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