such product would make perfect sense. A cheap, nice Casio cdp-100 and a desktop arranger, and have a killer setup that's easy to carry....if it has a chord track and good sequencer, consider me a buyer

All this is well and good & looks goos.....

NEXT lets hear & see some good demos from Namm & Beyond !

Re. the Roland product... I am afraid nowadays that Roland try to distance themselves SO FAR from actually using the word 'Arranger', it might be hard for any product rep to actually KNOW whether something about to come out is actually an arranger.

In their own product line up, GW-8 is described as a 'Synthesizer Workstation' and the Prelude is described as a 'Portable Keyboard'. At the US Roland site, at least the Prelude is in the Arranger section, but the GW-8 is in the Synth/Workstation section.

A rose by any other name... (wouldn't stink as bad!)

It's no wonder the reps are completely flummoxed about what any of the products that are coming out actually ARE...

dicki amazing how your so negative about something that just came out a few hours ago!

Donny I think perhaps it's more disappointment from Diki, NOT negativity..

And I do agree with him to a point, the way Roland were categorising these arrangers was rather silly.

However I am waiting on more details on the new "box" from them before I make a definite decision on it.

I prefer to call it 'realism', Donny.

Perhaps you like to live in a dream world where every new product release COULD be 'the one', could be the very thing you've wanted all your life, could solve ALL your problems, could fix every single fault in whatever you are currently using... But, let's face it, it hasn't happened YET, has it..? How much disappointment can you STAND?

If you build up every single product into things that defy realism, you set yourself up for disappointment. I prefer to take a realistic view, and am seldom disappointed. Who's the happier person NOW?

Roland have always leveraged existing technology into arranger products (rather than the other way around). Everything released of an arranger nature since the demise of the MOTL and TOTL branches of the tree have been derived from a Sonic Cell. Simply the description and specs of this thing lead one to the almost inevitable conclusion that this is simply a re-packaged GW-8/Prelude, maybe with a few bells and whistles to help remote operation (not that any of them won't be useful) and accordion specialized operation. That, IMO, is a perfectly reasonable thing to assume.

But building it up into the Next Coming of Roland is optimistic beyond belief. There's no way Roland are going to launch anything ground-breaking in an accordion accompaniment product. They never have before...

Truth is, I am not disappointed in the least. Seems like a decent product, and if it had the full soundset from the GW-8L, I'd get it in a flash. But a simple read of the specs dashes that idea (you DID read the specs, didn't you?). Not enough Tones by FAR...

I am sorry, but the only negativity I see is the refusal to accept what is by far the more likely product, and the building it up into something it can never be. Possibly, YOU are the disappointed one, being unable to accept its' simple roots. Me, I am perfectly happy with what it IS...

In any case Diki, it IS good to have you back and posting..
Truly

how about substituting 'posting' for 'moaning'

Only 'moaning' I hear is those 'moaning' about me being realistic.

Why not direct that 'moaning' at the manufacturers, who apparently haven't made the product you want, rather than at me for informing you of that?

Shoot the messenger... always an SZ fave!

I agree in part with you....this product is nothing too great; it certainly isn't the arranger workstation that I hoped it was.

But it still seems a good and well made product. It looks set for a budget conscious piano player who wants to have something to practice and record with.

But the small screen ,no sequencer and no advanced features like sampler etc definitely don't make it an arranger workstation.

Someone should really make one. But on the whole, I give Roland Kudos to have made that module, really. There aren't many of those, the only other ones I know are the Ketron ones, which are never set to be sold for peanuts. Roland makes very competitive products, in my opinion, even if they didn't make my dream portable arranger workstation (yet? who knows).