So far so good, G70 seems a little easier for me to comprehend than the PSR3000.
You can set parameters (reverb, delay, tone, harmony, ect,) (seems much easier than the 3000), and save to the user memory. You can recall them at startup along with styles. The down side is like Don said it’s a little heavy, and I cannot find the support for the G70 I had for the 3000 such as a revised music finder (G70 music assistant) or the extra styles.

More to come
Hank

Hi Hank,

You wrote:

..and I cannot find the support for the G70 I had for the 3000 such as a revised music finder (G70 music assistant) or the extra styles..

Sorry for being ignorant, but what is it that you can't find? Just want to offer my help, if possible

Hank I have over 10,000 styles ready to use with your G70.
The G70 club is all the other help you need.

Weissefar the music finder update on the 3000 uses real titles instead of related names. Example (for one life), instead of, (For once in my life).

The PSR Tutorial site has unlimited information on the Yamaha but it said Roland had requested the removal of G-70 styles and I guess all other useful assistance. I'm sure things will change once I get familiar with the Roland.

Thanks Fran you have been a big help already, but I could use a link to the Roland G-70 club site, the one I found was in a language I’m not able to interpret. I still have much to learn about this awesome machine.

Thanks Hank

http://www.selskabsmusikeren.dk/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

In English, if that helps........!

Dear Hank, since you know the Psr-3000 styles and sound set, could you tell us the pro's and con's comparing to the G-70? I also own the Psr-3000, but I wish I had a 76 keys arranger. I love my Psr-3000 styles but the Keyfeel is the downside of this affordable keyboard IMHO. Will I lose much regarding Styles?

------------------

Hi Hank,

You wrote:

..The PSR Tutorial site has unlimited information on the Yamaha but it said Roland had requested the removal of G-70 styles and I guess all other useful assistance...

I can inform you that the Roland G-70 styles are property of Roland. Roland does not accept websites to publish their styles converted into the format of other keyboards. BTW - Yamaha has the same policy. Such behaviour infringes their copyright. Read this article for more information :

The PSR tutorial had put up G-70 styles for download in Yamaha format, so Roland's lawyers pursued them. Just like Yamaha's lawyers do elsewhere on the Internet. It has been like this for several years. Nothing new about this... well, the news might be that Roland, Yamaha, Korg etc. are today more aggressive in protecting their property than before...

You wrote that you guess that Roland had asked the PSR Tutorial administration to remove all other useful assistance. That is not correct. Any website can inform users about anything and give the users assistance. This will not cause any problems. And the PSR Tutorial did not at any time have tutorials for the G-70 online.

I can see that Diki has provided you with the link to the G-70 user club. The members are spread all over the world and we speak English. Hope you enjoy the User Club website? The member community always kindly provides newbies with answers to their questions

Good luck with the G-70. There is SO MUCH potential in this instrument! But be ready to invest a lot of time in working with this instrument! That's Roland - for good and worse... however, if you have the time and the ability to work the instrument, then you now have the best arranger keyboard in the world!!! On the user club website there is plenty of information and downloadable files to help you achieving good results with your G-70


[This message has been edited by weissefar (edited 07-08-2006).]

As far as coverted styles it seems that Roland is the only company that has not yet figured out that their converted styles will only increase the sales of their own keyboards. Why? Because, as good as they are getting, they still are not as good as the original. That is one reason even within the Yamaha company, why I went from my PSR2000 to the Tyros. Those Tyros styles that were tweaked for the 2000 only wet my appetite, I'm sure along with a large number of people, those styles were not quite there, especially once I heard the Tyros, which I only became interested in after trying those styles. The same goes for using other companies styles. Like Korg. They have some pretty good styles. Of course all the modern and country styles covert relatively good because they don't get as involved as the jazz swing styles which have some more expanded chords, which a good share of those styles are unusable.

So, IMHO, Roland shot themselves in the foot when they had the G70 styles removed from the internet, because then nobody got to hear them, and then wish they had the G70. The only thing that got a lot of notice was the bad rap they were getting from a lot of people.

Anyway, my 2 centavos worth

Scott

It seems to me that you are not aware of facts. This is definitly not correct. I know of websites, who have been contacted by arranger keyboard manufacturers and asked to remove styles, and I have personally been contacted by Yamaha and Korg in 2005 in regards of styles that were converted from Yamaha and Korg arrangers to Roland G-70. I had disrespectfully put these files up for download on the G70 user club website, and I was kindly asked to remove the files immediatly. At that time I wasn't aware of what excactly was right and wrong, so I learned a lesson However, I perfectly understand and respect their copyright, so of course I removed the files at once.

Each of us might have our own motives as to why we want to be able to download converted styles, but I don't recognize any of these motives. It is very simple: There is a law, and we shall obey the law. Furthermore we should not yell at either Yamaha, Roland or whomever, because they enforce their rights.

BTW - notice that there is a lot of things that you CAN do without infringing copyright. I think we should stick to the things that don't infringe copyright

Then you implicitly measure everybody by the same yardstick, because the other companies do the same thing... and BTW - it is not true that you can't listen to the styles. Come on, there a lots of websites with demos of styles. There are thousands of MP3 files out there - just listen to them. And furthermore - nothing prevents you from downloading e.g. the G-70 styles to your own workstation and converting the styles yourself...

Not at all - the only thing that now really gets blown wide open here is that some people has TOTALLY misunderstood what this issue is all about

BTW - intersting discussion, my friend

I respect your ideas and opinions, but we are obviously two different people with different ideas on this.

I am aware of the facts. I know that all the companies at one time or another requested their styles be removed and now it appears that this is pretty much overlooked at the sites that I go to, and I really do believe they have figured they can get some good advertizing out of it.

Listening to demos of styles or songs is not the same as playing the styles themselves. This give you a good feel of how much you might desire to own the kb they are taken from. I have heard many online demos, saying I have to get one of those kb's to find out that it doesn't sound anywhere that good in person playing in live arranger style. The Korg PA80 and Technics KN2600 are 2 keyboards that tend to mislead this way, IMHO, whereas Yamaha demos sound about they way they will sound when you play them yourself.

Anyway, just a few ideas.

Scott

I understand this opinion and know that it is shared by more than one person But in my view this can't be used as an excuse to infringe copyright. Look at life in general. There are lots of laws and rules that we have to follow - and we do. That's what makes us civilized. So I don't follow your line of rethoric... Try to take your kind of rethoric into the rules that apply in trafic...

This applies to many products IRL - not just style files. Take a look around your home. Any products that might have disappointed you aftert you bought it?! My point is that it doesn't allow anyone to infringe copyright!

Having owned arranger keyboards since the late 80's I have learned that you should NEVER trust a demo from the manufacturer! Always listen to user demos - just like on the G-70 User Club website. These are telling the truth. And there are thousands of them on the Internet - again, no excuse to infringe copyright

Have a nice day my friend...

[This message has been edited by weissefar (edited 07-09-2006).]

Guys I certainly didn’t intend to start a conflict about Roland and Yamaha but I was ask by Telmo to compare the two keyboards. I have only had the G-70 a few days so I cannot give a reasonable comparison, but I will say that Scott hit upon a truism about Roland there is much more support for my PSR-3000 than for my Roland I guess the reason being there are more Yamaha users than Roland users. I live in a large metropolitan area and could not find a G-70 to try I was told that it was a marketing strategy for Roland that only certain types of music stores could carry the G-70 this type of music store I don’t frequent.

I will say the G-70 has many good features and sounds very good but Roland needs to understand as we say in the south (you catch more flies with honey). I was going to sell my 3000 and Midjay but have changed my mind and will keep them both. Being from Shreveport Bossier and having worked on the original Louisiana Hayride my heart is in country music, so far I have found this is an area Roland falls very short on. I must say Roland has nice Big Band, Hip Hop, and Rock styles so I hope there might be some good country styles out there that I can use.

Hank

Hank,

Don't sell the 3000--it's your bread and butter machine. I have about 35,000 styles, many of which are great country styles, and you are welcome to copies of all of them. As I have said in the past, there are more third-party styles available for Yamaha keyboards than all others combined. And, when you need useful information and assistance for a Yamaha keyboard, post a question and within minutes someone will have a solid answer for you.

Cheers,

Gary

------------------
Travlin' Easy

This is just exchanging points of view - not a conflict. Don't be sorry. Always interesting to learn what other people think

That's excactly the matter. Nothing strange/new about that... unluckily Roland is not doing much of an effort to boost their keyboard club website. In my point of view they are way to unamtitious! It seems to me that they use their marketing budgets in a wrong way.

Yes, this is the most crazy strategy!?!? To whom does this make any sense?! Wake up Roland!

They are hundreds of country style out there for Roland arrangers. They are not optimized for the G-70, but they play fine on the G-70. Using the G-70's make-up tool you can easily make the older Roland styles sound good. BTW - there are also great styles made especially for the G-70 .

Sure - there are plenty of styles to get. You will probably be able to get thousands of styles from your friends here at SZ. There are also website offering free styles, and then there are a few manufacturers producing styles for the G-70:

Free downloads: http://home.planet.nl/~aeduin/downloadRoland.htm http://www.selskabsmusikeren.dk/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=24&Itemid=32 http://www.task4.biz/klanten/RolandE600/download.htm http://www.keyboardforum.nl/stylesroland.php

Buy styles: http://www.selskabsmusikeren.dk/index.php?option=com_weblinks&catid=23&Itemid=23
Especially look for Midi Spot and PVK Midifiles.

But there is MUCH MORE out there Good luck!

Hank, AFTER the fact, I found a G70 at Toledo Music in Shreveport. I doubt they even know how to turn it on. I asked one of the owners about it and he didn't have a clue what it even was. It was priced $3999.99!
DonM

Offer them $3200-3500, they'll probably take it just to get it out of their store!

Roland's decision to market the G series through their 'Mom and Pop Organ store' CK Division has been the biggest disaster for the G70 in the US.

The previous G-1000 was marketed through the regular MI Division, and had no problem being found, competing, and even (dare I say it?) dominating the competition. Also, after-market support was good, now it's barely existent.

It just appears (although probably not what they intended......) that Roland US have basically given up on trying to get Americans to appreciate their top-of-the-line arrangers, and put ALL their focus and energy into the Fantom and Juno lines.............

All the CK Division is interested in is selling you (or rather, your parents!) hopelessly over-priced musical furniture, and the G70 just doesn't fit their level of expertise. My local CK dealer won't even order in ONE SR-G01 SRX board (a G70 specific SRX board) to even try............ pathetic!

ALL support, new styles and help is coming from European and S. American sources, there is not one iota of American support.......... It's like they are saying, 'go ahead, Yamaha - help yourself to our US markets.......'

WAKE UP. ROLAND!! How could you let the success of the G1000 slide SO far..........?

Diki,
Please allow me to chime in here with this discussion. I've been on Vacation the past 5 days so I've been away from my computer.
Although I am not a CK dealer, Roland had set me up as a G70 dealer when it arrived in the States last year. I do think that Roland CK realized that this product would be more difficult to sell through just CK dealers who prefer selling the products that look more like upright and grand pianos. I've been told that other dealers like myself were to be brought on board as roland CK sees a need in a specific area of the country.
In my store, the price is right in line with every other 76 key arranger I sell in this catogory of product. I know of the reputation of the home dealers in the past regarding prices, but I can assure you that in my music store, this doesn't occur and in fact, Hank purchased his G70 from me and at a price he was very happy with. Right before I left for my trip I spoke on the phone with Hank and told him that upon my return, I would be sending him out a compact flash card with hundreds of additional styles loaded for him to use.
I'm sorry if I added to this discussion growing even more, but I felt I had to defend the fact that there is a dealer, not a CK traditional dealer selling G70's to many customers here in the USA.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566

It seems everyone I talk to about the G70 who actually owns one just shrugs their shoulders and says "Its just OK" no one really raving about it or blown away with its features so far ....I just wish I could find one around here to at least play it for a few hours & see & hear it with MY OWN EARS I take opinions with a grain of salt until I try a Unit Myself.
This whole Roland marketing thing is too weird for me I hope it improves in the future..



[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 07-10-2006).]

Well, that surely depends on what information source you use Take a look at this thread ....



[This message has been edited by weissefar (edited 07-10-2006).]

Thanks for the info on happy owners.....& I'm sure its all true, in fact I wish the t2 had a few of these too ......except for the weight its all good....very kool & usable on board features. I will definitely try one in the near future.

[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 07-10-2006).]

My apologies to George Kaye, who enjoys a deserved reputation here.

However, he is the rare exception to the rule. Roland have banished their arranger future to the one division that cares the least for it. What is a handful (or less) of dealers like George in a country the size of the US?

One of the most asked questions here is 'has anyone even HEARD and PLAYED a G70?'......... Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Roland's marketing ability.

The fact is, few potential purchasers are able to travel the distances involved to try a G70/E80, and no-one in their right minds is going to buy one of these uber-expensive keyboards sight unseen.............

Not to mention the complete lack of ANY US support for the G70. When I purchased my G1000, I got a Roland Zip disk FULL of thousands of older Roland styles, and several hundred good quality SMFs. What did I get with my G70?...... A manual.

Roland US have not come up with a single new style, at any price, for their top of the line arranger, preferring to leave style development to the Europeans, and - God bless 'em! - THEY enter into agreements with top European style developers to GIVE AWAY fine collections of new G70 specific styles. But ONLY to European customers....... (and also, not to be ungrateful, but the styles ARE very, well let's just say, mostly VERY European, and not too relevant for the American market!)

If Roland are NOT giving up their US markets to Yamaha, they had better bloody well do better than they currently are...............

ROAD TRIP!!!!

Tomorrow Fran & Myself will travel to Demo the Roland G70 Finally we found a store that has one on display...its about 2 hrs away from me here in NJ about 1 hr from Fran....but I'm off from gigging & its worth the trip to cure my curiosity for sure...
At least I can play a G70 & compare it to my Tyros 2 also. We'll post our review when we return for sure.....

More to come.......

In advance I will just want to add that this will probably not be a fair comparison. My point is that the Tyros is ready to play out of the box. This is due to a great effort done by Yamaha's software team. But unlike Yamaha, the Roland team cut corners, when releasing the G-70. They unfortunately handed over an "unfinished" G-70 to the end-users. By "unfinished" I mean the styles, the user registrations and the one touch settings were not optimized/balanced. Therefore the G-70 is not optimized like the Tyros. So IMHO it makes absolutely no sense to just make a 1-1 comparison between these instruments.

I have collegues, who have been working with both instruments for months, and lately more and more musicians are saying the same thing: "the Tyros impressed me from the first day, and the G-70 didn't impress me until after some time". Interesting observation, right? Some of my collegues even go so far as saying that after playing the Tyros since october 2005, they now start to loose interest and focusing more and more on the G-70, because they kind of grow with the instrument (Please don't flame me for saying that. I am not saying that the G-70 is better than the Tyros!).

Personally I regard the G-70 as an unpolished diamond. Once you get it, you will have the polish it. Your ability to do that will be absolutely essential for the result you get! I have heard musicians in Denmark playing the G-70. They have played the instrument for several months, but they didn't impress me at all! And that's because they haven't spend the time to tweak the instrument. Or maybe they just don't know how to?!? So the Tyros is a great instrument, if you don't have the time and/or the ablilty to tweak your arranger. Of course there are several other issues to address, when comparing the instrument, but these issues are disccused elsewhere

What am I saying here? Well, I could just imagine you coming back saying that the Tyros sounded better than the G-70. If you do, you now know, that it is in no way strange... .)

NB. On the G-70 user club website you can download styles optimized for the G-70. And you can download user registrations optimized for the G-70. Using these files will definitely make the G-70 sound much better.

Have a nice road trip

[This message has been edited by weissefar (edited 07-12-2006).]

In reading this about tweaking the G70, Tyros 2 or whatever, it makes me think it would be a great idea if the manufacturers would have their styles and voices tweaked a few different ways, in that there are different kinds of players with different tastes. I think they'd make it a lot easier to sell their kb's if entire sets of tweaked styles and voices were set for several different types of players.

I mean, really, who really wants to spend their life tweaking a kb they paid a lot of money for? I'd rather be playing music. Give me a few choices and I'll pick the ones I like, but to have to tweak the whole dang kb is really much wasted time IMHO.

On the other hand, until that happens, I still would like to see a sharing on some site(s) on a large scale where there were a lot of different players, "pros" and hobbyists contributing. That would be great wouldn't it? Some of the best tweaking I've heard are by people that are admittedly not real players, who just enjoy playing with the styles etc,

My 2 cents.

Scott

Check out the "COVER" feature on the G70 it does excactly that to styles

Weissfar thanx for the thoughts......& I agree & I always look at a KB when I demo it with MY NEEDS in mind as a professional player...not by hype & others likes & dislikes......why? because I have to make a living playing the unit in MY WAY.....which No One But Me can decide......Ive been doing this much too long....there is NO KB on the market that I will not have to TWEAK for days to get setup for my performances...I repeat NO Kb on the market.. even with Tyros2 I make it work with workarounds to its features for my needs.....The G70 does provide some very interesting performance & navagational features that I would love to try that I DO NOT find in the Tyros 2...... I would have to say that Yamaha does make out of the box units for the home player more then the pro......where as Roland especially with the G70 have incorporated many features that need professional experienced attention to setup the KB for live play.....but in the end you will end up with a killer unit......persoanal toleration does come into play after time as you describe.....but the outcome will be bliss......

I think a professional musician wants a professional keyboard that in fact will allow them to set it up their way..I know for sure I do..I wouldn't have it any other way..I don't want a board out of the box that sounds like every hobbyist using the same keyboard..
Quality of construction and sound keybed is another no compromise decision for me

Tweaking sounds and styles is all part of the fun. I don't want my T2 sounding like a preset machine or even someone elses edited machine. It's impossible for the manufacturers to realise everyones taste in music, so they can only give out a kind of building block as to what they think will suite the majority of people who buy them.

ROAD TRIP!!!!

Tomorrow Fran & Myself will travel to Demo the Roland G70 Finally we found a store that has one on display...its about 2 hrs away from me here in NJ about 1 hr from Fran....but I'm off from gigging & its worth the trip to cure my curiosity for sure...
At least I can play a G70 & compare it to my Tyros 2 also. We'll post our review when we return for sure.....

More to come.......


We are still waiting.........what happend???

KeybG

Donny bought one on the spot, then broke his back trying to get it in the trunk of his car. He's in traction now, in a hospital in Philly.
DonM

We were already to go demo the G70 ...& something unexpected popped up......we will have to go at another time next week after both our performance schedules ease up after the weekend....dont worry we will surly post our findings for the SZ......

Sorry if your post got a little hijacked Hank, but I did want to say to those who are mentioning that they want to tweak to their hearts content, I say terrific, go for it, but, I doubt there is any player that has not tried out someone elses style or voice tweaks and either kept one just like it is, or changed it a little, or didn't learn something from it, maybe even if it was what they didn't like. Sharing this stuff whether from the manufacturer or from a player is a very valuable thing to have available. IMHO

Fran had demoed the G70 this afternoon and will be posting his complete review very soon.....stay tuned for the Honest truth from the master!!

Fran will love it if it plays Tune 1000 files better than his G1000

I'm interested in hearing what Fran has to say about it too. I gave the G70 a second look and I can say that the key feel is excellent, and I really like the idea of having 76 keys.

The price at Alto Music is right on the money ( as always ), so now my decision on which new arranger to purchase has become a little more complicated, but I will finally get the opportunity to demo the G70 along side the Tyros 2 next time I go to Alto, hopefully next week, and I will make my decision from there.

I'm playing out live a whole lot more than I ever expected to at this point in my life, and I'm enjoying it more ( a lot more ) than I thought I would too, so I'd like to focus on playing and performing with a little more simplicity... ie. one board that does it umm... all.. OK none of them does it all but I'd like to be closer. I dislike many of my PA80's lead voices . I want the best board for me... one that allows me to use my laptop primarily for file storage and as a backup machine ( with One Man Band ). I'd like to use it less for lead voices, although I'll always still want to use it for some voices, for example "Real Guitar" when I want to emulate playing acoustic guitar solo and singing. I've heard the T2 SA voices and while ai think they are quite good, I still think RG is better.

I'll also continue to use the laptop as my midifile playback machine, as SGM180 and Hypersonic 2 both sound better to me than the GM sounds on any of my current boards.... Unless G70 or T2 can do a better job. I'm skeptical of this to say the least though, so I'm gonna break down and get it ( HS2 ) and use the $%^** dongle. Ideally, I'd like to bring the laptop along for backup but never actually plug it in.. but that probably isn't going to happen.

AJ