Hi all,

I would like to know your opinion about the best arranger (keyboard or module) for midifiles (SMF) playback: PSR-3000 (what about the Mega-Enhancer software?), Tyros, Tyros2, SD-1, Midjay, Genesys, G-70? Others?
I play a Triton Extreme (fantastic workstation, but obviously the GM section is very poor) and a small coda, then the sound of the piano is not so important for me!
Thank you!

My choice would be Ketron SD1

G-70,
even picks out the chord for you.

My second choice would be Ketron..Roland to me is still the most consistent[I can't use the word best], correct drums, correct levels and sounds that work together..Rolands GS is the "BEST"[had to sneak it in}..

G70 first for overall ease of selection and modification of file

Midjay second because the drums and basses have a more filling overall sound to them so it will even bring weak sounding midi files some thickness,

SD1, same sound engine as the midjay but not very fast or convient to change from style play to midi file playback.

Korg PA1xpro and Tyros 1 are tied, the new op system on Korg allows for best GM sound selection and that seems to bring up the sound quality and stops allot of the wrong sound stuff getting selected. The Tyros has a pretty good file system but I think there voice selection still gives to a weaker sounding midi file.

The rest I have not been able to test.

For me - Roland have always excelled with playback of SMF's...

Ketron are good too - better with upbeat music....

Only thing to do is to take your SMFs with you when you try....

KFingers

I agree with Frank.
DonM

I am well satisfied with the PSR3000 but I am no expert.
The quality can be improved by using Midi Player software to convert to XG etc.
Friends are impressed with the sound.

Cousin Ken

Don, does that mean you agree with ne too?

Fran,

Why would Don agree with your ne? BTW the correct spelling is knee.

Tom

You got it Fran. In fact, the midi file function was about the only thing I did like about the G800. Oh it had some good sounds and styles. In fact, it was pretty good, for a tank!
DonM

Matter of fact, if you were using an open bed pickup to haul your gear around..the last thing you loaded was the G800...the dead weight kept everything from blowing out!!!

Yamahas have the WORST SMF playback of any arranger I ever used ...& I've used alot on stage.....
Roland & Ketron Sd-1 & Midjay are tops IMO and they play the right Drum parts well too without any dreaded HAND CLAPS instead of Snare drums Arggggg!!!!!

Hi,

thanks a lot for your replay!
I will test "in deep" Midjay and G-70!
Here in Italy also Genesys is very popular: what about Genesys XP vs. Midjay?

Bye

First thing that comes to mind...the price difference between the two..

Sorry but honstly I never heard or played a GEM KB I liked.....but thats me.....the Midjay is the complete opposit.

I had Roland Va7, Ketron X1, SD1, PSR3000 and Kog PA 60 ( in the last 5 years...) and to my ears the winner for SMF playback is.....Ketron hands down, everything else falls short, at the music store i work, we have GEM.....and I tried the SMF playback, and is not there....to me.

Dito DNJ and Don Mason.

Agreed.....I only go by what I hear when I play it!

I would say that Ketron has the best midi file play back then Roland and then the Genesys.

Notice I said Genesys and not Gem keyboards in general. Gem keyboards before the Genesys really did not do justice to sounds nor midi files. But with the Genesys, it selects the best sounds on the keyboard to play the midi file.

The midjay and Genesys xp are keyboard modules, but there are not in the same league. The XP has much more sounds, styles and features than the midjay thus the difference in price. But with most musical equipment purchases, you really have to look around to get the best deal.

Even the Motif Es, which is a Yamaha workstation, doesn't do a particularly good job of midifile playback vs the PA80 or anything else I've had in the past. I have Hypercanvas but I'm not all that impressed wityh it. Right now I think my slightly modified SGM180 soundfont chained with mild reverb and chorus effects probably outperforms everything else I have, but the plugsound GM module I've used is even better.

The obvious problem with the Plugsound is that it fails to recognize GM patch and bank changes, and they tell you that it's designed that way. Too bad. Can't wait to see what the new Native Instrument GM module with 2 gb of sounds will be like. It supposedly will recognize patch changes. A few of the guys with the souped up laptops might even become converts then... LOL
But... if it doesn't blow me away, I think the next step will be for me to combine sounds from all the samples and modules I have and make a super soundfont. This will take some time to be sure, but having the SGM180 available to me and being able to pick it apart has hopefully taught me a little about making a good quality soundfont.

AJ

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 11-01-2005).]

I agree with AJ... I'm anxiously waiting on Native Instrument's BANDSTAND program to come out (release date is November 7). So far for outright sound quality I've heard nothing that sounds better than East/West Colossus, which does have a GM soundbank but it doesn't recognize GM patches so you have to manually insert them in every SMF. Recordings I have made with Colossus simply blow away my Motif ES8 - I only the use the Motif as a controller now. Colossus is expensive and takes a beefy computer with a secondary fast hard drive to work best (it's a 32GB sound bank) and doesn't seem practical for stage use. If BANDSTAND at 2GB comes anywhere close to Colossus in terms of sound quality then it could signal a new era in softsynth arranger/SMF functionailty. We'll find out soon.

BTW: I think this may be why Yamaha is not releasing the actual size of the wav ROM for the Tyros 2. It's possible that NI's $200 BANDSTAND with it's 2GB of wave data could crush hardware keyboards/modules for sound quality, but we can't say for sure until it's released.

Stay tuned...

2 questions:

1) Are the samples of Midjay exactly the same (48 MB) of SD-1 plus?
2) When will be presented a new flagship (SD2?) by Ketron?

spaghetti
Answers to your questions...

(1) - No
(2) - We're working on that but the SD1Plus replacement won't be released anytime soon, but when it is released, I think heads will spin, ears will listen and musicians will be impressed at what we've 'cooked' up this time.....

AJ

ARe the sample better or just different?

What can we expect from the new Ketron?

Will it be a flagship or a midjay repackaged with a SD1?

WHen when when......????!!!!

I have historically used style based arrangers for years, but more recently gone over to the midifile based approach.

I don't want to get into the argument about the "live" versus "sequenced" approach here but, generally, I see the benefit of the midifile based approach as being that you can do all the "back-room" setting up stuff at home, thus leaving you free to concentrate on playing the live keyboard parts on the gig, without worrying about also having to hit buttons all over the place to trigger drum breaks etc when needed.

To my mind the essential requirements for this type of instrument are:

• - Satisfactory overall sound quality, accepting that tastes vary
• - Ease of setting up, and saving, all the parameters for each song you want to perform prior to gigging
• - Good control over each midifile part, so you can make it sound how you want it
• - Good control over the keyboard parts that you intend to play live
• - Ease of handling on stage. Ease of selecting next song, general ergonomics, quality and convenience of performance controls (keybed, pitchbend, modulation etc, and any buttons you will use whilst playing a number, perhaps to call up a new tone for a solo)

A suitable instrument will have a satisfactory balance of all these essential requirements in a way that suits what you want to do. Secondary considerations may be things like whether or not it has a vocal harmoniser (irrelevant if you don't intend to sing), how good it's on board sequencer is (you might use a PC based sequencer anyway) and other such stuff. Bearing all this in mind, I think the Roland VA7/76 and G-70 are both worth a look at for this purpose.

In general, although there are differences between the two, both instruments do a particularly good job as midifile player based keyboards. They both make the task of setting up a midifile easy(choosing tones, effects, balance etc for ech part). Each can then and linking a file to a user preset which contains the keyboard settings (tones, layers, splits {up to three splits}, effects etc) that you want to use with this file. Both will then instantly recall the correct midifile for instantly playback when you select a user preset. Great stuff so far. The difference between the two lies in the detail.

I have been gigging a VA76 for the last couple of years using it exclusively as a "deluxe" midifile player. More recently, I have aquired a G-70 as it's replacement, and I've just about finished doing the programming on the G-70 prior to using it on a gig for the first time. I play in a band which has a regular set list as it's perfoming basis, so my first objective kas been to make the G-70 sound as near exactly the same as the VA76 does on each song, to give me a reliable start point. I can then further tweak it from there, where I think that the new instrument has a particular tone or feature which offers an improvement.

The logic in doing things this way is that I want to be able to introduce the new instrument into the band as seamlessly as possible. Also, I put a lot of work into the old VA to make it sound as good as it now does, so I want to make sure that I have set up the G-70 to be at least equal to it as a start point. For these reasons, I have both instruments set up side-by-side, going through the same sound system with the same mixer channel settings, which makes for a useful comparison between the two of them.

First, the sounds. Neither instrument sounds good straight out of the box, so don't be put off by this. Both are capable of being made to sound pretty decent, but you must be prepared to put in some work to get the best out of either of them.

My experiences so far suggest that, for practical purposes, the sound set on both is substantially the same in quality. Generally, if you pick a sound with the same name (and midi bank/prg number)on both instruments, and play it with NO effects, it will sound identical on both. The G70 has about half the number of total sounds available to the VA. However, the G-70 has some new sounds not on the VA and tends to have the "pick of the bunch" of what was on the older instrument. Essentially, Roland have thinned out the total number available on the G70 by getting rid of a lot of the older Mk1 & Mk 2 "Sound Canvas" based tones which were still included on the VA series.

One exception to this general view of the raw tonal quality is the drum kits. I am generally not too impressed with Rolands drum sounds, finding them a bit gutless on both instruments. However, I found that a could usually seek out a useable kit for each song on the VA, simply because it had so many (128 kits). The G70 adopts a different approach. It has drastically reduced the number of available kits, but added the (very good) facility to swap out specific drums within a kit. In other words, you pick a kit that is generally what you want - say a "Power" kit, as opposed to an "Electronic" kit - then you can fine tune it by choosing a different snare drum, bass drum or whatever. You can even alter the pitch of individul drums and do other clever stuff. Problem I am finding, though, is that some of the better sounding drum kits from the VA series actually came from older Roland sound sets, the G-1000 in particular. Despite it's versatility in this area, the G-70 does not contain some of these basic older waveforms that are needed to reconstruct some of these kits.

Enough about the raw sounds themselves, because things become different again between the two instruments, once you start to add effects. As a generalisation I would say that the older VA is capable of sounding better than the G-70. Sometimes they will sound identical, sometimes the G-70 will have a particular new stand-out tone that is better for a particular song - but the VA can, on ocassions, produce a quality of overall sound that the G-70 is just not capable of. This is mainly because the VA seems to have naturally better sounding effects. In some instances, it is possible to set the two instruments so that the overall sound (including effects) really is identical, but I have found a number of instances where the G-70 just could not produce the same quality of sound for a particular patch that I already had set up on the VA76 (and particularly liked).

There appear to be three reasons for this.

First, the main reverb processors on the VA seems to have a naturally better sound quality than those on the G-70 that no amount of parameter tweaking can overcome.

Second, there is no dedicated Delay processor available on the G-70 (VA has one, an addition to reverb, chorus, and an insert effects processor). This means that you have to use MFX (the insert effects processor) if you want some delay, reverb and chorus added to a particular sound. That is OK as far as it goes, but you have then "used up" all the available effects processors. The VA can achieve the same result without the need to use the MFX processor, thus leaving it available for other tasks.

Third, the VA had a separate EQ available which could be assigned to any part, and which could be saved as part of a user preset. The G-70 only has a global EQ which affects all parts and is of the type which stays "as you last used it" on power up. Whilst this is very useful as a tool for fine tuning the overall sound to cater for the accoustics of different venues, it is not a substitute for the old VA system, which allowed you to pick one (or more) tones in a given song's mix to add a bit of brillance or bottom end to, where needed.

So, sound wise - on balance - I would rate the two as fairly equal, with the VA having a slight edge. Both can sound good with work, they have a generally similar tonal quality, the VA has better effects and (some) better drum kits, the G70 has some additional good new sounds, and a useful drawbar organ section.

Next - ease of setting up prior to gigging.

Both are good here. Midifiles can be easily tweaked to sound at their best very easily. The appropriate keyboard patches, effects, controller settings, and so on, that you want for each song are easy to set up and store. Both instruments make good use of their touch screens - both to supply information, and to allow a vast amount of fine control in a user friendly way. However, out of the two, the G70 wins in this area. The older VA is pretty good to work with in this way, but is a bit short of dedicated front panel buttons for frequent tasks, relying too much on it's (generally good) touch screen. Also, it's operating system, whilst pretty good in it's own right, is not quite as intuitive as the G-70.

The G-70 has an excellent balance between dedicated physical buttons, knobs and sliders for specific tasks, and a really excellent touch screen. The screen is the best I have used by far. It is very sensitive, triggers reliably and is quite "fine-grained", meaning that you reliably select the correct item, even where several items are packed close together on the screen. The G70s operating system is also extremely intuitive and very visual. So much so, that you will only need to look at the manual once in a while, and then only for clarification as to how some of the more obscure settings work. It also has loads of convenience features, ranging from lots of very intuitive tools for fast tweaking of midifiles, excellent file search facilities, lyrics and score display etc etc etc. The VA has some of these features, but doesn't go as far.

Whilst I wouldn't claim that the G70 has a perfect operating system (mine is on the latest OS2 version), it is a seriously good effort and scores very highly indeed for ease of setup.

Both are also very good from a data storage point of view, with the G70 having the edge. The VA7/76 uses an instant access zip drive to great effect, whilst the G70 has a decent amount of permanent internal memory available, supplemented by a memory card slot. Both have floppy disks. The G70 also has USB which is very useful. However, the G70 wins here for the following reasons.

Firstly, the internal memory is virtually instant in terms of reading and writing. This is very impressive in terms of how quickly it will save a song modified in the 16 tracks sequencer. Secondly, I prefer the reliability and convenience of the permanent inbuilt memory - plus USB port - to the zip drive on the VA. The zip drive on the VA stores a decent amount of data, and works very well, but you will need another zip drive attached to your PC to really get the best from the system, so it is not as convenient overall. Also, there has always been a bit of a question mark over the reliability of these zip drives (equally true of the one on the older G1000, I beleive). Whilst I have personally never had a problem, the question mark remains.

So - on balance - for setting up the VA is good, the G70 is excellent.

So, how about on stage use? Not much in it here, as far as the basics are concerned, from a midifile based performance point of view. Both the VA76 and the G70 have the same 76 note keybed, which is much praised by many players. Both have a pitch bend/mod lever (which I prefer) rather than a set of wheels.

The G70 loses out to the VA76 in terms of aftertouch. Although both instruments are provided with it, aftertouch facilities are much more versatile on the VA. You have user settings available to adjust the sensitivity, or amount of whatever it is aftertouch is controlling on the VA, whereas the G70 has no adjustments. Further, the VA can use aftertouch to control more than one thing at once. You could, say, set it to increase volume, add extra brilliance and invoke vibrato on a trumpet sound - the G70 can only do one of these at a time, not a combination. Aftertouch on the G70 is also a bit "all or nothing", making things like modulation particularly difficult to invoke with any finesse. The VA is better here.

Both have good convenience features in terms of being able to set up playlists for a gig (via user performance sets) and good search features for those who tend to pick songs to play more at random. They both offer instant load & play of the next song via a dedicated footswitch. Both offer good connectivity (with some minor differences)

Biggest difference in terms of on stage use is the addition of a decent vocal processor on the G70. If you do sing, this is well worth having. Up until now, I have used a Digitech Vocaliser hooked up to my previous keyboards over midi. I have been very pleased with this in terms of the quality of results. However, on early aquaintance, the inbuilt unit on the G70 comes close and the convenience of having it built right into the instrument cannot be underestimated. Not only does it make for less kit & cables to set up and tear down, but it's integration into the keyboard's operating system means that it is much quicker to set up and save suitable patches for each song. Roland have done a pretty decent job in terms of giving you plenty of control and options for this section also. 10/10 for this.

So, to summarise, both these instruments are very good candidates for a midifile based performer to consider. The older VA7/76 maybe has a slight edge in overall sound quality - and has noticeably better aftertouch - but the newer G70 is generally much easier to work with from a setup point of view and is particularly user friendly by any standards. You will spend less time setting it up and more time playing. The G70 also has the bonus of a decent vocal harmoniser.

I can't pass an opinion on the Genesys or the SD1, as I don't know them well enough, but would urge you to take a look at a Korg PA1X. The latest operating system for this seems to offer similar midifile playback, plus live parts, operation to the two Roland instruments via its "Songbook" functions. It is likely to sound better than either Roland instrument, but will probably be less easy to set up (less user friendly operating system and less dedicated midifile-centric tools).

Sorry that this is a bit of a long post, but hope it helps you.

Regards Mike

[This message has been edited by MikeTV (edited 11-01-2005).]

[This message has been edited by MikeTV (edited 11-01-2005).]

MikeTV,

thank a lot for your very useful replay!
If you could, you would still choose G-70 (or PA-1XPro)?

Mike, there are a couple in-differences in the manual and what you have stated. Maybe you can check again.

It appears that you still have the Reverb, Chorus, and delay in the realtime parts parameters..
As you mention in Style and song edits , there are Reverb and Chorus, but the delay is available in the Reverb[although it probably is limited to one choice].

In the Tool Makeup it is as you stated Reverb[delay option] and Chorus..This appears different than the realtime part parameters..

It also appears that we can apply after touch on more than one parameter..

As an owner of the G800, I noticed a big difference for the better when I purchased the G1000..The G1000 bank of sounds were better and although I thought the G800 sequence playback was good..the G1000 was much better...In fact when I purchased a VA-7, it did not sound as good as the G1000 to me[sequence playback]..Even many of the sounds I thought were better on the G1000[and several from the G800 bank were better].
I thought maybe the stereo samples lacked the fullness of the G1000 mono samples..
Also I agree with you about the drums..the G1000 just had more punch and overall presence than the VA series.

BTW , I think that the stereo samples in the Fantom, have lost the luster of the earlier XP/XV units..
I sure hope that the G70 will impress me in the Sequence playback department...if it doesn't, I will still use the G1000.

Another feature I hope is improved on the G70..is the way the SMF is played from the selection page..The G1000 works perfect with a single button push...The VA needed an extra button push to load before playing..Please tell me they fixed this on the G70..

Esh

Agreed ! I don't see any practical way for me to use Colossus in a live setting either, but I too think that if "Bandstand" can even come close, then for me at least, there will no longer be any need for a hardware sound module.

I'll find out for sure when Bandstand is released because it's definitely going to become part of the arsenal here. Worse case scenario would be that it isn't everything I had hoped for.. which simply means some tedious work making a high end soundfont ( or module if I can get my programming skills up to snuff ) using the best samples and modules I can get access to.

BTW, other than the plug ins ( AN and VL ), my ES is also now relegated to duty almost exclusively as a controller, albeit a rather expensive one. The main reason is that there are no longer any sounds in any instrument group on the Motif that are comparable to what I have in my software machines.

AJ

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 11-01-2005).]

Hi Fran

We are both correct! As you rightly say, the G70 does have a "Delay" setting withing the Reverb FX section for the keyboard parts, but if you select it, you then have no reverb available. It's either/or, not both together. The VA had separate processors for Reverb, Delay, Chorus, Insert (MFX), and EQ - all assignable and savable under any User Programme. The G70 lacks the separate Delay & EQ facilities (although, as I mentioned, it does have a global EQ available, but this affects all parts simultaneously).

In practice, I play a couple of numbers where one of the more prominent sounds uses reverb, chorus, delay and overdrive from the MFX section on the VA. Both the VA and the G70 have exactly the same raw tone available under the same name, but despite spending several hours with both instruments side by side, I cannot get them to sound the same. The G70 just cannot come up with quite the right FX combination to reproduce the same overall sound of the patch I had on the VA.

Not the end of the world, but frustrating none the less.

Quote:

It also appears that we can apply after touch on more than one parameter..
[B][QUOTE]

....again that is partially true. Each keyboard part can have a choice of different aftertouch functions assigned to it, but what you cannot do is have more than one aftertouch function assigned to the [b]same keyboard part. What I was looking for here was to be able to play (for example) a mono trumpet solo and be able to use aftertouch to swell the volume certain notes, add an extra degree of brilliance and invoke vibrato - all on the same voice. The G-70 cannot do this. The VA7/76 can.

[QUOTE]
Also I agree with you about the drums..the G1000 just had more punch and overall presence than the VA series.
..

An interesting one this. With the VA I have ended up using a fairly small number out of the overall variety of "kits" available. About 40% of the songs we play use one of the "tone map 4" kits, which were new to the VA series. The other 60% are mostly using "tone map 3" kits from the G1000, with a few songs drawing from the earlier "map 1 & 2" range.

I tend to be particularly fussy about the bass & snare drum sounds, trying to find something that sounds "right" for each number we play. Ususally the rest of the kit is less critical, so long as you have chosen one of a generally suitable flavour. The other drums, cymbals and so forth within a given kit generally sound OK. It's the bass & snare which is the "make or break". I often found that there was a crispness and clarity to some of the G1000 based kits which the newer samples lack.

As regards the VA and G70 drum sounds generally, my opinion is they they sound like very realistic samples of real drums, but the real drums chosen as the basis for the samples were not particularly impressive. Like a good recording of a cheap drumkit, if you see what I mean.

In contrast, I used to love the drums on the old Korg i3 I had. Whilst it could be argued that the i3's samples were less realistic and probably more "processed" than the Roland samples, they were actually a lot more musically useful in practice, having loads of punch, guts, clarity, life and feel to them. In fact, the Korg drums sounded the way a lot of live drummers wished their acoustic kit actually did sound. With the i3 it felt rather like playing with a really good on-the-ball live session drummer, rather than a dog-tired one who was using a borrowed second hand kit.

Interestingly, some (not all) kits which have the same name on the G-70 as they have within the VA tone map 4 actually sound different on both instruments. Same is true of some none-drum sounds. It seems that the G70 is sort of "tone map 4-and-a-bit".


..

Quote:

Another feature I hope is improved on the G70..is the way the SMF is played from the selection page..The G1000 works perfect with a single button push...The VA needed an extra button push to load before playing..Please tell me they fixed this on the G70..

Yep - they fixed it. Better than that, there is absolutely zero load time when reading from internal memory, plus there is a global setting which will "cue" all files so that they instantly start from the first note. No more agonizing waiting for any "pre-roll" empty bars to go past befor you hear anything. The G70 really is very good in terms of user friendly midifile handling.

Regards - Mike

This is interesting - I don't use midi files myself but I am starting to think that there a few songs that I would like to do that just cannot be performed using styles.

Can someone answer me this. On my Tyros I can set loop points in the midis so that I can repeat different sections as much as I want or even jump to an ending (prematurely if the song isn't being well received).

This would give the control I feel I need over the song in a similar way to using styles -- Are other keyboards able to do this such as the G70 and PAX (I presume the T2 still can)?

Anyone out there know please

Regards - Keith

Keith, Roland started this feature with the DisCover series, and yes the G70 does this as well..

While I think my technics kn6000 does a great job with midi files, and allows for 'real time' adjustments and voice changes, I WISH it had the ability to 'mark' certain places in the file to go back to ... I hate it when I am playing a request and the couple finally gets up to dance 8 bars from the end of the tune ...
t.

Just wanted to add...... there's a 'hack' for G70s that adds another multi FX unit.

Just hook the Direct Outs to the External Inputs, and another duplicate MFX section becomes available, with any Keyboard, Style (yes!) and Song part freely assignable to it.

Check out the article here; http://www.selskabsmusikeren.dk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=209&Itemid=28

On G-70 you can set 4 Mark&Jump points for your song and directly access them simply pushing a switch.

I have also found that Colossus has a much lower noise floor than my Motif ES so I can get some amazingly pristine recordings with it that I couldn't with the Motif. I'm on a hunt for the perfect controller to replace the Motif ES with but I haven't settled on one yet.

BTW: have you seen the new Yamaha MO 6/8 synths ? They are stripped-down versions of the Motif ES. They were just announced this week.

[This message has been edited by Esh (edited 11-04-2005).]

Interesting question!

Having already used the VA76 for midifile play for a couple of years, the G70 was an obvious candidate as a replacement, as I knew that it would do the job well. As it happened, a used G70 came up for sale at a very good price a few miles from where I live - so I bought it.

When the PA1x series first came out, it didn't have the same ability to link a particular midifile to an appropriate range of live keyboard part settings for instant recall later (or if it could, it wasn't obvious). For this reason only, I went for the VA76 at the time. The move to the G70 gives me the added convenience of the inbuilt vocal harmoniser and it is generally easier to programme settings than on the VA.

However, the Korg now seems to have come up with an equivalent midifile plus live parts handling ability in it's latest operating system version. This being the case, it would have been top of my list for investigating as the VA76 replacement if a cheap G70 hadn't turned up when it did.

If you have any ambitions to use any of these instruments in "style play" mode, the Korg wins hands down, in my opinion. I would never consider using the VA76 in style play mode as it is virtually impossible to control live. Might possibly use the G70 for simple style based stuff, but nothing ambitious. However - used exclusively in midifile player mode, the winner is less clear cut. Korg is likely to sound better, Roland is likely to be easier to use.

If I had no instrument at all, and was buying new, I would go for the PA1x (standard or pro) as being the better all rounder. It just happened that a cheap G70 turned up first, and suited my main purpose well enough.

Regards - Mike

[This message has been edited by MikeTV (edited 11-04-2005).]

(Sorry - posted in error)

[This message has been edited by MikeTV (edited 11-04-2005).]