Another offical G-70 demo has been loaden at http://www.rolandkeyboardclub.com/v/prod...47395495d7be80d

Regards

Godfrey

Fantastic piece. I like them. Anybody know the guitar sound from "unplugged"? I wonder if it is a style or just the GM sound.

Very promising!!

------------------
Roy-Andrè

Good one! )

I think that the actual internal styles are used in both demo's. Besides the top of the bill sounds, the styles seem to be very nice as well. Can't wait to try it out myself! And I will, as soon as it arrives in the stores. This week maybe?

------------------
Tom NL

G,mon
Thanks for letting us know. I myself check several times a day...
This sound is great !

Hope my dealer is willing to sell his first machine to me... this week.

Yes, the sounds and especially the EFFECTS are really fantasic. I think that these are internal styles. Roel will soon let us know if they are or not.

Godfrey

I love the sound of the slap conga in the first 15 seconds.

In looking at the photo's on the website, I noticed they positioned the Power On button on the back of the keyboard.

WHY DO THEY DO THIS!!!! Yamaha did this on the Motif, Korg did it on the Triton. Why can't they position it like the Tyros right on the FRONT panel where normal humans look for power buttons!!!!! GRRRRRRRR!!!!

The power switch normally is connected to 'hi-voltage' circuits (mains from 115 to 240V AC).
Many manufacturers want to keep those voltages (as far as possible) away from the very sensitive electronic components and audio circuits. (risk of hum)

Some brands (like Yamaha) position the power supply OUTSIDE the keyboards, what means an OPTIONAL power supply..... unbelievable!

Korg, Ketron, Solton, Roland mostly chose for a design with power supplies (including the switch) at the back of the kb's. Perfect solution IMHO.

Does the Tyros ON/OFF switch actually switch the mains, or does it switch the secundary circuits (eg. 12 V) ?
Switching the secundary circuit, implies the voltage transformer always is connected to the mains voltage. (I dislike that !)

Switching on a keyboard is as easy as finding a specific key

Roel

The Tyros has internal power supply. The switch turns everything off. Once I hit it by accident during a song!
DonM

THAT'S why the switch should be on the back!

RIM SHOT!!!

Aw Dave, I was gonna let them figure it out by themselves!
DonM

Don, first you forget to take the Keyboard to a Gig and now you accidently turn the power off during a song!! I'm beginning to wonder about you boss.

I can't fathom why your 'finger' would be up above the Mic volume knob during a song in the first place. And don't tell me you were trying to "push" the Mic 'knob' instead.

Possibly a bit of panic set in and you didn't realize what you were doing or where you were at in relation to some other 'button' you were trying to push?? Such as the Mic 'knob'? Or the Master Volume 'knob' just below it? That's a riot Don. LOL HaHaHa....

I'm not making fun of you Don, I'm just laughing 'with' you. I suppose you weren't laughing at the time though. Or perhaps you were. I probably would have chuckled if it happened to me. I'd of just brushed it off to the audience as an unfortunate 'glitch' in the Keyboard. >> Blame it on the Keyboard, right? Ha Ha.. lol

Now that I've laughed myself silly... [img]http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/biggrin.gif[/img] I do want to say that I find it 'very' convenient to have the power button on the top of the Keyboard's casing, within easy reach to turn it on or turn it off..... although at the appropriate time of course... [img]http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/biggrin.gif[/img]

The power button on the Tyros is very ergonomically placed, i.e. "out of harm's way" (except in the case of Don's left index finger that is wayward and trigger happy I guess) [img]http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/biggrin.gif[/img] The reason Yamaha placed it where they did IMO is because it it not near any other 'buttons' only 'knobs' that are intended to be "turned" and not pressed. [img]http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de//happy/xyxthumbs.gif[/img] So there would be no instance to mistake it for another 'button' since there are 'no' other buttons in the vicinity, only 'knobs'. [img]http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/wink.gif[/img]

And IMO having the power button on the back is a pain in the neck, literally. [img]http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/smile.gif[/img] You have to bend over, and in many cases crank your neck and or twist your body or back or both. It becomes very tiresome very quickly.

Thank you Yamaha for giving the Tyros a convenient and "well placed" power button. [img]http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de//happy/xyxthumbs.gif[/img]

I'm sure DonM won't do it again Yammie and can't for the life of me understand how he did it the first time. [img]http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/biggrin.gif[/img] Maybe he wasn't aware the Mic volume 'knob' was a knob but thought it was a button instead and he simply miscalculated his 'punching' it (instead of turning it like it's meant to be) and hit the power button by mistake? And since he only had the Tyros a couple of days[???] when it happened, he could chalk it up to user interface inexperience and his unfamiliarity with it, i.e. not knowing which were the buttons and which were the knobs? [img]http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/wink.gif[/img]

Please give the Tyros II a convenient and ergonomically placed power button Yamaha such as the Tyros has, i.e. "on the top side of the Keyboard" conveniently placed and out of harms way. Except maybe in the case of Don's errant index finger. [img]http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/biggrin.gif[/img] But like I said Yammie, he absolutely won't do it again! He promises! [img]http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/wink.gif[/img] Really he does! [img]http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/biggrin.gif[/img]

At least not during a Gig, right Don? [img]http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de//happy/xyxthumbs.gif[/img]

Best regards,
Mike

[This message has been edited by keybplayer (edited 11-22-2004).]

That unplugged guitar sound sounds exactly like a sample of a guitar I have on my Roland XV-88, so I presume it's really a sound.

Luis Santos

Just contacted my dealer.
He had good- and 'bad' news.

The good news :The first G70 .... is mine !
The 'bad' news : It is expected the first week of December.

So... another week of waiting.

Sounds this Kb is being rushd out for the hoidays...I hope there wont be too many BUGS...

good luck

Nice demos, thank's for the links.
The price in the UK is going to be £2199, so I've been told by 2 retailers who have been to Italy and have had a say in this arranger keyboard. One has had a demo model with him and from what he's told me, I can't wait to see and play this instrument.
It seems like it is going to be in shops early December with a bit of luck.
I've never wanted to part with my G1000 or Ketron SD1 but I think this could be a good excuse to get rid of the good old G1000.

Roel, when you got the KB, do write a review.

Humm.... Not as cheap as I thought it was going to be. Of course UK prices oftentimes are higher than U.S. prices for the same item, in this case the Roland G70.

I'm hoping Roland releases the G70 in the States at no more than $2,750 [£1462]

You have to realize also that the G70 has no Sampler/CDRW Drive/Digital I/O, or internal Hard Drive capability.

Many Synth Workstation Keyboards such as the Korg Triton Studio (76 Key) have all of the above and if you look around it can be purchased in some cases for less than $2,500.

I think Roland is doing a dis-service to themselves by pricing the G70 at that price point in the UK.

My 2¢

Best regards,
Mike



[This message has been edited by keybplayer (edited 11-24-2004).]

Hi Mike,

Don't forget this is an arranger keyboard (although named Music Workstation) so it cannot be compared with, for instance, the Korg Triton. That's why they make the Fantom X.

Instead of a (noisy, expensive and mechanical) harddisk they fitted a SSD memory of 50 MB and a PCMCIA slot. With that you can use any media device like the Sony Memorystick, Compactflash etc. If you ask me harddisks will phase out soon in musical instruments in favour of flash memory, because the capacity doesn't have to be very large and speed and affordability is very important.


------------------
Tom NL

[This message has been edited by Tom NL (edited 11-24-2004).]

I seek clarification on a couple of things.

Question:

£2199 = $4,137 USD. Is that the "Retail" price before MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) for the G70? For instance: The Tyros was $3,495 retail - [£1,857] but can be purchased for much less, at least here in the States it can.

Does anyone know what the G70 will go for in the U.S.? The MAP (Minimum Advertised Price)?, etc. Just curious..

Best regards,
Mike

I stumbled on this offer on the net, I might be interesting for our British friends: http://shopping.lycos.co.uk/7087en174186UK.html

The G-70 sells for £ 1904.16 or about 2.800,- Euro, which is slightly less than in Holland.

------------------
Tom NL

I just saw that the above mentioned offer links to a German online store. So it might not be that interesting for those who do not live in Germany. Sorry about that.

------------------
Tom NL

£1904.16 = 2,712.46 EUR = $3,606.88 USD

If that is a "retail price" then okay. If that is a MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) then dig deep in your pockets fellas because it will be a very expensive proposition to own a G70. Mucho Dinero Amigo! Start saving your pennys!

The retail price would be negotiable I would think, and the MAP price possibly a little bit too. But Roland is supposedly instigating a new selling platform that eliminates negotiating the price at all. So that £1904.16 = 2,712.46 EUR = $3,606.88 USD may be the standardized price which, if it's not really negotiable to a substantial level, it is way over the top IMO for a high end Arranger with a lot of missing features such as a Sampler, Digital I/O's, no Hard Drive capability, etc.

Best regards,
Mike

If a keyboard has less features than a Workstation and is an arranger, does that necessarily mean that it should cost more? I think that generally “arrangers” are way overpriced.

Also, with keyboards like Korg PA1X, Gem Genesys and may be the G70, the lines between arrangers and workstations may no longer be there. I think Roland is starting that by calling the G70 a “workstation”. I think they are right to do that because most keyboards today are really multimedia workstations with different features i.e. auto accompaniment and arpeggios.

Just my opinion.

TTG

I agree totally.
Just look at all the features the Fantom X and the Motif ES have for a price that is considerably lower than the top of the range arrangers. The Fantom X7 (76 keys) is about 2450 Euros here. That is 500,- Euro less than the G-70. It is hard to imagine that the making of the styles is that expensive.

But on the other hand, you would not expect that a manufacturer in this case deliberately overprices a product. So my guess is that is has everything to do with the fact that there must be a bigger market for workstations than for arranger keyboards.

Coming to that conclusion, adding styles to a workstation (Fantom X please) seems even more logical. If I remember correctly that is also a wish of a lot of fellow SZ'ers!


------------------
Tom NL

G70 Funky Demo 4 available
http://www.rolandkeyboardclub.com/v/prod...b1dd0828eaad5eb

nothing new
,since the G800 , basicly Rolands arrngeres in quality of sounds are not changed, except a few sounds that were added 'like the new trumpets in the VA 7\76 .
and since there is no sampler and no hard disk , I will not buy the G70 only for the harmonizer and more user styles.

dud

The Funky Demo is the best, to my taste, so far. Sounds very smooth, very tight, and veeery funky.

With reference to this Funky demo it seems that the Brass sounds didn't change a lot from G600/G1000/VA7/76. It seems that Roland always uses the same timber for brass sounds. This is not applicable to the piano sound and nylon guitar which are really fanatastic.

Godfrey

Funk demo not bad - sounds a bit like a Korg PA played through a system with some thick-ish cloth over the tweeters

Sure, and you're not biassed at all .

------------------
Tom NL

Mike,
You are right about the (fading) high frequencies. I'm pretty sure this is caused by the MP3 encoding-software.
The quality of the first three demo's is much better, I think.

Could also be due to the quality, or lack of it, of the pc-speakers. Without knowing what your speakerset you use of course Mike, so I'm not judging it.


------------------
Tom NL

Dead right - I'm a Roland VA-76 owner of some 2 years standing ;-)

Someone else suggested that it might be the MP3 coding on the demo, but I don't think so. Judging by my VA, Roland's tones seem to lack subtle detail in some odd way and the overall sound of their keyboards is very smooth & sort-of polite.

Their instruments do seem to have a nicely rounded, rich and full bass end, but the higher frequencies seem too simple, hard to describe the effect in words. Almost like a shortage of harmonics that only register subconciously, but which make a big difference to overall clarity and punch.

Korg's sounds generally seem to have more "air" around them within the instrument's overall mix, and are well defined as a result. Roland's, on the other hand, seem to merge together so that each tone tends to get lost a bit within the total sound of a track.

I find the VA a totally none-inspirational instrument. Always have. It gets used only to set it up for gigs, for occassional recording, and on the actual gigs themselves. Otherwise, it stays in it's flight case. The idea of sitting down at it for pleasure rarely occurs....... It seems a very old fashioned sounding thing, and is a complete joke as a live arranger. Unusable. It does fulfil the specific purpose I bought it for.

In comparison, I previously owned a Korg i3, which almost got worn out through being played to death, as it was such a pleasure to jam with in true arranger mode. It was a proper MUSICAL instrument.

Just so you don't think I really am too biased, I also bought a Korg i30HDD not long after they came out, but again found that -whilst it had some very good individual sounds inside - it's overall sound was somewhat dull & muffled in comparison with it's older brother (it seems that I'm not alone in this opinion). That, plus various other backward steps in it's design, rather negated the obvious improvements Korg had made over the earlier i3.

I eventually got fed up with the i30HDD and sold it, having never gigged the thing. Meanwhile the ancient i3 kept coming up with the goods.

My ideal instrument would probably be an arranger with Korg's sounds & styles, plus Roland's midifile handling abilities and intelligent use of storage for seamless on-the-fly access to files.

Oh - and could we have the old i3's nice big start/stop, style variation, break and into/ending buttons back please - right in the middle, where they belong (that should provoke some debate, if nothing else does)!

Mike, these are interesting observations you have made. I own a Tyros and a Roland XV 3080 with three expansion cards and in the past have often tried to record something using both instruments, even just layering sounds, but have always had to give up because -compared with the Tyros- the 3080 seemed to lack something in clarity or definition. I don't know if the culprit is the poor effect section or the fact that Roland waveforms are reportedly heavily compressed, but I can only hope that the G 70 does not suffer from the same problems because I am really looking for a 76 notes keyboard with semi-weighed action to add to my Tyros, always waiting for the Tyros II....

[This message has been edited by Dreamer (edited 12-02-2004).]

It sounds is if you are hearing Rolands sounds the same way that they strike me.

I have always approached the sounds of any arranger keyboard in the same way you would deal with a multi-track recording. That is to say that an instrument tone which sounds good when heard on it's own, may not sit happily in amongst the other instruments in a particular mix.

Equally the reverse can be true. A particular track or "instrument tone" may sound quite poor on it's own, but fits a particular mix just right.

For this reason, when looking at a new arranger with a view to purchase, I not only make a point of trying out a good selection of individual sounds on their own, but also seeing how certain key tones (i.e. the ones that tend to be most important to me) come across as part of the overall sound flavour of the keyboard.

As an example, there tends to be a fair bit of comment on Synthzones boards regarding the merit or otherwise of the basic grand piano sound available on each arranger model. My own experiences with mostly Korg and Roland stuff in recent years, suggests that both manufacturers piano tones are not very convincing when heard on their own, although they are very different from each other in character. However, I find the bright "up-front" piano sounds typical of the korg to be far more useful than the more mellow (dare I say muffled?) character of the Roland. The Korg piano sounds can cut through, when needed. The Roland's sounds just don't.

You're comment that Rolands samples may be more highly compressed is interesting. The "something missing" from the typical Roland tonality that I was trying to describe would fit with this possibility. It's rather like hearing a MP3 track versus a WAV file original.

A bit like the taste of cheese and onion flavour crisps (chips) compared with a really good lump of cheddar, together with a slice of hot spanish onion - if you see what I mean :-)

Mike, thanks for you're very balanced judgement on this subject. It's obvious that it is not just some over-simplified statement.

Funny, because the reason that I, as a current Technics KN6500 player, am leaning towards Roland again just because I miss the clarity and the crisp sounds my previous Roland had. I find the Technics somewhat "muffled", especially when I just had the board at home. My ears are much more used to it now.

Of course I checked out the PA1X Pro, but found the voices (especially the GrandPiano) a bit thin or shrill (I am not English, so please forgive me if I don't use the proper terms). But it could very well have been the headphones I heared this board on in the music store.

You are absolutely right that you have to listen to the result of the total mix. Sometimes a single instrument sound is better in the mix than heared on it's own.

In one thing the Technics shines though, and that is the brass sounds. Those are better than what I heared on any Roland. This is what I want to try on the G-70 when it is in the stores. I expect that Roland has made an improvement in this section. They must have if you hear the sound samples of the Fantom X for instance. But then again, first listen then believe .

Oh, and I think they deliberately put the start/stop, style variation, break and into/ending buttons on the left side so you can operate them more easily with your left hand. With arranger keyboard players that is, somewhat regrettably, the more "passive" hand...

Hi guys,

I am new to the discussion board, but have been folowing it a little.

I own a VA-76 and have to admit that the internal sounds are basically JUNK. But somehow I've managed to get them to sound decent with the internal EQ. I didn't like the VA76 that much, but I bought it because of the zip drive, and because the good old G800 was worn out.

I was looking for something spectacular from the new G, but it didn'f impress me at all. I think that Roland is running around in circles and loosing the battle to KORG and Yamaha. The New G should have a SAMPLER, but they missed the call.

Now ME and probably 40 other guys that I know ( VA owners also ), are switching to PA1x pro and the 9000 pro. The capabilities of these instruments will beat the G-70 any time.

It really hurts to part with Roland, but they simply don't offer anything for the money!

just to mantion, me and these other guys earn our living with these arrangers.

Greetings to everybody!

I have to agree with some of the other posts... I wasn't overly impressed with the demos from the G70.... Especially given that demos tend to be more highly produced than the real thing.
Heck, my PA-80 sounded just as good (other than drums) as anything coming out of the G70...

I doubt I'll be rushing out to get one anytohme some.
Regards,
Steve

i agree. The Roland offering on paper at least does not include anything that we would have tempted me. The demo's sound like a well put together demo but thats not really a testament to the actual usefull ness of the keyboard.I have still got my eye on the Korg PA1X but i am trying to balance off the extra cash against the percieved extra benefit compared to my old keyboard. I think it might be just new purchase lust on my part as i spent a good 3 hours with my old board last night and i was amazed that even now (after 5 years ownership) The keyboard still has so many surprises for me and the sound is quite cool. I did a version of the funk demo (G70) and its sounds just as wicked (in my humble opinion) .

Demosongs are allways good.But because these
songs are played on the G70 I am happy.
The VA7 had very good sounds and drums and
that is why I think the G70 must be great.

Hi

It looks as if your reasons for choosing the VA were much the same as mine. The integration of the zip drive into the instrument as a whole is an act of genius (I beleive the older G1000 was similar).

My logic was that the thing did what I wanted, and no other keyboard did. Namely, to associate all the settings needed for two handed playing - splits, layers, FX and so on - with a specific midifile, and to be able to save the whole for instant recall.

For this ability, I was prepared to make some scarifices in the sound quality. Most audiences are tone deaf anyway :-) so it would only bother me and the rest of the band.

I was also prepared to forgo using the thing as a live arranger on stage, although I have to confess that I am somewhat taken aback at just how bad the VA is when used in that mode. Basically, duff styles & totally uncontrollable.

My reaction to the G-70 is a bit different from your own, however. On paper, a lot of it looks very promising. The mix of a lot of dedicated hard buttons & sliders on the panel, plus a touch screen for editing in more detail, seems to be a good way of accessing the operating system. In terms of the overall specification, I actually think that Roland are on the right track in trying to do the basics well, rather than heaping ever more features of dubious value (variphrase? how we laughed.....) onto an otherwise badly designed arranger.

As a case in point, when eventually bought a Korg i30 as a potential replacement for the old i3 I used to use, I found that Korg had broken the golden rule of "if it ain't broke, dont fix it".

The panel layout of the older instrument was brilliant. Huge unmissable buttons for all the things you wanted in a hurry - like drum breaks, stop/start etc. That newer instrument had a long row of identical little buttons in a row above the keyboard. The most stupid was placing the "Save" button right next to "Start/Stop". You were guaranteed to hit the wrong one mid gig - then have to escape out of the "save" sequence. Dumb!

In the same way, the older instrument used to work great with the Digitech VHM5 vocal harmony box I used. The newer one had a different - worse - midi spec, which meant that it only transmitted the notes you played with your left hand, if you actually had a tone sounding on those keys, which you may not always want. Mute the left hand live part & suddenly - no vocal harmonies! This problem was confirmed by Korg to be true. At that point I gave up struggling with the thing and ditched it.

For me, a lot will depend on how the G-70 actually sounds, and how good the arranger mode is. I am looking for styles which sound up to date & "fresh", rather than the early 80's organ Bossanova cheese flavour, which seems to colour most of Rolands efforts so far.

In terms of controllability, I would have preferred the style part/break buttons somewhere near the middle of the panel, rather than on the left. Am I alone in wanting to access these with either hand? I normally use my right hand (being right handed) for speed and accuracy. I also might want to trigger a half bar break at the moment a chord change is due. Bit difficult if your left hand is operating the buttons :-)

Roland also mention four variations and six breaks per style for the G-70. Sounds good, but I don't see six individual drum break buttons anywhere on the front panel......

I asked the Roland demonstrator about this.
When you select "auto fill in" you will get a break/fill-in when you switch "up" to the next variation.

So 1st to 2nd is the first fill in, 2nd to 3rd the second etc. It does this also when selecting a "lower" variation, so from 4th to 3rd is the fourth fill-in, from 3rd to 2nd the fifth, etc. It also does a break/fill-in when you hit the button of your current variation.

BTW, the four variation buttons also trigger the four intro's and endings. Intro one is just drums, and probably the one you will use a lot if you want to use a programmed intro. Intro two is an interesting one. This one has no chord progression, but is created to enable you to play your your own chords during the intro, thus making the intro blend much better with the song.

I hope I explained it ok, because English is not my native language.

------------------
Tom NL

[This message has been edited by Tom NL (edited 12-04-2004).]

Hmmmmmm. Interesting - and thanks for the excellent explanation.

Whether what Roland have done here is adequate or not, only practical testing will reveal. My initial reaction is that it sounds unnecessarly limited.

Again, the old Korg i3 got this right over 10 years ago. You could set up either of it's break buttons independantly to go to a choice of main style variations at will. Either button could be set to return to the same variation, go up one, go down one, jump to a specific one, or toggle between any chosen two. The settings were specific to each break button, and could be different for each stored song patch.

That, plus the chord mapping feature which meant that you could have up to four totally different breaks under each break button per style (one of which, for example, you could set so it would only be triggered if you played a flattened 10th demented chord) gave you huge control over the arranger section.

Same thinking was true of the main style variations, which actually had up to six "shades" under each one, triggered by chord type. This went far beyond the ususal major, minor, seventh recognition. You could freely pick which "shade" was triggered for somthing like 32 recognizable chord types, per variation, per style. Again - these could all be stored differently for each song, so two songs which happened to use the same basic style could be made to behave quite differently.

I haven't seen the job done fundamentally better than this on any make of arranger before or since.

This is the sort of thing I was meaning when I mentioned in an earlier post about the importance of getting the basics of an instrument right, before adding all the "fairy dust" novelty features.

Regards - Mike