I took the long trip (8 miles) to HankB's house yesterday and spent about an hour with his new G70. Probably 30 hours would be a much more fair time for evaluation.
Anyway, here are my initial impressions:
It has some really great features and an excellent vocal processor/vocal harmonizer.
It has some good sounds and SOME good styles.
It has some interesting features including the ability to select different "size" accompanients and to tailor the styles to specific genres. For instance you can take a Country Style and make it Pop, or Latin or Vocal, etc.
It has a really large screen that is easy to see, although the touch screen would be difficult for me to adjust to.
It has a wonderful midifile player. Roland does know how to handle midi files.
Nice organ drawbars.
GREAT Scat and Vocal sounds.
Lots of inputs for pedals, controllers, aux in, etc.
Low Z mic input.
Very realistic bass guitar sounds, particularly the upright bass.
If you are willing to spend lots of time tweaking and setting it up, it would be a really good unit.
Reasons I wouldn't consider it:
Too heavy.
No Break button.
No individual intro/ending buttons--you have to hit the variation THEN the intro/ending you want, as Ketron does it.
I didn't much like the Effects, but they could most likely be fully adjusted.
Too heavy.
Although some of the sounds are very good, I much prefer most of the Tyros 2 lead sounds, particularly the electric guitars. I even prefer the Yamaha drums, but maybe I'm just used to hearing them now.
The Piano is very good, but in my opinion, so is the T2. Just different.
I also prefer most of the Yamaha styles, particularly the Country styles. However I'll bet there are plenty of styles out there for loading.
Too heavy.
It has some great lead sound features, including the ability to bring in alternate sounds via the volume pedal. It has, if I remember correctly, 3 right hand splits and two sounds available on left hand.
If you are a true Roland fan, you'll love the G70 (FRAN!).
Did I mention it's too heavy for me?
DonM
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DonM