http://www.bauer-music.de/heimorgeln/electone-stagea/electone-stagea-els-01c.html

Kind regards,
Tommy

Good one Chas! I type so fast at times it's amazing I don't have more goofs I get ahead of myself I guess.... Sometimes I think my brain and fingers are a few mil. seconds apart.

Yes, it's a good job the Japanese don't have as derisive an attitude to foreigners in THEIR country, isn't it, 'gaijin'?

BTW, you want a hilarious look at how the Japanese mangle our language, look up 'japenglish' on Google, or start here: http://www.albertkok.nl/galleries/japenglish/

Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto!

And for the politically correct amongst us, you can also find great sites where westerners (especially tattoo parlors!) get Japanese and Chinese symbols utterly wrong and you end up walking around with 'rabbit droppings' or something like that on your body (permanently ) when you REALLY wanted 'harmony' (or something like that)...

Try this one too... a hoot!
http://www.engrish.com/

Quite by chance I got to play an Atelier at the home of a friend on Thursday. It is as you say - a transcendent experience. It was one of the top-end ones, with the full pedalboard. The sound quality transported me to another world.
.

Try this, though...

Turn OFF the internal speakers in the Atelier. Hook it up to a system you normally use for an arranger. Does it sound as impressive?

Probably not. An awful lot of the magic of great home organs comes from a big, beefy, non-direct sound system, optimized for bouncing off walls to fill the room with sound you hear indirectly. Not crappy little three or four inch speakers struggling to get even a semblance of full range sound at even low volumes, or crappy keyboard amps barely capable of being flat...

There's a LOT of money in those big sound systems for TOTL home organs. Put a T3 or G70 through something as capable, and you would be surprised at how good it sounds...

Diki,

Why can't you believe that these high end arrangers and organs can and do sound better than your trusty G70? I've heard the G70 and it's a nice arranger but the sound set isn't on par with my Wersi and from what I've heard from the Atelier I don't think the G70 competes.

Do you seriously think Roland could market the Atelier and sell it for an astronomical price if it weren't truly spectacular sounding? Consumers aren't about to drop that kind of money simply because its in a nice furniture cabinet. The Ateliers sound and features are very impressive and Roland has done a fine job at creating a high end instrument.


[This message has been edited by Ensnareyou (edited 11-22-2008).]

I have listened to the Atelier demos pretty carefully, Ensnareyou... Other than the Rodgers organ stuff and the new articulated sounds (which I think have a LONG way to go to even equal a T3), I can pretty much identify each and every sound in them as a G70 sound...

The brass, the strings, the drums, the basses... you name it, it sounds like my G70. Admittedly, I run my G70 through some pretty decent nearfields, rather than some lousy keyboard amp or whatever, so I'm used to being pretty impressed by it's sound. And I had an earlier lifetime, where I used to play and sell home organs, in the UK in the 70's.

One thing I learned back then was that home organ players are, on the whole pretty unsophisticated buyers, and tended to like whatever was lit up like a Christmas tree with gimmicks up the yinyang over better organs with less bells and whistles. And they were willing to pay EXORBITANT amounts of money, even in those days, for the pretty lights. So yes, I think you CAN sell something that doesn't even equal a TOTL arranger to someone that is hell bent on buying a huge home organ

And perhaps the reason why I still am unimpressed with the sound of some of these overpriced behemoths is that, so far, no-one has posted anything that I like! Yes, the demos for the Atelier are very well done. So are the factory demos for the G70 http://www.rolandus.com/products/productdetails.aspx?ObjectId=656&ParentId=18 (and don't forget, these pre-date V3 and the per-part EQ - RolandUS haven't even acknowledged V3's existence, even over a year after it was released!). And BOTH of them are not live play... they are sequenced (as are most factory demos).

I am still at a loss as to why those that are the MOST strident about how good these über-expensive beasts are, are the ones apparently incapable of demoing this supposedly unarguable superiority. You would honestly think that, if they WERE the unassailable zenith of the keyboard world, at least one of you could have posted something that PROVES it...

(sound of crickets, chirping....)

Having been in home organ retail for 30+ years until a few years ago, I can tell you as a fact in the US, Lowrey organs far outsell Roland who hardly have any market at all.

As far as comparing the two, those that have a Lowrey or can A/B the 2 almost invariably will go Lowrey.