Dear Friends,

Please post your opinions of the Roland E-50,E-60 as compared to Yamaha PSR-S900.

I want to Purchase a Yamaha because my hands are smaller to match the PSR Keyboard.

But I really would like to try the E-60.

Kindest Regards,
Paul
Westminster Calif.
paul-ds@msn.com

Palo,
i had an E60 for a couple of months but had to return it
for a defect. in the interim i considered the ketrons,
korg pa800, but was waiting for the s900 to make a final
decision. I tried one at Sam Ash on tuesday. also the s700.

I decided to reorder the E60 because they fixed the bugs
and made the v-link a control button..but I had to really sleep on this decision. I found the E60 had shortcomings for me, but its good points held my interest. I finally made my decision based on this: the old Korg I have been using I still love, but I wanted not only an updated unit but 76 keys..that's why i wanted the E60 originally. the new os
updates tipped the scale for me re the drawbacks of the
E60..it still has many for me, but I shall overcome!

These 2 units are great, the same price, but so different you really have to try both before you decide, and you have to prioritize your preferences in advance, too. How important is 76 keys? a little or a lot?
how important is the better key feel on the E60? the s900
has a pretty decent key feel..just not quite up to the E60.

How important is a mic input and harmonizer? the s900
has it, the E60 none..btw the s700 also has none and no
SA voices..are those 2 features worth the extra $600 to
you? if not, consider that the s700 is also $600 less than
the E60. the Yams and Rolands have different types of
layouts and navigation..you'll need to decide which has
the ones you would like better. I'd have to give the s900
the edge on this..very decidedly..but the s900 has no
dedicated slider or knob for accomp balance..you have to
hit a button, then into screen..I didnt like that, nor the
design and layout of the tap tempo..but most everything
else on the s900/700 makes more sense than the E60.

for the same $, I would have not lost any sleep and picked the E60..but for $600 less, I was seriously considering the
s700 and was a hair from going that way..because except
for a couple of the guitar sounds, i didn't care about having the SA voices, and didn't need a harmonizer. The
E60 also has 2 special feaures: strum guitar mode and split organ mode. Most think they are very cool..I never use them.

I won't comment on the styles and sounds except that
to me the suitcase Rhodes sound on the Yams is just
a killer, nothing close on the E60..and the scat voices
on the Rolands are a killer, give me a huge kick, and nothing of the sort on the Yam. you will have to try those
or at at least listen to samples online to see if there are
reasons the styles/sounds on one or the other would
influence your decision stongly, slightly, or not at all.

Hope this helps..in either case, they are nice boards...

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Miami Mo

after such a long reply i can not say much...

i think s900 has some very nice voices, and if 76 keys is not a must for you, it might be better than e60 for you.
yes, roland has some features not found in yamahas (guitar mode, 6 fill-ins, d-beam, etc.) but if you don t really use those, go for more friendly s900 (it has multipads, vocalist, usb for pendrives, etc.)

the advice to check on both of them is probably the best one anyway.

I'm not really a big fan of Guitar Mode on the Roland's (you can't use it in style mode), but if you play piano, 76 keys is a HUGE deal.

Also be aware that G70's are much lower in price (if you can find them!) than they used to be... close to a grand less. Still quite a bit more than an S900, but a real contender at the mid $2k price point...

diki,
what do you mean by "Guitar Mode on the Roland's (you can't use it in style mode)..."
you CAN use guitar mode while playing a style, if you refered to that!

I believe Diki is saying that although the Guitar Mode is VERY useful & can be played manualy...it cannot be incorporated as a "style part" in real time.

watch the G70 demo
http://www.rolandus.com/products/productdetails.aspx?ObjectId=656&ParentId=18

[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 08-12-2007).]

On the Korg Pa800 the Guitar Mode is designed solely for adding guitar tracks to styles. This makes it much more useful than on the Roland keyboards in my opinion. You can make really great sounding guitar tracks with this feature. It works so well that Korg has updated several of the factory styles to use the new Guitar Mode instead of the original MIDI tracks.

Kind regards,
Tommy

Tommy interesting can you post some demos of the PA800 Guitar mode? The Pa800 is one of the very few arrangers I haven't had a chance to find or play a of yet....so anything I can hear, or see is always a plus.

dnj,
i dont know what is that "as a style part in real time" exactly, but guitar mode CAN be used when creating a new style. actually is a great tool for that.

Donny,

Jürgen Sartorius - demonstrator for Korg Germany - has posted demos of the Pa800 Guitar Mode on this page . The page is in German, but just clik on the MP3 and AVI links.

Kind regards,
Tommy

Thanx Tommy I will check it out asap

Guitar mode can be used in a user style..on a Roland ..

What I mean, adi, is that Guitar Mode cannot be triggered by the Arranger. You can only do it manually. And styles, even if you use the Guitar Mode to create the guitar part, do not do all the clever re-voicing tricks that Guitar Mode does.

Guitar Mode changes the inversion of the guitar chord, depending on the octave or inversion you play the input chord in, adds in fret squeaks and mutes as you change chords, and many other things that, once you create style, no longer happen. You create a style with the guitar part in one inversion, it will play EVERY chord in that inversion. And it won't re-voice each chord to be guitar correct, which Guitar Mode does, they will be simple transpositions. This ruins the realism.

And sadly, until Roland add in the capability of having more than one non-transposing (Drum) track to their OS, you cannot use the arranger to trigger it. You need the trigger notes (the ones that play the different strums and rakes, etc.) to NOT transpose as you play different chords, otherwise the strum pattern will change.

I have a request in at roland-arranger.com's New Feature request forum for this feature (for many reasons as well as Guitar Mode - loop slice playback, separate drum and percussion parts, multiple kits in a style amongst others), but in all honesty, Roland users have been begging Roland for more than one drum track for over ten years. So far, for whatever reason, no luck...

But possibly the linking of Guitar Mode and the arranger in Korg's new OS might finally spur Roland to do something about this. Guitar Mode is the START of a good feature, but without it's integration into the arranger OS, it is still little more than a gimmick...

yes, that is correct...
well, roland is suppose to learn from korg indeed. it's just too bad that roland, who invented the concept, or at least was the first manufacturer to implement it, now has to learn from others, who developed it further more.
let's home that happenes.

If you don't need 76 notes then definitely go with the PSR-S900.

The SA and Mega voices are terrific and the OS is easy and intuitive and IMO it has a much better piano sound.

It also has audio to USB (flashdrive) recording which is also on the Tyros2.

I got my S900 a few weeks ago and I'm very pleased with it.

Ian

Just spent three hours last night playing the S-900. It's a great keyboard, the sounds are relatively close to the T2, but most everything is almost identical to the PSR-3000. Granted, it has some really neat sounds (voices), a few new styles, and some of the buttons have been put back on the board that should have never been taken off.

The screen, however, is very difficult to see if you are sitting down, and obviously, not placing a tilt-screen display on this keyboard was the design of a complete idiot at Yamaha. The same holds true for not placing the USB port on the front of the keyboard where it's more accessible and less danger of causing damage from being inadvertently struck--it just don't make good sense. Additionally, the buttons on either side of the display are black and on a black background. They're very hard to see, especially in low light levels, and they don't line up exactly with the screen items they are intended to trigger. Again, just a dumb design by someone that obviously don't know a damned thing about playing an arranger keyboard. Are you listening Steve Demming? I'm not the only person that feels this way, and I'm one of Yamaha's biggest fans.

Yes, the PSR-S900 is a big upgrade from the PSR-1500, and many other less expensive keyboards. But, IMO, if you already own a PSR-3000, T1 or T2, and they are in good to excellent condition, there's no reason to purchase the S-900.

Just my opinion,

Gary

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Travlin' Easy