http://www.rolandkeyboardclub.com/v/prod_detail.php?id=237


read & be informed..compare & make educated decisions.

[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 11-23-2008).]

Or just buy what everyone else is using... after all, they GOTTA be right, don't they?

Then...buy a Yamaha and be really happy.

Just kiddin' Donny....BTW, did Roland ever make an OS update for the E-60 to allow EQ on the style/SMF parts?

What you really should have is a G70....no compromises there, except for the weight, perhaps.

Ian

[This message has been edited by ianmcnll (edited 11-23-2008).]

Yep, that's the one I have. Sounds and works EXACTLY as that web page says. Lovely!

Dennis

Way to go Dennis...another fellow who's found his Holy Grail...congratulations.

Now, if you can just convince Donny to buy a G70 before they are all gone....

one two cha cha cha

[This message has been edited by ianmcnll (edited 11-23-2008).]

Dennis glad to hear your enjoying your unit & Happy Holidays to you & yours.

Don't know too much about the Roland arrangers...Is the E-80 the newest?

How does the E-80 compare to the G-70?
Besides the 76 vs 61 keys.

I see Sweetwater has then both in stock...I may go there to check them both out this week???

I assume V3 of the G-70 is just a download and install on any G-70?

Thanks,
Lee

Dennis,
How does it (G-70) compare to the PA2XPRO you had??

I'm pretty happy with the PA, should I even look at a G-70?
Thanks,
Lee

Thanks Donny, yes I am enjoying it very much. Was a good move.

And best of the season to you and your family too Donny. I hope it's a happy and safe Christmas for you.

Dennis

Hi Lee,

TOUGH question

And this will be a long answer

I suppose it depends on what your style is.

I sold my PA2xpro, because of functionality.

The G70 is ahead as far as a live keyboard goes, imho. And thats saying something considering the Korg is a great live keyboard too. Second on the list now for me.

Sound wise, they are very similar, although the G70 has much better basses. The basses on the Korg are ordinary.

The guitars on both are about the same (acoustic/clean electrics) but the o'drive/dist guitars on both suck. The ONLY sound source for electric guitars and basses is the Motif range (ES and up). Stunning.

In fact I now run MP3's made from my midis created on the Motif XS rack, and I play all the keyboard parts.

I have found a way of displaying my charts as album art embedded in the MP3, so I do not miss the MP3 player on the Korg (I link the G70 to a laptop (tablet PC).

The new DNC sounds on the Korg are supposed to be similar to the Yamaha SA ones, and as I had the Tyros 2, I had experience of those, but you know, I found that they were fun to tinkle around with at home, but I hardly ever used them live, and they are almost impossible to use within smf files, unless you want to spend hours programming one track.

I could do it, but I chose not to.

Lee the one (and probably only) thing I miss from the Korg is the Songbook, the UPG system on the Roland is inferior, but it is workable.

I left my synth programming days behind me with an old Dx7, Fantom and the JX3p, so having the sound editing/creation on the Korg was no big deal, and in any case the effects structure is really sucky so I never really tried too hard.

Keybed on the PA2x shades the G70, but the G70 is better than the PA1xPro.

Audio functions are similar, but the seperate audio in with a dedicated control on the G70 is a big winner.

I thought I would miss the hard drive, but 1 gig CF cards are just as quick so that's no issue.

Harmoniser on both is about the same. Although the G70 is sooooo much easier to use. I used to spend 2 hours just setting up 1 preset on the Korg.

Roland seemed to have nailed the correct settings when it is used within midi files/song files. I would never use either one in a vocal solo situation. (Same goes for the Harmony M as well) they just don't sound, well, right. To my ears anyway.

Hmmm, what else....Oh yeah...variety of fills is much better on the G70, I do miss the dedicated manual bass and acc hold buttons on the Korg. These can be programmed to assignable switches on the G70, but then you lose those switches.

Another one I miss is the ability to change drum maps(from memory it was a choice of 7 in each style) at the push of a button on the Korg, and the ability to overwrite anything set at the factory was also a BIG plus. Again it CAN be done on the G70, it is just not as easy an operation.

The Style and song "Makeup" tools on the G70 are worth the "price of admission" alone.

These are superbly created tools that work so easily and quickly. They WOULD be a reason to "jump ship" if you are right into your own styles.

One awesome control on the G70 is the D-Beam...I have it set to turn off accomp (which leaves just the drums and bass running) this is excellent for real light and shade when playing styles. One of the best features on the keyboard...

I cannot give you a definitive answer as to whether you should look at a G70, all I can say is this... In hindsight (and in THAT I am ALWAYS right ) and knowing what I know now, I would keep the PA2xPro, BUT having said that I am in no way disappointed with the G70, in fact I am extremely happy with it.

I am nearly at the point where I am ceasing to continually refer back to how I did things on the Korg, and thinking, yeah, this G70 is really going to "cut the mustard".

The point here being that if offered a PA2xpro, NOW, at the same price of the G70, it is no longer an instant decision. It would take me a week, or more, to decide to switch back, if ever.

Tell the truth, if they added the songbook to the G70, and re-introduced the chord sequencer I would recommend you seriously consider it. But as they are not going to do either, I reckon the Korg is one you should keep as you own it now.

If you didn't own the PA now and were looking at either one to buy that would be one tough choice!!

No doubt, and I mean NO DOUBT at all, having played the top three (PA2xpro, Tyros 2 and G70) that the top 2 are level, G70 and Pa2xPro, the Tyros falls second, not by a big margin, but significant enough. At least for this player anyway.

Sorry the answer was so long, but it was hard to reply in one sentence.

Lee if you want any further specific comparisons please fell free to ask.

Dennis

PS: Sorry to you Donny for the little hijack..

Dennis ......no problem that was a great review honest and to the point with out the piss contest bias we see here frequently..
Please keep us abreast of your experiences.

The biggest offenders, are usually the quickest to accuse....one, two, cha cha cha.

Have a nice day.

Lee how are you using your Pa2x pro?....also do you think the new OS update will benefit your needs. Just like the E60 I love the design of the pa2x also.....slim & trim. Hope your enjoying it alot.

Dennis,
Thanks very much for the detailed answer...very objective and helps a lot. After reading it twice...I think for now I will stay with the PA2, But if a G-80 comes out...???Lookout!

Actually I discover nice thing regularly on the PA2 now that I am starting to get nto more advanced things..doing styles etc. Songbook it superb for sure.

One thing that bugs me is...I play mostly old standards, slow ballads, romantic stuff, 40's, 50's 60's stuff but not too much fast real modern stuff.

While there is a lot of fanastic built in styles o the Korg, I remember some neat ones on the Yamaha T2 I had. S, I guess one reason to look at the Roland is styles.

I am now just starting to do some styles of my own. So if I can learn how to do song specific styles from MIDI files on the PA...well I guess I will just be a happy camper!

Donny,
I play mostly with styles, at home, for me & family. Some day I would like to also play out at nursing homes, comm centers etc...

I am not that great of musician, but I am improving a little! Being a Information Systems person and one that has spent many years with technology..learning the keyboard is easy, it's just my amateur level of musician that needs work. One big fault is sometimes I spend way too much time on tech things and not enough playing songs! :-)

I'm only 60 so, maybe I still have some time to get where I want to be.

Lee

Good luck to you Lee...also try to go see other arranger players in your area when ever you can........ask questions, convert, edit, tweak, play frequently & most of all have fun playing.

Good Luck


Happy Holidays

"Lee the one (and probably only) thing I miss from the Korg is the Songbook, the UPG system on the Roland is inferior, but it is workable"


Dennis, what does the Korg "song book" do that you can't do with Roland "user programs"?

Are you aware that a Roland user program will store the one touch settings that in themselves are like user programs...

I like the way Roland saves the complete snapshot as a user program,,,I am not aware of any advantage the Korg songbook has over the Roland user program...Enlighten me..

Fran if you carefully read my post, I didn't say you couldn't, just that in my view it (the UPG system) was different and inferior to the Korg Songbook function.

It still works okay though, and I have gotten used to it.

I am not going to get into convincing/enlightening you one way or the other. With respect, I am stating what I feel are deficiencies as opposed to the Korg as I see and experience them.

You would have to form your own opinion.

Dennis

Dennis they Both basically do the same thing & I definitly prefer both vs anything Yamaha has (MFD) is a joke regarding retaining pertinent User program information such as Transpose & accessing it....where the Korg PA excels is that it can also retain Mp3/Smf besides style songs.

Dennis ..no problem, I was just asking because I was not aware of any big differences, and seriously wanted to know what you thought were the differences..I checked with the Korg manual to see what I could find...but since I never tried the Korg songbook..I am in the dark..

Donny, as you are aware Roland also links SMF with styles..
The G70 and E-60 can not play MP3's..but the E80 does with no additional hardware..The E-80 also reads text and shows on the screen...So there is one Roland keyboard that is very similar to the PA800 in this respect..

Fran you are a vast vault of information...I learn something from you EVERYDAY

Thanx Buddy

Thanks guys,
for the info on the G-70.

So G-70 is TOTL in Roland? What about the
E-80? It only has 61 keys, but other wise is it better than a G-70?

Got Korg OS2 installed today, very nice update for the money!

Lee

Fran, I guess the difference for me, is the Songbook was so easy and quick to use, but to be fair, I may actually be saying that about the G70 in a few weeks .

You push one button and you are there..ready to save all the settings to an entry. So two buttons (well a button and a tab) and you have it saved.

I think the way Korg linked the whole thing together as a total Songbook concept as opposed to the different way Roland implements the connection between the Music Assistant Music Finder and the UPG's/UPS.. Just seems there are three areas to edit and ensure are correct as opposed to one.

Please don't misunderstand me I think the Roland keyboard is great in what it does and I am really happy with it , and I totally agree with Donny that both are better than the Tyros line, for me anyway.

And just to clarify, when I said inferior, it was a marginal call.

IE the G70 was only a little behind the Korg Songbook, and ONLY in implementation, not in what it records.

So perhaps I chose the wrong word there...it subtly implied the G70 was deficient, and it certainly isn't. In some ways it is better than the PA.

Anyway just wanted to clarify a bit.

Thanks
Dennis

Actually Lee, if this makes sense, I think they are both TOTL..In fact if Roland included the .bmp function and the MP3 function into the G70, apart from keybed, I'd say they would be pretty even.

And on that score, I can't see why Roland wouldn't include those two things (.bmp MP3) on an upgrade to the G70, they are after all, only software changes... The hardware on the E80 didn't change to accomodate them.

Dennis

Maybe I'm just dense today??
So why is there a G-70 and E-80? The E-80 is newer, right?

Except keybed, which one sounds better, has better styles, sounds, functions etc.?

In other words if I go to audition one for a few hours which one should I concentrate on?

Lee

Depends whether you want a 76 or a 61.

E80 has some more sounds (but fewer legacy sounds), .bmp viewer (Roland posted that there WAS a hardware reason no .BMP viewer for G70 quite a while ago), some OS improvements (fixed velocity for sampled organ tones, floating split point, etc.), more effects - 3 insert effects to G70's 1 or 2, 2 mastering EQ's and comps (1 for styles and smf's, one for keyboard), 2 SRX slots to G70's one, speakers and weighs more

G70 has the best 76 action on the planet (IMO), individual outputs, and independent output for the harmonizer/mike section.

For me, at least, the piano sound is SO good it cries out for a bigger than 61 keyboard, but if you don't play piano, don't need additional outs and don't want to run your mike/harmonizer separately from the arranger's main mix, you're probably more future-proofed with the E80...

Diki,
OK, I see,
Thanks,

So is a G-90 comming??? or is Roland done with new arrangers?
Lee

Patience is a virtue...

Ah!
I see, said the blind man, as he saw

:-)
Lee

Patience my ass... Donny wants to BUY SOMETHING!

How about that new Electro3, Donny? Nice and light...

Reports of layoffs at Roland Italy's manufacturing plant don't seem to bear out hopes of anything major for a while... Given the economy, probably a wise choice. The way things are going, Ketron's decision to ONLY field a $5000 arranger as any kind of new product doesn't seem wise. Personally, I think that Roland's down-market move with the GW-8 seems about right, and perhaps allows them time to reconsider what an arranger needs to be... There's far too much innovative technology on WS's and laptops missing us completely.

Better to come out with something groundbreaking than try to play 'me too' in a field of keyboard sales that is already diminishing fast...

I think the REAL future of arrangers has little to do with us old geezers. We just (apart from Donny!) don't buy enough of the things... I think the WS needs an infusion of the arranger's ease of use, and the marriage of arranger and loopstation technology, and let the next generation of players guide it's path. But they have to find a way of doing it more affordably than the Audya or MS/Wersi's (and voiced better than MS) because times are going to be hard for a while.

Perhaps this is just what the industry needs... lean times to get sharp and hungry again, rather than stamping out carbon copy models year after year. Times get hard, you have to concentrate on what your customers NEED, rather than what you feel willing to give them...

Well, its taken a while but I have found one GLARING issue and difference. On the Korg songbook you could set up playlists using ANY resource...Style, Mp3, SMF, and on the G70, Playlists can ONLY contain midis....You cannot even link data from the Music Finder.

I am only finding this out now, because I am trying to set the thing up for gigs, and I guess I just ASSUMED that with a Playlist function you would be able to assign any resource.

Using the UPG's in this case is very clunky, not to mention slow, between songs.

Dennis

The playlist feature on the G70 is NOT a 'songbook'. It's a jukebox for unattended playback of SMF's.

The Music Finder is more what you need. Simply use the sub-headings in it to organize lists. Alternatively, using a computer, it is possible to create UPS's very quickly using the Session Manager software (drag and drop), and use the UPS as a sort of Gig Disk. There's no limit to how many UPS's you can have (I think) and they load very quickly.

Thanks Diki, but unlike the Korg, the Roland has no "filter" on the Music Finder.

I had thought of that workaround, by simply naming a "genre" or "artist" set 1, set 2 etc but it still lists EVERYTHING in the Music Finder. So its probably the slowest option of the lot.

I will investigate further the UPS path you mentioned as I do use a PC at gigs.

I use a combination of MP3(my own) SMF, styles and solo keyboard, so I DO need an efficient way of arranging sets, as sometimes I may have all 4 methods in 1 set.

OK, give Session Manager a try. Remember, a UPS has 144 or so entries, so one UPS could contain multiple versions of the same list, or one dance list, one slow list, one background list, etc.

Thanks, will do.

There is also the fact that I can select user programs via midi... So what I could do is set up dummy smf's with just the 00/32/pc # embedded and have these in a seperate songlist using a small midi player that can have playlists set up..

Hmmm...Okay..I will advise how it goes.