Just got in my first 4 EXR-5 keyboards and I'm really happy with these new boards!
First, they are easy as can be to use and I really like the sounds for a keyboard at this price. It has the good Roland stereo grand piano found in the VA7 and it uses catagory buttons and families of sound to get around. No longer is Roland using the system of choosing a sound and then pushing the variation button if there are more than 1 sound. Now, you can find every sound by changing numbers or using the + and - keys. The polyphony is 64 voice and the sequencer is an easy to use 16 track with your choice of first recording the style and melody and then going back and recording more tracks or doing it one track at a time.
The styles are all very nicely done with a choise of bass + drum, small combo and full band. Each has original and variation.

There are 510 original roland panel sounds +542 XG sounds +256 GM2 sounds. There are 20 Drum kits +11XG drum kits + 9 GM2 drum kits.
The Keyboard is compatible with GM2, GS and XG lite.
There are 103 styles in flash memory (84 factory + 19 changeable which come loaded from the factory and then I can load more styles into flash until I use up all the memory from floppy disks or via USB. I loaded in a few middle eastern styles and they are now inside the keyboard for quick recall.
There is a cool feature from the discover 5 which is called "Cover" function. There are 5 of them. Acoustic, Pop, Rock, Dance and Ethnic. It's cool because when playing styles or smf files you can change the voice selections to fit different genres by just pushing one of these 5 buttons and if you turn them off, you are back to the original. Also, when playing midi files there is a music minus one function button and all 5 "cover" lights come on and by turning one or all off you mute certain tracks quickly of the playing midi file.
You get 10 user program buttons to store your favorite settings.
There is a music assistant button which has 126 different one touch registrations stored for quickly finding a song and playing with a correct style, sound, effects, tempo, etc.
You can split and layer any sounds and there are 18 types of Melody Intelligence (harmony) selections.
The speakers are 10 watts each and there is also a "digital bass enhancer". This keyboard is loud! without external speakers. A set of stereo line out jacks are on the back along with USB and Midi In and Out. It weighs 8kg (sorry I don't know the lb conversion but it is very light).
I see this as a great new product which will sell in the $600 to $700 range. There is nothing else in my store quite like this in this price range. It's what I thought the EM55 should have been. This keyboard is much easier to use then the EM55 which had a list price of $995.00.
There is also a EXR-3 which lists at $595.00 but does not have the floppy disk drive and the speaker system is 1/2 the power at 5watts per side instead of 10watts.
This is the first "price right" Roland I've seen in a long time.
If I were rating a keyboard like Keyboard Magazine does I would give this a "best buy" rating. Check it out if you get a chance and tell me if you agree with me.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566

George, does the "5" read lyrics and/or chords as the Discover 5..also does it mark locations within a smf..

George, does the "5" read lyrics and/or chords as the Discover 5..also does it mark locations within a smf..


No Fran, it does not read lyrics and it does not mark locations within an smf. This keyboard's only similarity to the discover 5 is the "cover" buttons. The discover 5 is designed for smf playback and doesn't include style play where this model is just the opposite except that it can play smf files.


------------------
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

What do you think George, is this a little taste of what's about to come from Roland's soon to come top arranger?


------------------
Roy-Andrè

George, great review! Does the this new Roland allow you to record user styles from scratch?

Squeak

Yes, George, it seems a nice kb. I played one yesterday, and I liked it. But I see two bad things:

1. A little screen (the same as EM-25), and a few tedious O.S. for selecting styles, sounds, and functions. A lot of functions must be done using "function" button, and, then, pushing + or - many times.

2. No possibility of editing styles. You may only modify (or mute) the volume of drums, bass, and accomp. (all the six accomp. tracks globally, as it was an only track). It is all. You can't modify the voices assigned to each of the six accompaniment tracks, nor mute some of them. I remember EM-55 lets you mute each of these six accomp tracks; EXR-5 can't, you may mute all of them only. At less, styles have 2 + 2 variations, because each variation has two versions: combo and full band (equivalent to "normal" versus "advanced mode" in old roland kbs). So, really there are 4 variations. Of course, there is the cover function, that give more variation; but there is no more the morphing style function. At the end, the bad thing rests: no editing styles possibility.

Finally, two questions:

In your review, you say almost nothing about SOUNDS. What's your opinion about them? Is piano voice really good, better than PSRs (1000, 2000), for example?

In that price range, there is Yamaha PSR550 , but has these Yamaha smaller keys, and its bad key feel. Fortunately, this little Roland has normal key size, and good key feel; the pleasure of playing will be greater. At the end, do you think this new roland is the best buy, and a better kb, globally, than Yamahas or Casios near in price?


Best whishes



[This message has been edited by Artaher (edited 01-30-2004).]

What about the sequencer in the new Roland? Since you cannot edit styles, does the sequencer allow you to loop????

Squeak

George, for future reference, 1 kilogram = 2.2 pounds, so the keyboard weighs 17.6 pounds.

Tom

------------------
Bigger is not always better

I don't think this keyboard has anything to do with whatever Roland is working on as a new high end arranger. I do think that this keyboard presents alot of bang for the buck compared to other Roland keyboards. The sounds are very much out of the VA7 engine and although you can't make styles from scratch, there are so many Roland styles available on the web that for me, most of my customers can get whatever they need without having to make their own. Also, if you are a roland user with other keyboards and you want a light weight unit to take to partys, etc., you can make your styles on a big G1000, etc. and play them via the floppy drive or a laptops USB port.
I'm not at my store at this moment but I think this is a larger and brighter display then the EM25, but I might be wrong. I have no EM25s left to compare it to.
I was impressed yesterday with the total package at an impressive price for what Roland has done in the past that I didn't look to see what you could and couldn't do with style track volume, etc. parameters. I tried to play with sounds, styles and tried out the sequencer. I did find that using the function button was quite easy because their are two levels of left and right arrows to first find the catagory of function and then find the individual function you wish to change by using the + and - buttons.
I will be playing with the keyboard more today and will search other features out as quickly as I can.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

George,
Can you comment on the accoustic grand piano voice. When I tried, it sounded very electric. It seemed to me that only a few of the organ samples had the Leslie sim.
How do you access the XG voices?
Starkeeper