Well after a couple hours at home with the new Roland DisCover 5, here goes some first impressions..First, the harmonizer is very decent with lots of controls and settings..It also has the talk button that turns effects off and lowers the keyboard[music]..for blabbing..What the DisCover does for SMF's is amazing..there are 72 quick changes in real time, you can totally get a different feel for a sequence;if you are bored with your sequences, this alone will bring life back to them,,and here is a feature I was unaware of till I played with it at home..the keyboard can set 4 different marks with in a sequence, the buttons[real buttons] are marked verse,chorus,bridge, and ending..you can set these at any spot within a sequence[resave and always have the marks ready]..How often at the end of a sequence, a couple comes out on the floor as the seq. is over,,,not with this board, take it back to the bridge or what ever..great feature..As a plus Roland includes 105 sequences with factory jump marks ready to go..I was concerned about using this board without taking my arranging keyboard along,especially for request live with drums, manual bass and piano...No sweat..Roland included 42 drum tracks[SMF], they have the same jump mark features as the songs..just pick a drum track, play along with a verse[drums]change to the bridge[another variation], chorus[another] and an ending when you want to stop[you can change any marks that you like. but Roland did a good enough job the way they are,there are even fills you can place a mark at..The sounds are excellent,they are the new patches from the VA series including the scat patches..I even assigned a scat to the D beam controller..My basic set up using the rhythm,,,left hand bass[Acoustic bass with ride cymbal], right hand piano. You can even edit the drum kits both using the cover features or individual drum instruments ..All the edits, Vocal settings and SMF links can be saved in a user program[128]...That's enough for now, I have to get back to the DisCover 5..

I know the title header says DisCover 6..

I tried one at the local Guitar Center today. I listened to the included sequences and most of the sounds seemed very real. Lots of excitement on the uptempo tunes

..

Fran,
I had the discover 5 in my store for a month and I did something I usually don't do......I sent it back to Roland. I like you, thought the midi file playback was great and the vocal harmonizer worked great. My major dissapointment was that there was no sequencer or chord arranger capability and I was concerned that very few of my customers would want this price of a keyboard just to playback midi files and have no ability to edit the tracks, etc. without using a computer or different keyboard. I also found a few bugs in the software that bothered me and there was no fix in the immediate future from Roland.
However, if it's midi file playback and the ability to have nice sounds on the keyboard are good for your type of show, this would be a good keyboard.
Here in California, I've been told that this keyboard has been a big disappointment to Roland as sales have been really bad.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

I'm reading Fran's comments and thinking.....WOW ..... this sounds like a really good board .... then came George with "The REST of the story" (thank you Paul Harvey) .... ....
I have often wondered why arranger kbs didn't have the 'marks' option to allow you to go back to the bridge, chorus, etc. ... tha would be a really useful feature when playing midis or my own sequenced files ...
t.

Tony...
The G1000 always had the "Mark" feature for sequences...it works great!

George .I agree with what you are saying.The keyboard is not an arranger, and naturally , that type of customer would not be a buyer..It can not change note on/off and duration as a sequencer will do..but using system exclusive it can change the context of a track[tones,drums and edits including individual drum instruments,transposes,effects, etc], many of the changes , we use a sequencer to modify on our arrangers..George,the only bug I have found[if it is a bug],was a problem reading a lyric file or two, that works fine on my G1000..BTW, the board can read text files,that could be interesting for some...As you spend time with the instrument, you can see Roland spent time developing the DisCover 5...I can invision the next generation of Roland "arranger" with the DisCover 5 features..Tony,There is no downside to what George stated, George is making aware that the board is not an arranger and would not suit his customers..As for disapointed sales, that is nothing new..Excluding you George, I would say 95% of keyboard sales people know enough about technology and what the keyboards can do..and they are not willing to find out...The vast majority of stores in our area can't or won't sell an arranger keyboard..AS an example, the store that UD bought his VA76[in stock for a year and never sold one]..He bought a G600 years ago, same senaria...I am stated this to show why Roland has disapointed sales on arranger products, not because of the products, but the dealer/sales personel...Even the G1000 was a disapointed sales product[and I wouldn't trade it for any current model]...Back to the DisCover 5, it is a lot deeper instrument then most give credit,, and you can be sure the big chains will mis handle the product "again"....BTW, George can you let me know the bugs you found[software], I would like to check it out..Thanks[George If you prefer, email me or post]..

Donny you are correct, the difference, the DisCover has 4 marks per song..and it is easy to use[although the marks have to be prepared and saved, where as the G1000 we do it on the fly in real time..].

Tyros has 4 "song position markers" per song which can be added on the fly or saved to disk. There is also a loop function which allows the user to repeat the phrase between two markers and this can be turned on or off as the song is playing. I know of a few G1000 users who are unable to do some of the marker functions that the Tyros provides so IMHO Tyros is more flexible for doing this.

[This message has been edited by Yammy (edited 07-03-2003).]

Yes, but can the Tyros chord sequence in real time, uh uh..

[This message has been edited by Fran Carango (edited 07-03-2003).]

Yammy, does the Tyros have 4 distinct zones[areas] that it can mark..for example the G1000 has two marks, but allows one zoned area...it will also loop as long as you want..And it really works..Just about everyone I know that uses a G1000, never even tried this feature..Possibly your G people are in the same boat..The DisCover 5 has 4 distinct mark points..

Fran,

The G1000 realtime Chord Sequencer is very very Kool!!!

If I've understood you correctly, the Tyros has 4 zones that can be looped.
Eg. Marker1--Marker2--Marker3--Marker4--End of sequence
(-- being a zone)

Once you're in that zone, you press the loop button and it will keep going back to the previous marker until you press loop again, which will then make it carry on into the next zone.

[This message has been edited by Yammy (edited 07-03-2003).]

Oh and Fran or Dnj, can you explain what exactly the chord sequencer on the G1000 is?? I havent heard of this before, thanks!

Yammy, while playing an arrangement on the keyboard in real time you can push a button and record the chord changes, for example a 1,6,2,5 progression or even the whole song progression..when you select the chord sequence play button the keyboard continues to play the arrangement back according to the chords sequenced..this is much different than just recording the intire arrangement, you can select any other styles and still have the functions of the styles,fills and variations. The chord sequence loops continuously till you decide to end the song even with the style ending,,If you desire you can re record another chord sequence in real time and still maintain your live play..The chord sequences can also be saved to memory[disk]..When you save the chord sequences,they save space because there is no need to save note and duration as we do in a standard sequence..

Thanks for that fran. Sounds like a useful tool.

Yes it does. $1,900 to be exact; at (musiciansfriend.com). Way over priced for what you get imo.

Best regards,
Mike

Whew. I agree. It's not a contender ... just some filler.