Not a bad overall sound at all, drums and most of the demoed voices were very good...I thought the Sax(?)was very anemic, but the styles had lots of life.

For those not needing to alter sounds, it seems like a nice entry level arranger.

Ian

I thought the sax was pretty boring too, but honestly when looking at that video again I blame the player for that The sounds were def very good though, but I still don't see the value in this thing. They drop features, add speakers, then charge more for it. GW8's a much better bargain IMO.

What would you say it's meant to compete with...what PSR, for instance?

Honestly at first glance when I saw this thing (prior to the price release) I figured it would compete with the PSR-S550. I figured if it was priced close to the GW-8 it again would fair well against the 550. However at this price range it's up against the S700, but the S700 has quite a few features on the Prelude and gives you those extra features for the same price such as style recording, basic patch editing, ect. The Prelude has a few features on the S700 too, but I'm shocked the price is at $1,000. I think the Prelude makes the S550 and S700 look like even better bargains.

[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 01-23-2009).]

Yeah, but on the other hand, the Prelude has MP3, WAV and AIFF, which the S700 does not.

It will be interesting to see what kind of buyer it attracts....it seems to be focusing more on playback, i.e to play over an MP3, WAV etc.

I agree the GW-8 is the better deal...decent speakers aren't expensive.

GW8 it's a better deal to me too.

i don;t think prelude is focusing very much on playback (except for mp3 playback) since does not give much possiblities for editing midi files.

on the other hand, even though s500 has more features, prelude/gw8 gives you better build quality (probably...) and more professional look.

the sounds, at least from this demo, are quite good. i mean the styles sounds, as that sax was not great... but general sound i believe was very pleasent and i am sure many people will buy it.

still, GW8 seems more appealing to me.

I've played the GW8.....& let me tell you Yamaha has nothing to worry about.

I played the GW8 too. I think compared to S700 or S550 it's a more professional sound. It doesn't sound as a usual homekeyboard and has more live character. On the styles there's MFX (the E-guitars sound more realistic) I think, which does not even have the Roland G70.

Greetings
Michael

I have to agree, Donny, but I think it's not really meant to compete directly with the Yamahas...no style editing, and with no sounds comparable to mega voices, the styles tended to sound a little less realistic, although the drums were more "live" sounding.

I played a GW-8 a several weeks ago whilst at Music Stop (now Long & McQuade)in Halifax, and it was hooked up to a good set of monitors which helped to give it an impressive and warm sound, but hearing the PSR-S700 through the same system, the latter produced much better sounding styles, although the RH voices were much closer in quality between the two.

Ian

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