I haven't unpacked it yet, but I received 2 E-50 keyboards about 2 minutes ago. This is the lower priced 61 key with speakers version of the G70 which we've been hearing about in Europe but not seen yet. I'll report back later!
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566 www.kayesmusicscene.com

Geo -

Can't wait to hear your review. Approximate price please? Is it worth switching from the VA series?

zuki

Zuki,
This new E-50 is a baby G70! It has the same screen, same operation, same great sounds and most of the same styles. What it doesn't have is 76 keys, digital draw bar organ, vocal harmonizer and color screen.
It has 64 voice polyphony,1050 sounds in 8 families, 34 drum sets, 136 styles with 4 variation, intros, endings and 6 fills. It has all the same "cover" band functions for styles and songs like the G70 and you can manage up to 99,999 songs in the song finder with play and search functions.
There is the same 16 track sequencer with microscope and macro editing and a style converter to convert standard midi files to styles.
There is a floppy disk drive, internal memory and a PCMCIA to compact flash, memory stick, smart media or micro-drive adaptor.
When playing midifiles the display will generate chord changes you see in the screen even if no chords were provided in the midi file song.
There is a USB to computer port, midi and the system can be updated via Flash Memory.
This is a quick report. The build quality seems really good. The keys are shorter than the G70 and not semi weighted but they feel good. The keyboard weighs 8.5kg which i think is around 18 lbs.
The Retail Price here in the USA is $1499.00. because this product is sold by the CK division, I am only allowed to quote prices if you contact me. I am selling it for less than retail of course!
Please call me at 818-881-5566 PST or email me at gkayesmusicscene@aol.com
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

George, is Vocal Harmonizer an option?
Thanks,
Don

No Don, no vocal harmonizer can be added internally. It does have all the same song marker options, lyrics and score, etc. It works just like the G70.



------------------
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566
www.kayesmusicscene.com

Hey George!
Two questions about the new Roland:
Are the EPs anywhere close to the Fantom EPs?
Is there anything like the Yammy Multi-Pad available on them?
thanks....and thanks for the regular updates on new gear...they're appreciated...

So this sounds just like a G-70????
So a E-60 is basically a revamped G-70 without a harmonizer and drawbar organ?

Doc-Z

Will this take G70, E80 or other Roland styles?

I would think with the "E" designation that it would sound like an E80 which from what I've gathered is supposed to sound better than a G70.

Yes, E-50 is closer to E-80 than to G-70 since it has the new sounds (drums, piano, guitars, basses) that E-80 has and not G-70.

And yes, it is compatible with G-70/E-80 styles even if some adjustements could be needed if the styles use some features (equalizer, MFX, etc.) that E-50 doesn't have.

I am using my compact flash and pcmcia adapter I use in the G70 and all the styles play fine. I'm even playing the extra styles that come in the internal memory in the G70 since version 2. The owners manual says that the E50/60 are using sounds from the highly aclaimed Fantom X series of keyboards. This is the same as the G70. The Piano in the E50 is called "Natural Grand" and the piano in the G70 is called "Grand X Piano" (or something like this). Slightly different I suspect, although it was very hard for my ear to hear because the G70 was played through external speakers and the E50 was both through it's internal, using the digital bass enhancer and external. I will check more today.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

After some investigation, I've discovered that the E-80 has 1100 panel sounds, and 1024 Mbit waverom (not sure about this since some places reports 1024 Mbytes, but others reports 1024 Mbits, which is a big difference, since there are 8 bits to one byte.) and the E-60 has 1000 panel voices, and 512 Mbit waverom, the same MB Mb confusion here aswell. The E-80 has a virtual drawbar organ, but the E-60 has not. Is this the extra 100 voices? I've listened to the demos of the E-80 and the E-60, they sound simular, but there is a slight extra fidelity on the E-80, but not much. Is that because the E-80 has seperate EQ and EFX on each track? Or does the E-60 also feature this? And why haven't Roland made a 76 key version of the E-80? Compared to G-70 which has 192 MB(or Mb??) waverom and has 1596 voices, it's hard to see which board has the edge from specs. I hope you can compare theese units and give us a thourough review!

Doc-Z

How many styles can you put into this thing? Can it play styles from a storage device such as floppy, or PCMCIA storage? Can you make music database entries access theese styles?

Doc-Z

Roland's figures are confusing, to say the least....!

To compare (in simple terms) the G70 and E80 - the E80 has more ROM memory, but uses it on fewer sounds (but more drumkits). Many of the original Sound Canvas sounds are now gone from the E80, but still in the G70 (something you may need for easier compatibility with older Roland styles and SMFs, though the Makeup Tools make conversion pretty painless). The E80 has the same piano as the RD-600SX, the G70's is from the FantomX (both are superb).

To compare the E80 with the E50.... although the Mbit/Byte confusion is all marketing hype (MByte, or MB should be the common comparison standard), at least comparisons can be made using Roland's own info.

The E80 has 128 note polyphony, the E50/60 has 64, so an obvious difference there (although I never noticed much stealing on my old 64-voice G1000).

The E80 has 1024 Mbits and the E50/60 has 512 Mbits, so half the waveform data.... The Hammond (HB in Roland-speak) section voices are not counted towards waveforms. So nearly as many voices (Tones) with half the data. This will account for some of the loss in fidelity as Roland may compress the waveform data harder in the E60 to squeeze more sounds in.

Also, from extensive listening to G1000 and G600 side by side in the past, I have the distinct impression that Roland use less expensive D/A converters in their mid and low-end lines. I always heard a bit of 'brittleness' to the sound of a G600 patch, even when playing ostensibly the EXACT same patch as it's G1000 cousin. This may be due to the sample compression alone, but I always felt that it was probably a combination of the two....

Obviously, you are not going to get close to the sound of an E80 in an arranger that costs over $2000 LESS, but specs aside, the mid-line Roland arrangers should fit many people's needs, especially in the area of ease-of-use. Roland's style and SMF 'tweaking' utilities are still some of the best and easiest to use in the industry, and the overall feel and ease of use of the OS may persuade many away from more complex to use arrangers, without giving up good styles and sounds.

I sure hope you're right because I am thinking of giving up my POWERFUL VA76 for the E-50.

zuki

any differences between E50 and E60 besides 61vs76?
acton different? controls?

You can play styles direct from the connected storage device. I am using a 512MB compact flash card which has 2,000 styles on it plus 2500 midifiles and they all play as soon as I call one up and hit start. I can also use other forms of memory storage which can be plugged into a pcmcia adapter which plugs into the back of the E50. There is also internal memory but it is limited to maybe 2 MB. I'm not sure about this one. I've got about 15 songs and 25 styles loaded in and I've got about 400KB left to use. Using an external drive plugged into the back is the way to go.
Roland confirmed the 1GB in the G70/E80 vs the 512MB in the E60/70 models of ROM samples.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

George, is that card adapter you mention a standard "CardBus" adapter and does it come with the unit? SanDisk makes one that handles almost any memory card I've seen.. and that would also fit (and serve as a spare or replacement) if it is the Cardbus specification.

Thanks much for the great early information.

Happy T-Day from northern CA.

Also, from looking at the E-50/60 manual it appears that the internal memory ("solid state disk") is 16MB. Not very large, and I wonder why. It's certainly easy enough to have 32-64-128 etc. these days. I found nothing about replacing or changing memory in the manual.

When I listened to the Roland demos of the E80 and the E50..The same demos[styles] did sound a lot better on the E80 than the E50.

AS Diki has mentioned the mid priced boards always lacked the quality of the Top of the line boards..even being the same sound..I think it is all about the A/D converters..

You guys looking to get a stripped down G70/E80...that is exactly what you will get..including the quality of the voices..

When I had the EXR series, I noticed the lack of the same quality that the G1000 gave me..

There is a difference..go listen to the demos again on Rolands site..

Sorry Doc , I didn't see your post..I realized that the first time I heard the demos.

Zuki.... one thing you'll definitely be giving up is that wonderful key-bed the VA76 has (and the G70 and G1000). You won't be gaining any more polyphony. I would think you really need to get to play one and hear the sound quality for yourself, preferably side by side with your VA76, before you make any decision....

Just curious as to why you think this is a move up?

Diki,

Not necessarily moving up, just a newer keyboard with built-in speakers and light enough to move around, etc.

Like you mentioned, I do believe the sounds and styles are "good enough" on the mid range arrangers to satisfy my needs.

I did not like the EXR series due to their limitations. It appears the E-50 has enough sophistication to not be terribly disappointed.

zuki

zuki,
After having the E50 for a couple of days now I will say Roland has finally done a mid priced keyboard they can be proud of. The EXR3,5,7 and 9 were very disappointing to me in both styles and features. Sounds were OK but everything else made me think these were very low end keyboards. The gap between theese and the G70 or VA76 was huge! Now, the E50 at a very moderate price is much closer to the high end keyboards than to the lower end models. It reminds me of the Yamaha PSR3000 in that the Yamaha is closer to the high end Tyros than to the lower end PSR's. I hope I am saying this so that readers understand my point here. Yes, it's not as much wave memory as the G70 and there is no vocal harmonizer or VK8 organ, but everything else sure seems to be there and for this I thank Roland for doing a good job.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

Hi,

Any one knows where the E-50/E-60 keyboards are manufactured?

Also, can we expect a better key feel with the E-60 compared to the E-50?

Roland G 70 has 192 Mbytes
Roland E80 has 1024Mbits:8= 128Mbytes
Roland E50/60 have 512 Mbits:8=64 Mbytes.
It is better never to use Mbits as this may confuse readers.(In the latest list of specifications Roland does not use this anymore)
Difference between E80 and E50/60:
E 80 has more powerful sounds and they have a higher definition.
New drumsamples are stereosamples, but in E50/60 they are mono.
All sounds are compatible, which is very useful for styles and smf.

Keybed: The keybed of the E60 is different from E50.For me they play much better.They are also 8 millimeters longer.

Does the E-60/E-50 have separate EQs etc on each channel like the E-80?

Personally, by listening to the demos, I don't feel that the sound of the E-80 is that much better, to justify 3x the price of the E-50. Yes you can hear there is a marginal lower fidelity on the E-50, but it's not milestones away. And size is not everything when it comes to good sounds. I depends where the sound comes from. I've heard some pretty good sounds based on small samples. But I've only listened to a few demos of both instruments, it would be great to hear more specific sounds and such for a easier comparison. I love the way Ketron provide the same demos played on each model, for easy comparison on their website, Roland should do this to!

Doc-Z

Ruben, can you confirm that those numbers are correct? Because I've seen it listed as MB (Megabytes) on several Roland sites.

Doc-Z

What is the EXR-9? Can't find any info on it? Is that a EXR-7 with 88 keys or something?

Doc-Z

I am sure george meant E09, the model that is pretty much a EXR a little bit modified, with some extra sounds (drum kits)...
anyway, kind of OT, but just wanted to share this with you: my frind in UK confirmed this morning that the E60 i ordered arrived to their place... so, i am the owner of an E60 already!
in about two weeks time i should have it in.

They are manufactured in Italy, same as G-70, E-80, and the other (old and new) Roland arrangers (except E-09).


Yes, I think so. Not that better, but better.

don't get all the positivity re the va-76. 3 yrs ago I was
itchy to get me a 76-key, read all the specs and promo
and owner raves on va-76, couldn't find one to demo--
decided to go on ebay to cop one, decided $1750 was my top... got outbid twice, once at $2100, once at $1850. was very frustrated, but turns out i didn't know how lucky i was to be a loser.Next one came up w/low starting bid $1000, and it was near me and I rushed up to try it at the seller's studio--
thought it was just awful, stiffest rhythms, corniest styles imaginable, sounds and OS not suitable for a pro..a tricked-out amateur's playtoy, in my opinion. Nice keybed? so what?
ps..it sold at $1000 opener..if I liked it, what a steal..

don't get all the positivity re the va-76. 3 yrs ago I was
itchy to get me a 76-key, read all the specs and promo
and owner raves on va-76, couldn't find one to demo--
decided to go on ebay to cop one, decided $1750 was my top... got outbid twice, once at $2100, once at $1850. was very frustrated, but turns out i didn't know how lucky i was to be a loser.Next one came up w/low starting bid $1000, and it was near me and I rushed up to try it at the seller's studio--
thought it was just awful, stiffest rhythms, corniest styles imaginable, sounds and OS not suitable for a pro..a tricked-out amateur's playtoy, in my opinion. Nice keybed? so what?
ps..it sold at $1000 opener..if I liked it, what a steal..

Funny how individual ears respsond. My VA76 internal styles have everything I need. I have every other boards' internal styles to choose from and find only a FEW suitable to use. I find other board styles boring or goofy, with the exception of the more simplifed Yamaha. Glad there are VA76 scoffers to keep the used pricing down.

zuki

Zuki,
Any chance of hearing something played by you on your va?
Something utilising the great styles?
Jim

Hi Jim,

I'd like to, but don't have the necessary equipment to do so. Hopeful to one day be able to.

zuki