what's your budget?
good techno styles? do you want an arranger?
if not-(if you can program/write your songs or get /buy mid files)
best roland out there under /around 400-700$ is XP50(hard seq),60 and 80(eaiser seq d/t

better display,larger seq mem,more realtime sliders,apr),they are great for live band

and seq gig work.though they have 8 mb onboard sounds are much fuller more tuned

for pro use.(all can accept 4 X 8mb exp boards).
all of them are better than korg wkstations of their time(n364)etc because their sound

editing is deeper(not just lowpass filters), they have RPS with no loading and DIRECT DISK PLAY -a

must have feature for seq gigs for nonstop music.


triton le(SM card),used classic triton(onboard sampling),yam exr 7,5
can also be on the list.tritons are more preffered for dance music and also for their
ease of use.

I would stay away from psr 550(unless it's less than 200$).psr 2000,2100 only if you use

arranger function,if not go for above workstations.
korg arrangers that can write syles(i-30,I3 and PAs etc)(is-40,50,i4,5s,ix300 etc can't)also have full func seq so it'll be wise to consider them if you can find them cheap.They'll have workstation programs and similar(not identical) seq and most have direct disk play(except-I3).




[This message has been edited by jamman (edited 11-23-2004).]

Thanks jamman and beachbum!My budjet is 450$ (itincreased a bit ) to get it to my door. Id like good techo styles, an arranger is not needed, I just want to have the board to play my layered midi songs while I accompany it. Can the XP series play saved midi files via floppy or media card? Ill be only playing one song (3-7minutes) stop, wait until I pull up the next song and play that one.

Thanks!

Phil

The more I hear about what you want to do---the more I still say the WK-3000 or 3500 will work for you. I don't know if you remember or not, but the new WK's have an SMF player. You can load tons of SMF's into the board say prior to a performance, and call them up very quickly. Plus the SMF's are stored in memory even if the power chord is disconnected from the board. For $450 you could get a WK-3500... They sell for $399 here in the US.

Squeak

I like the wk-3500, but im thinking, I can get a keyboard that was once 800$ for 400$ used and slightly outdated. Ive got my eyes strongly set on the XP-50/60. I found a couple xp-60 for 500$ but im waiting for one a little cheaper, maybe in an xp-50. If you know of one somebody is selling, id appreciate it if you would shoot me and e-mail or something!

Thanks!

Phil

If you can gather up a little more money the XP-60 is well worth it! I used to own an XP-60. One hell of a sequencer on that thing... It has sliders, good sounds, good effects, light weight. semi-weighted keys, voice memory can be expanded (I think up to 4 cards). It's a great synth. I'd take it over the XP-50 any day.

Squeak

Well that makes me happy, cause theres a good chance i will have one in a couple days im just waiting for an e-mail from the seller, and it all goes well ill buy it!

Thanks,

Phil

I think you'll be happy with the XP. There's another cool feature it has (that other synths have as well), and that's the ability to assign full patterns to individual keys, and trigger them on the fly. It's a really cool feature for live performance and recording.

Squeak

Wow!... Didnt know that! That will be awesome, what year is this board? Does it have a good life infront of it?

Thanks!

Phil

I think it came out in 1996. It is a very sturdy board too. The body is metal, and has the usual plastic end caps like on most synths The only thing I've heard about was a couple users complained that after years of owning them and gigging with them 5 days a week for years noticed the weights under the keys were begining to come loose. Roland said the problem was only limited to a few of the synths (due to a problem in the manufacturing plant). From what I was told the fix is really easy and if they fall out can easily be reglued by the user. I don't know the name of the glue, but I was told it can be bought in department stores. The OS might be a little confusing at first if you're not used to Roland synths though, but once you get the hang of it navigating the board is a breeze.

Squeak

yes you can play each or in chain with no loading time.50 has 20,000 note mem(60-80 has 60,000 note mem)for seq.



that's called RPS(real time phrase sequencing).you don't need to load the song into mem(like n-364),you can play it direcly from disk.it's like having semi drum machine(like new KBs-motifs, tritons)capability.Roland started that in '95.yes before Kurz.