Does anyone know where I can get music styles for my Roland GW-7?

Andym sorry I can't help you, but I'm very curious how you like the GW-7.
How are the sounds, styles etc? Are they the same as the EXR??
Did you compare the GW-7 with the EXR serie or some Yamaha keyboards?
Just curious.

Jan

I'm curious too. If possible could you post a review of the GW-7 here on the forum for us? Many of us are interested in hearing from users.

Squeak

This is a post I did back in May when I received the GW-7's at my store:

I just received my first shipment of the Roland GW-7 Workstation.
First let me give you some of the specifications:
61 keys, no speakers, 11 lbs., 64 voice polyphony, 32MB wave memory, 606 tones +256 GM2, 51 drum kits + 9 GM2, 128 user tone memory, 16 user drum kit memory, 32 performance memory, 47 multi effects, 8 reverbs, 8 chorus, 110 preset styles, 99 user styles ( loaded via USB ), 99 user song memory, 16 track sequencer with 4 modes (ALL, Keyboard, Single, Punch In/Out).

This keyboard looks great. It has a silver case with a brush darker gray section around the buttons which has a very expensive look. It is very easy to use and has a section called "analog modify" knobs which allow you to edit the sounds and then store them. There is also a deeper editing area which can edit more parameters.

The GW-7 sounds great. It has many of the VA7 sounds. The Piano, Sax sounds, Brass, actually everything sounds really good.

The styles are so much better than anything I've heard from Roland except the new G70. More ballads, more latin, not as much Rock, great Jazz and Big band. You cannot make your own styles or edit the presets, but you can load styles from all Roland products into the user memory via USB connection and a computer. This is very handy.

For those needing ethnic styles and sounds this model has lots to offer. There are world styles from the middle east, indi, china, Korea and middle eastern, indian, asia, latin drum sets.

Programmable tunning can be saved to perfomances.

For each style there are two variations a fill in button and inro and ending. Each style can be played back as "drum and bass", Combo, or Full band type. There is a TAP tempo button, syncro start button.

The Roland D Beam controller is built in.

Midi In and Out, USB, Control and Hold jacks on the rear, 1/4" left and right outputs, phone are all on the rear.

So, what do I think? Amazing keyboard for $695.00 MAP. Retail price is $795.00. I would expect this GW-7 to be more expensive given how good in sounds and having a very capable 16 track sequencer. I like this keyboard alot more than the EXR series and I think you will too!

George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566

I have to agree in many respects with George Kaye's recent re-post. But let me go on. Some have asked that I provide some comments on the Roland GW-7. First off, I consider myself a beginner, even though I bought my first keyboard, Roland EM-10, 5 years ago. Initially I made fairly good progress in learning the keyboard. As the years rolled by, I decided that I wanted a better sounding keyboard. After much research, I settled on the Roland GW-7. I have had the GW-7 for one month now. It was a good decision. I am very pleased with the sound of this keyboard. It provides a lot of capability and quality of sound for the dollar.

My keyboard plays through Klipsch speakers (2.1). These are excellent speakers for this purpose. So far I have found several sounds that I consider to be outstanding. But, this came about after listening to many sounds and making many adjustments to each. It was well worth the effort. I saved the sets of adjustments for the sounds that I really liked as performances. I especially enjoy the dual tone capability. That, plus adding a lot of chorus and reverb, and I have rich sounding tones. I can switch between performances using the jog dial.

The styles leave much to be desired. I'm trying to be charitable here, but, a lot of the styles sound sophomoric. I have only found 1 or 2 that I consider reasonably good. Unlike the tones you can't adjust the styles. You have to take what you get, other than suppressing the volume of the backing track. So this is why I'm asking if there are additional styles that I can purchase for my GW-7.

As an alternative it may be possible to transfer some style files to my computer and modify them using something like Cakewalk software. Then transfer the files back to the keyboard as user files. Even if this is possible it sounds like a lot of work, and the end result may be less than satisfactory. I don't consider myself to be sufficiently creative to be able to make good sounding backing tracks

andym

Hi Andym,
I think you don't need to buy styles. Your keyboard may load styles made for all Roland keyboards, and you may download from internet hundreds of Roland styles free. There are some sites for it, I think you know them (there are links in synzhtone forums). On the other hand, I may send you some styles if you tell me what kind you prefer.

Hello Artaher,

Thank you for your response to my request. Unfortunately, I don't know the Internet links where I can download Roland styles. The kind of styles I would like are Latin, Swing, Jazz, and Blues.

andym

Andy, check out Joe Waters's PSR Tutorial Forum - he just started a new G-70 page. Go to the Main Forum page, then look for the G-70 styles page from there. Good luck.
http://psrtutorial.com/


[This message has been edited by cassp (edited 07-11-2005).]

Joe Walters forum is for Yamaha keyboards, not for Roland.
You may get Roland styles sites in Synthzone:
http://www.synthzone.com/roland.htm

I have downloaded styles from these sites:

Roland Italy -> supporto -> download -> styles: http://www.roland.it/supporto_download.asp

or:
http://home.planet.nl/~aeduin/download.htm

or:
http://vicsmi.chat.ru/aroland.htm

or: http://users.pandora.be/RKCA/download-eng.htm


or a lot of latin styles in Roland Brasil: http://www.roland.com.br/view.php?page=down_styles



[This message has been edited by Artaher (edited 07-11-2005).]

As I said, THE PSR TUTORIAL FORUM HAS A NEW G-70 PAGE (yes, G-70 as in Roland). It is such a popular new keyboard that even the Yamha sites have info about it. Go there.

If I am right (I am member of PSR TUTORIAL FORUM from years), this is a site for Yamaha arranger keyboards.

You may get there a lot of styles, but for Yamaha arrangers and in Yamaha format.
Yes, you are right, there is a page for G-70, as there are pages for Kn-7000, SD-1, Roland G-1000 and others arrangers from different manufacturers. But these pages have its styles converted for Yamaha.

If there are a new page for Roland G-70 styles in Roland format, it will be the first new. But I don't think so, and I can't find this page.

Hello Artaher,

Thank you so very much for the links on Roland styles. I have already downloaded several styles that I like very much. From what I can see there's a rich treasure trove of styles available on the Internet. Thanks again for response

andym

George,
How do you find the GW7 in comparison with the Casio WK3500 or 3700?
Thanks
Stam

Good question Stam. Personally the only (main) thing I see that it has over the WK is the 16 tracks for recording. Again the sequencer on the GW has also been in question as well.

Andym, could you go more in depth for us on the sequencer on the GW-7. I remember reading the manual some time ago and not seeing anything for basic editing for the tracks after the recording process such as level, pan, ect....

Squeak

In perusing the manual, it looks like you can record a new song 2 ways...record the keyboard performance and the backing tracks all at the same time, or just record the keyboard performance by itself. When adding additional material to an existing song, you can record one track at a time, or re-record a specific region of a track (punch-in\out). You can edit Performance Functions, Fx and Tones...but sadly, there are NO onboard editing functions for sequenced Songs!

Too bad...

Michael

I just don't understand how Roland could drop the ball on something as simple as basic editing for the sequencer. Seriously how much more would that have cost them to add those simple features for recording. For the same price you could get a Roland RS-70, that has a very simple, and logical sequencer with (a floppy drive), voice editing, ect.

Squeak

Hello Squeak_D

Ocomain pretty much said it all in his post about the sequencer capabilities on the GW-7. However, you can do editing functions if you have a computer with suitable software like the ones available from the Cakewalk people. But some of their software is expensive. There may be other less expensive software, but I have not looked for it.

When you record a song on the GW-7 it produces a MIDI file: *.mid. You can then upload that file to your computer and open it in your Cakewalk software. After completing all your editing functions: and, after having saved the file, you can then rename the file to another MIDI file. You then download that file to your GW-7 as another user file. As an additional side benefit you can edit the individual style tracks.

andy