jpapas

The G70 live in your studio sounds excellent. Please do not be swayed by nay-sayers. It's got balls and functions up the gazzooooo.

Half the nay-sayers of the G70 on this forum have barely PLAYED one. 20 minutes in a store through crappy speakers on an instrument the dealer hasn't bothered to upgrade to the latest OS and styles is hardly a fair comparison.

My own feeling is, were it not for the dated styles in the G70 (and you CAN get third-party and converted styles for it) the only thing it has got going against it is it's weight! (I kid.......!)

As a live keyboard in a band (what I use it for, mostly) I can tell you IT ROCKS!! Great piano, great B3, incredible action (better than Yamaha, no doubt), easy access to all the tone balancing/shaping tools and intuitive interface.

I can gig with it and not need to set up Performance setups in advance (can't do that with my K2500!). Just select tones on the fly and balance volumes and effect with the sliders. Easy.

Too many bedroom jockeys posting their opinions here as if they had any real experience. My advice is go play a G70 (make sure it's OS2) BEFORE you buy anything else. The action alone makes it a true professional instrument (can you play piano on 60 keys? I can't!).

Yamaha sounds real slick by itself, but put it in a band situation, and there's not enough 'cut' (for me, at least).

jpapas,

just to echo Diki's comments: all of today's high-end arrangers sound very good. Their sounds have various nuances (e.g. Roland is more smooth, Korg-synthy, Yamaha-polished). For many of us this will make a difference, but to be sure, most of us would be able to make a gig with any high-end arranger out there.

The sounds (and styles) are very subjective things - some people love them, and others hate them - again, in comparison to models from current high-end another brand. With a few exceptions, the sounds and styles of any today's top arranger are better than those of any top arranger of 10 years ago. My advice to you is to go by your own ear, not by ours - it all depends on what you like to hear and what music you play.

The major differences between brands are in features: the feel and length of the keyboard, the weight, ease of navigation (all the best sounds/styles are useless if you can't get to them quickly during a performance), specialized chord recognition (read the posts on rootless chords), storage options (do you need a hard drive or will 2 gig memory card be enough?), sampling, etc.

In some ways, the arranger preference is like the PC vs MAC arguments - the PC people will say that MAC is crap, and the MAC people will say that PC is junk, but in reality either one will do most things perfectly well.

So now that you have read the concerns of the members of this forum about various keyboards, to to the music store and figure out if these concerns are going to be showstoppers for you. If yes - scratch the instrument off your list, no - put a checkmark next to it. At the end of your search you will have a better idea of what will work for you.

Keep us posted on what you settle on, and keep visiting this forum - amid all the chatter there is really a lot of valuable information to be learned.

Regards,
Alex

Diki, How would you categorize the action on the g-70? semiweighted or synth action?

I'd call it semi-weighted, but describing the 'touch' in words is futile, at best.

I consider the G70's action as the best plastic action on the planet, but is is not wood. Realize, though, that piano is only one of hundreds of different sounds in the G70, most of which benefit from a lighter-than-piano action (ever tried to do organ licks on a piano action - ouch!).

I think the only way for you to get a good description is for you to play one (the G1000 and VA76's actions were VERY similar, if you can't find a G70), and see for yourself. It will spoil you for anything else!

A couple of things to mention here. Alex says the G70 can have 3 voices in a layer. Actually, that is not correct. You can layer up to 6 sounds. Even though you only see up1, up2 and up3 buttons, the low1, low2 and MB buttons can also be spread over the entire keyboard allowing up to 6 sounds in your layer across the entire 76 notes.
I would also mention, that Lou Y, who has posted a comment above mine, has purchased a G70 from me and will also be getting a Korg PA1XPRO because of their style selections.
I would also like to state, with do respect to others opinions here, that the few that have knocked the G70 are not the majority of users here. The G70 sounds and features are quite outstanding. If there are any complaints from me, a music store owner, I wish they would have more new styles up at their website quicker than they are doing. However, there are other companys making styles available by the hundreds although not free! Roland has assured me that more styles will follow at their Roland Keyboard Club website.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

Thanks Diki and George. I guess I'll have to make some driving since none of my local dealers has the g-70. I already made a phone call to get a quote (I was asked for my zip code cause they wanted to make sure I didn't live out of CA) and got a pretty good offer.