What's the story on the G-1000? All I know is that it's a discontinued model by Roland? But it has velocity, aftertouch, and most impt (to me), 76 keys. It must be a signigicant KB since I see it has its own forum. And I know there's someone on this forum (can't remember who) who plays one and wouldn't give it up for life or money!

Thanks,
Glenn

Whooooa, Deja Vu! I replied to this same message yesterday. But nobody else did.
Where is Fran when you need him?
DonM

Nobody else could... my origional post, after your reply, got sucked up in cyber-muck!

Actually, it's still there. Last post 12/01.
(I'm just keeping this near the top so someone may see it.)
I once had a G800, which was the predecessor to the G1000. It had good sounds, and good styles. The OS system was pretty bad. I understand they helped it a lot on the 1000.
It was BIG and HEAVY, and had no internal speakers.
DonM

Glenn,

I have been using G1000 for the last four (or so) years. When it came out, it was a top of the line keyboard, which held its own against anything on the market. It has many excellent (to my ears) sounds, great styles (with many more available on the 'net). This was the first keyboard which allowed direct from disk style and song play. It has a ZIP drive, with each ZIP disk capable of storing 100 MB or midi files and style data. Roland's GS capabilities are second to none - they developed the GM and GS standard, so your MIDI files will play great if that's what you are into. It has a SCSI port, to add more storage devices (though the keyboard only recognizes 100 MB partitions). The dynamic arranger feature allows you to configure the velocity response of each of the eight accompaniment parts, allowing for greater control based on the velocity of the left-hand notes. The keyboard allows two upper voices, which can be alternated or layered, with the capability of splitting the right hand zone for yet another voice. The left hand also allows two voices which can be used one at a time or layered ( that's in addition to the 8 arranger parts which can be controlled by the left hand). The melody intelligence allows you to select yet another voice to be played in harmony with the first upper voice - tons of flexibility there. All the setups can be stored in the 192 performance memories, which can all be saved to disk in a span of 3 seconds, and new ones loaded. The one feature I like the best is its keyboard - it is semi-weighted (I think), but the feel is truly excellent. The keys are longer than on the most other keyboards, and it takes just a bit of getting used to, but once you do, it is hard to switch to anything else.

Some of the shortcomings: the screen is small and IMHO, poorly organized. The instrument navigation is not as ergonomic as that on some older Roland keyboards (such as E70). I believe that most Yamahas and Technics are more user-friendly than the G1000. It has no sampling and no vocal harmony. Nonetheless, it is a great keyboard.

It has indeed been discontinues a couple of years ago, and replaced by the VA-76, which has the same form factor and the same keys, but loses a whole lot of navigation buttons in favor of touch screen. Touch screen is not as good as buttons for live playing, as many functions previously accessible with a key press are now hidden behind several navigation screens. On the other hand, VA-76 also has a better way to navigate the sound, style, and performance memory selections, it has twice the polyphony (128 notes max). It also has cheesy features like D-beam and VariPhrase. The concepts of both are neat, but for live playing neither is particularly useful, eslecially the Variphrase, which allows you sample a phrase of, say, vocals, and then play it back in different keys.

To me the VA-76 does not provide the improved functionality which would justify the price difference from my G1000 to upgrade it.

As far as activity in the G1000 forum, you will notice that it, much like this, and every other forum, are driven mostly by the novelty instruments, and the ones with persistent problems. At this point G1000 is neither new nor has any (known) problems; hence the forum is mostly dormant, save for an occasional question.

Hope this gives you enough information.

Regards,
Alex

Don't forget the EM2000 the sister of the G1000 with 61 notes plus speakers and D-Beam. also great board.

Graham UK

Acoustic piano sound isn't very good though, at least according to our shootout.

Simon



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Simon G.K. Williams
simon@svpworld.com
Creative Music & Multimedia
http://www.svpworld.com
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The acoustic pianos in all the sound canvas series have always been very playable and pleasing to my ear. The G1000 is one of the better ones ..... shootout, or not. PLAY one.

Sounds like we need another sample of the G1000. No. I don't have a G1000.
Starkeeper