Is it just me or has Roland stuck it to us again?? I went thru this when I bought a vs daw recorder, and now this synth issue..

I demoed the rs-9 today and found it far, far superior to my xp-30, which isnt even two years old...88 keys, better sampled instruments, great drums...all for LESS than what I bought my xp-30 brand new....

even the rs-5 isnt a bad deal for a 61 key synth...

Sure you get more patches and expansion board capability with the xp-30, but the rs-9 with its 500 or so patches seems like more than enough...I like the way it seems like the "best of" ...

I'm ready to dump my xp-30 on ebay and pick up the rs-9...of course, who knows how soon it will be before the rs9 is obsolete..

any thoughts.??

Well, I have the very same problem: I was going to buy a XP-30 soon, but now I don't know what to do. Can anybody make a comparison about this two keyboards? (XP-30 and RS-5/9)
I mean, I know the RS is not expandable and has less than half the patches of the XP but...
-Is the sound quality really superior on the RS?
-Is it true (as I've heard elsewhere) that you can't save edited patches to memory?
-Are the RS's sounds as editable as the XP's?
-How good are the orchestral sounds of the RS(one of my main reasons for buying the XP)?
-What about the keyboard? Is it better or worse than the XP?
-Do the realtime controllers in the RS (knobs, I think) send MIDI data as XP's sliders?
Hope someone can help us.

LP

I still don't see how y'all can compare a 61-key board with an 88-key...... IMHO you either NEED the 88-key's, or you don't. As a piano player, I NEED 88-keys. This is, in my opinion, the first thing you should think about with these two particular synths. If you really would like to have 88-keys, you're not going to find a much better deal on a full-blown synth with 88-keys than the RS-9, maybe a couple good stage pianos, but............. nothing like the RS-9 at this price. Soooo, first of all ask yourself "Do I NEED 88 keys??" If the answer is yes.... then obviously the RS-9 would be better for you. Now for y'alls other questions.........

(WARNING!!! THESE ARE ALL MY PERSONAL OPINIONS AND IN NO WAY ARE DEFINITIVE OR GUARANTEED TO BE CORRECT, THIS IS JUST HOW I SEE IT!!!)

Ok, that said I'll move on to the first question y'all had, the sounds...... I played around with the RS a little bit and I really liked most of the sounds. If it's true that they come from the XV-series then they should be very good in general (I own the XV-88 and LOVE the sound of this board, the RS's should sound really good) Obviously the RS's don't have nearly the library of sounds available to them that the XP-30 does (The XP-30, like lprisan said, it has more than twice the patches of the RS-9) Also you can expand with the XP-30. I don't know for sure, but assuming from what I've read in y'alls posts, you can't expand the RS-9. So you have a much greater library of sounds at your disposal with the XP-30. If you're going to be needing some weird sounds (Like the sound FX or vocal boards) you probably won't be able to do anything like this with the RS, however with the XP-30 all you have to do is buy the expansion board. If you need lots of different kinds of sounds.... the XP-30 is the winner.

Next question.. Sound editing....... (WARNING!!! AGAIN, I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE ABOUT THE SPECIFICS OF EDITING ON THESE SYNTHS, JUST GOING FROM WHAT I READ ONLINE) The RS's were designed for an amateur or beginner player..... not saying they don't sound good, but they (in general) probably won't have the depth that the XP-30 would have. I would imagine that the RS-9 could save some user sounds.... but maybe not as many as the XP-30.

I'm not really knowledgeable enough about either of these synths to answer your other questions...... but I'll say this, GO TRY THEM!!!! If you have any kind of music store nearby, go there and ask to try these out...... decide which one YOU think sounds better, decide which one YOU think feels better...... get it???

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Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

[This message has been edited by KeyboardFreak (edited 03-16-2001).]

Well, I have played them both...I own the
xp-30 and played around with both the RS's for a couple of hours..

Good point about the 88key vs 61key...I'm beginning to really see as I get deeper into this that 61 keys really BLOWS....especially now that I'm using the board as more of a midi controller triggering virtual synths..

xp-30 has expansion board capability....whoop de do....for 200 bucks or so I can get a really good East West or ILIO sample library to use in my EXS24 with Logic......

I'm finding that all these frikkin patches on the xp-30 is more of a headache than anything...even with all my patches loaded into a patch librarian in Logic its still a pain in the ass...add one expansion board and you have almost 2000 patches to sift thru while you are writing....Can an artist paint with 2000 colors all laid out in front of him...?? No he starts with a few gets them to blend...

Sorry if I seem negative but I dont like the way Roland seems to be manipulating the customer...I bought my xp-30 thinking I wouldnt be needing another synth in the studio for a while, now I see the rs-9, with 88 keys, better sounding samples all round IMHO, and in a way have admitted that a lot of the bells and whistles on the xp-30 are overkill...all for LESS than what I bought my xp-30 for new is the part that really gets me...

The only thing I didnt do was A-B the xp-30 and the rs-9 since the Guitar Center didnt have them both set up in the same room...If anyone has an opinion on the overall sound quality of both synths I'd appreciate it...

Just for the record:
I've read that the RS-5/9 has more or less the same editing capabilities of the XP-10 (So I suppose only ASDR and effect editing?).

Also, a reply to some posters: Personally I think the discussion was mainly about sounds & sound quality of the boards, not about the keyboards. Of course it's not the same 61 as 88 keys! then, perhaps it's better to compare the XP-30 with the RS-5.

See ya,
LP

Yes, I would say it is definitely better to compare the XP-30 to the RS-5, a better comparison for the RS-9 would be the XV-88...... Now about the sounds, I can't say much except that the RS's sounds come from the XV series which has some of the greatest sounds I've heard.... so, for $699.99 you can't go that wrong with the RS-5 (or if you want a cheap 88-key, with the RS-9) Also, I don't know about the XP-30, but the RS series have the XV's arpeggiator which is not fully customizable, but is pretty good nonetheless.
Don't forget about the many features besides sounds, if someone does get the RS-5 or 9 to replace the XP-30, they may lose a feature that they really liked on the XP..... even though they're getting some good new sounds. Take a look at ALL the specs before you buy anything, see if there's anything missing that you REALLY need to have.

------------------
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Not to sound like an ass but do you complain every time a new speed CPU comes out for your PC or better video card comes out?

I dont think Roland stuck it to you unless you were looking for a beginner keyboard. The RS boards were created to keep the cost down, the XP30 was set up with maximum tones and quality. Both boards are aimed a various genres of music and usage. The XP30 has 3 expansion modules built into the board where as the RS5 is just a best of. Professional musicians would gain more from a full expansion bank of orchestral, session, or house tones rather than a selection from each expansion module.

Also Guitar Center had the XP30 for $650 a few months ago and that is cheaper than the current price tag of the RS5. I know that the XP is up around $900 but still your getting 3 complete expansion modules @200ea built into the instrument.

You purchased your boards because they had the best possible sounds on them that you would use. You know my JV80 with Orchestral EXP still holds up to many of the new boards out there today tone wise. That is why I have owned it as long as I have. Your XP30s are fine you didnt get ripped off you got a good instrument with great Roland tones.

I went through the same problem. XP-30 or RS-9. I weighed all my factors and purchased the RS-9. Here are some of the factors: the first big 2 factors in my decision making were 1) I own a JV1010 so I have nearly all the XP-30 sounds. I don't care for the Techno board and I can upgrade my JV1010 with the Orchestral board. 2) I really needed at least 76 keys.

To try to answer lprisan:
The keyboard on the RS-9 is to me as good as the XP-30's. Both are much better than the XP-50's which I traded in. I used the attack and release knobs while the RS-9 was conntected to my JV1010 and the knobs sent the info to the JV1010 thus the attack and release were effected on the JV1010.

I'm impressed with the midi control of my jv1010 with the rs-9. The "dual" button also layers the jv1010. I had the RS-9 in single mode connected to my jv1010. I had both synths set to a piano sound. So I had a nice layered piano, then I had part 16 on the JV1010 set to a strings patch and part 16 of the rs-9 set to a harp&strings patch.

The song I played really comes alive in the 2nd verse. So I played the first verse and chorus in single mode (piano only), then hit that "dual" button for the 2nd verse and the song jumped out. It was very nice. I think the rs-9 is really cool especially with a jv1010 attached.

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RW

[Apologies if there's an FAQ, but I haven't seen it.

I'm a fairly new user, having moved up from my XP-10, to the RS-9.

I'm having a lot of trouble with voices cutting out. I know that the RS sounds (RS string, RS piano) use up a lot of voices. But I get a lot more cutting out than I use to get with my XP-10 with only 28 voice polyphony, and I don't understand why. Yes, I can use standard piano and strings, but I'm still dropping voices left and right. Any advice appreciated.

I was formerly using MOTU's Freestyle for sequencing, and there doesn't seem to be a profile for it. What do y'all use for low-coast sequencing. I have Cakewalk Express, but it produces lots of spurious tones, and hangs often when used with the RS.

If I want to link in my XP-10, how would I do it using MIDI cables?

Is there an FAQ for RS-9 users?
So far I haven't been that happy with the instrument. 88 keys is great, and the touch is nice, but this voice-dropping problem is annoying. I'm also not that pleased with the sounds. Guitars particularly all sound staccato--they "thunk", instead of "twang". I've messed with a lot of settings trying to get a decent sounding acoustic guitar, but so far to no avail.

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks,

pauln

I was told by the Roland East Europe that the real XP30 succeeder is RS-70 not RS-9. You guys didn't even mention the RS-70, so I'm kind of puzzled now!?