I have ordered my new keyboard and it should arrive by Thursday this week!

is there anywhere i can go to download all the G70 / E80 styles?

do i need to purchase any 3rd party conversion software to make them work in the GW-8?

I cant wait for this new machine to arrive.
having the style backing functionality should compliment my motif XS very nicely

Nick

Thanks Fran for emailing me the G70 styles!
much appreciated - you got mail!

Nick

Do you want the E80 ones as well?

You need to format your USB stick on the Gw8. This will establish the folders needed.

On your PC transfer the styles to the Styles folder on the thumb drive. It is the ONLY way for the styles to get loaded to the user bank.

Bear in mind the GW8 will only load up to the max of the user bank, so if you copy across 200 styles for example, it will only load the first 128 ( I think its 128, it might be 100, I cannot remember).

The style conversion program from Roland is ONLY for converting MIDI files into a style.

To convert other brands you will still need something like EMC or similar.

Dennis

thanks Dennis,

are the G70 styles the same as the E80?

will the GW-8 load and play G70/E80 styles straight up without any conversion needed???

G70 and E80 styles are often similar, but tweaked for their respective soundsets, but the E80 DOES have some extra ones (and there were more released for OS2). Personally, given a choice, I might go with the E80's styles, given that its' soundset is newer than the G70's, and I think it has ALL the G70's styles as well as its' own (as well as an Insert FX for a style Part)

The new OS allows you to edit your styles in the GW-8 itself. From past experience, you can expect a fair percentage of G70/E80 styles to work fairly well without tweaking much, but some will take a bit of work.

They should at least load and play without any further work, but sounds vary a fair bit (and there is an insert MFX section to add to a style part, which isn't on the G70, and may not translate from the E80 without knowing which Part it is applied to, and what FX it is).

You also have fewer fills (four to the G/E's six) but they appear to map OK. Overall, you should expect to do at least SOME work to get them to sound their best, as different from the E's soundset as the GW is. But probably no more than any other arranger. Try getting a T2 style to work in an S900 without at least SOME work!

I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

When you get your GW-8, make sure it has the latest OS and styles. You can't edit the styles until you do...

[This message has been edited by Diki (edited 09-13-2009).]

The E80 has a lot of the G70 styles, but (and again from memory) there are about 80 that are only on the E80.

Some styles load up and play fine , and in fact sound better than on the G70. But many do not. I found the instrument tracks to be mostly okay, needed patch adjusting sometimes, but for the most part okay.

It's the drums that create the problems. There are not the same kits on the Gw8 (or the G70 for that matter) that are on the E80. OR they are the same but Roland haev them re-mapped slightly..When you get yours and load up some styles you will understand.

The other annoying thing is there is no way you can set a "startup" performance. It is hard-wired to load up the first factory performance everytime you switch it on, which is ,,,,,"Hungarian 8 Beat" I think?

I did send an email to Roland US techs about this but got no response about setting a user default performance.

This CAN be done on the G70 and E80.

Dennis

Not the hardest thing in the world to create your own default startup Performance, and select it manually, though...

The drum problems can at least now be addressed by the Style Editor in GW-8 OS2. It just takes selecting one MIDI note in the drum Part and transposing it to where it needs to go. Not by any means as easy to do as the E/G drum Makeup Tools, but at least it IS doable (and STILL a lot easier to do than most sub-$1000 arranger)...

I have probably missed this or perhaps it doesnt exist, but can u still mute style parts on the fly like other arrangers?

does it have multi pads / arpeggios?

Nick

ahh - how about "read the manual Nick" i just found out for myself

never mind me!

Diki, you seem to have taken my comments as being critical. Careful your Roland badge is showing

Seriously though, I agree that the work-arounds are not difficult at all, I was not trying to imply that the GW8 is a nasty keyboard.

Best " bang for buck" out there really.

And the pianos and ep's, at this price point are very good, as is the keybed, very nice to play.

I am merely pointing out some of the things that I found, that Nick may also find.

As a bit of a guess, and based on the random samples I tried, I would say about 40% of the styles imported will be okay, the rest will need work.
From something as simple as a rhythm guitar being swapped for an obviously out of place distorted guitar, to removal of ghost notes in the drum track which, whilst they work on the E80, don't work quite the same on the GW8

NONE of these things are insurmountable in the least, but they ARE there.

Dennis

I completely agree, Dennis. I was just doing a little tongue in cheek because sometimes I think that we focus sometimes on things that are so easy to work around, while other more important things get a free pass.

The E80's and GW-8's drum and patch maps are freely available, so it isn't that big a job to llok up what sound was in the original style, and pehaps find an equivalent. Drum sounds, in particular, can often be fixed just by picking a different kit (which may have the same layout as the E80 one).

The only thing about the E80 was that it had a few 'live loops' in some of the kits, whole 'grooves' of, e.g., ride cymbal patterns, in which just ONE note triggered a whole groove. Only looking at the drum maps will find these out, I'm afraid.

NP at all m8, it's all good

I think Nick will be pleasantly surprised when he gets is.

D

Best bang for the money is still the Korg PA50

Fransn, it cannot play mp3 files, it cannot play wav files, terrible keybed, 62 note poly as against 128, no USB...Do I need to go on?

D

Well you can go on but I had the GW 8 and now I own a Korg PA50 which is 200 Euro cheaper to begin with. The keybed of the korg is much better and the korg have normal size keys. The Roland keys are smaller. The mp 3.If you plug a mp3 player in the Korg you have the same. Then what have the Korg. Speakers. Better and more styles. Totally editable styles and sounds. Bigger screen. Better and more effects. Sounds of the Triton synthesizer. Need I to go on?
Look I like the Roland GW8 but the Korg is much more keyboard for the money.

[This message has been edited by FransN (edited 09-14-2009).]

FransN,

I used to own a PA 800 and i assure you the so called Triton sounds are no where near up to scratch with the Roland and Yamaha synth sounds.

the PA boards definitely have a lot of intelligent smarts inside but the Roland GW has far better contemporary sounds and patterns.

bang for buck really is a blurry phrase. how much BUCK are we talking about? Juno Di is bang for buck, PSR S900 is bang for buck, the Tyros 3 could be bang for buck if your buck is 4k...

All i know is for the sound quality i am after, nothing comes close to the GW 8 until you double its RRP and then u are in Fantom/Motif territory.

but my key selling point on the GW 8 is not only that it has the punchy synth sounds and drums, but it has the style/backing functionality which the high end synths like the motif XS and Fantom G do not have...

Nick

Yes thats your opinion but I don't like the Yamaha sound. Besides the Korg PA 800 has no HI Synthesis like the Triton but have a EDS sound generator like the M3. I told before I had the GW 8 and now I have the PA50 and it is a very good tool to make music especially music I like such as Vangelis, Jarre, Hammer etc and the Korg is much better with that kind of music then the Roland GW 8. The synth sounds especially the pads are much better on the Korg and completely editable unlike the GW8. Also I like to play Italo disco and the Korg can do that the best. The GW 8 is better for todays dance music and that is why I proberly will buy this keyboard again now it has this new features. Oh and for people who don't believe me just listen to some of the demos at http://olavier.free.fr/Forum/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=1 and hear how good the PA50 is for synth music.

[This message has been edited by FransN (edited 09-14-2009).]

fair call but i have say I highly dis agree with u where u say "The synth sounds especially the pads are much better on the Korg".

i particularly play trance and electro music and the synth voices on the PA 800 lacked punch and variety.

the pads were pretty good but still nothing compared to what u get on a synth and from what i have heard the GW8.

GW 8 has standard editing functionality. the Korg PA 800 had a far more in depth editing engine but at the end of the day it doesnt matter how good the sound editing capability is, if the sounds arent up to scratch out of the box, you arent going to get much better.

I tried extensively to edit synth sounds and pads to bring them much more punchier and alive on the korg and got no where.

i feel that I myself as well as the majority of keyboard players like to buy a keybaord and be able to enjoy the sound straight away with only minimal editing some of the sounds...

Nick I don't know about the Korg PA800 but for the PA50 there are many extra sounds available ( http://www.korgforums.com/?show=1) and you can make sound this keyboard totally different then the original factory set. I agree that the GW 8 have a very powerful sound and is great for today's music and that is why I want one back and this time the European version

After two years of using E60, I decided to go back and buy the Pa50 once again, since I had that keyboard four years ago.

Eventhough I played GW8 only once, briefly, I liked the modern sounds and functions, but the lack of even basic editing tools was a turn down. But it had better sounds than E60, mostly. In fact, the lack of detail and definition on sounds in E60 made me consider getting the triton sounds again, for half the price it used to be.

I have to agree that some of Korg's sounds are simply old, but very good nevertheless. Not so modern, not multisample drum kits, no mp3, no memory card, no USB, old and difficult style creation or conversion. But the sounds are still top class and more usable than many of Roland's. To me at least.

One more thing, my previous Pa50 was crappy made and was freezing out of blue. This one is working perfectly, no flows whatsoever. I am very happy with it and I tend to agree that it is indeed "best bang for the buck". To me at least.