Well, after reading all about the Roland Keyboards here the hype got to me and I ordered one, and will be delivered in a few days. Quick question: does anyone use a 2 or 4 GB pcmcia microdrive with their roland keyboards? I don't see online anyplace to buy one! I ordered a sandisk 1 gb pcmcia high speed pcmcia compact flash that I plan on loading about 40 mb of midi files, and backup to the board, as well as newly created songs & styles.

HI Rico,
welcome to the Roland club.
I made another post where I advised I had bought adapter and CF card for my E 80 so look through the posts here and also some in the General arranger forum.
I bought mine at: http://www.outpost.com/
they have the bigest stores here in silicone valey and in several other states and now on line also. they have everything and at the most competative prices.
I peeked into your website and I see you have a ton of gear like I do. I am thinking of a sale soon. Getting crowded in here
Enjoy your E 50 and let me know if you want to be on my Roland E and G mailing list.
also note that there are updates available for the E 50 OS.
Best to you and yours,
Bebop

I'll post my opinion of the board in a few days after I had a chance to set it up and put it through its paces. I also should point out I plan on using the E-50 in an existing setup and in tandem with a Boss Dr-5, Fantom XA, and Alesis Micron. What would be real cool is if I could sample stuff on the XA and trigger it during a live performace with the E-50. My other 2 setups includes a PSR-3000 paired with the original motif 6, and a Korg PA50 paired with a Microkorg.

I got the board today and admit that the styles have a nice complexity to them. Sounds are good too, but just like with the Yamaha board I have I use the mixer a lot. I still feel that Yamaha Boards are the best for playing cover songs, but I will be able to work with the E-50 and Fantom XA combination, especially on my original work-more-so than my Yamaha combo of PSR-3000/Motif 6. I need to spend some more time on this board before I can give any +/- assesments. I do like the touch screen-it does increase speed for making setting changes. So far so good...

Congratulations with the new board! I own a E-50 as well, and I love it. Hope you do too

Yes, I am very pleased with the E50 so far. The last Roland Arranger I owned was a G-600, and the E50 is vastly superior. Although, I did got bogged down a little with the music finder trying to find out what the songs are-ie Crazy Patsy = Crazy = easy-others = not so easy. Next step for me is to learn the sequencer opration, then hook it up to a computer, and customize. That should take me about a month to get through...

Check out the Music Assistant, if the E 50 has it, like the E 80 does.
I found 650 registrations already set up for songs we play all the time. I have yet to make a change in any of them. they are just terrrific.
Bebop