arrows to first find the catagory of function and then find the individual function you wish to change by using the + and - buttons.
I will be playing with the keyboard more today and will search other features out as quickly as I can.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California