Hello all,

I was checking Sud Claviers web site and it said the following:

"Protected: New keyboard 2023
The year 2023 promises to be grandiose! Many of you are waiting for the new generation of keyboards: Korg Kronos 3, Yamaha Genos 2, Roland G-80, return of Technics, new analog synth? A little more patience you will know everything on November 16!"

This is incorrect, right!? Or have we missed something!!

Here's the link.
https://www.sud-claviers.com/arrangeurs-2/haut-de-gamme-arrangeurs/

And retailers are always such a reliable source, right? 😂

Most of Roland’s arranger team have moved on to other companies. The Italians haven’t fully designed an arranger since the BK9 (2013). The EA7 and subsequent amateur market Roland arrangers have all got a heavy imprint of a Japanese team completely changing direction.

Seems like the design team that shoehorned the arranger code into the FP-E50 also turned a 180° from the path Italy was taking. I’m lead to conclude that’s a Japanese product top to bottom.

This doesn’t give me a shred of hope a G80’s on the way. The entire direction of recent Roland arrangers is nothing the professional arranger player would ever want. Fewer Variations, fewer fills, no editing, no user syle import, no nothing! Quite honestly, the arranger engine in the FP-E50 is early 90’s in design.

Sudclaviers is just clickbaiting its customers.

Hi Diki,

Thank you for that, it's what I thought but wanted to hear it officially from someone who's got a bit more knowledge on Roland.

I must admit I was really hoping for it to be true. I am really enjoying my EA7, it's such a great sounding instrument and shows that Roland are more than capable of making something truly more outstanding.

I may just buy a second EA7 whilst they are still selling as new, it's nice to see Roland haven't discontinued the EA7 even after so long.

I am in no way an ‘official’ expert on Roland’s inner machinations! My opinions merely come from heavy involvement in the arranger products from the RA-90 onwards (and synths and WS’s before that) and just reading between the lines after that.

Roland have always frustrated me because of their ‘two steps forward, three steps back’ approach for decades. But this has always been a primarily arranger fault, their WS’s, synths and modules seemed a steady improvement. I’ve long felt the blame for this was Roland Japan rolling over the Italian team, or firing or moving around personnel in Italy before they’ve really polished the feature.

But careful recollection of the trauma each new generation of arrangers shows it a consistent fault. Yamaha tend to slowly inch forward with little retrograde issues, so did Korg until the whole PA2X>PA3X fiasco, and now even more with the 3x>4x disaster. Currently, Korg sit at the top of my list of arranger manufacturers likely to bow out of the Pro market shortly. They certainly seem to be running the Roland playbook!

I think anyone who has had similar long term involvement with playing Roland arrangers could come to roughly my conclusions (at least the Roland ones, debate’s still ongoing about Korg!). I’m hard pressed to understand the chaos without the clash of two mutually exclusive design priorities going on in secret… 🎹🩷

@Diki I am assuming you mean Korg PA 3x-4x and then 4x-5x?

I don't ever remember the 3x having issues after release. I bought a PA3x very early on after initial release into Australia and don't remember them (Korg) having to issue bug fix updates as they had to do with the 4x and 5x.

There was a significant problem with legacy data and the Songbook when the 3x came out. Iirc. I remember a friend of mine having to completely redo his entire Songbook. They fixed it eventually, but for a working pro, he couldn’t wait that long.

Did you have a PA2X Songbook and sample sets?

I owned a PA 800 before jumping to the 3X when it came out. But I never really tried to import any songbook data across so no issues would have occurred for me.

Back then I never used the songbook. I Found it extremely tedious to setup and access (The New Set List function completely helped modernise and add the much needed convenience) so instead I was just using custom performances and I moved them across very easily to the 3X without issues.