Quote:
Originally posted by Alex K:
Folks,

It has been almost a month since the G70 has been out in Europe, and many of our european members now own them.

Yet, other there has been no comprehensive review of the G70 posted here: some posts of gripes, and some short statements of adoration here and there, but not a review.

What I am looking for is a description of the instrument, perhaps comparison with some of the other ones the author may have experience with. In particular, I would like to know if the owners who basically like the G70 find any issues with it. Conversely, if people who tried and did not like it can share some positive tidbits with us, that would be helpful.

One area that has not been mentioned so far is Vocal harmonizer. How does it compare with the standalone units like Voiceworks, or Digitech Vocalist? How about other built-in units from Yamaha, Korg, others?

No instrument is totally good or totally bad, and I think a good review will reflect that.

My intent is not to create extra work for anyone here; however, this will give the rest of us the benefit of the experience of forum members who already own the G70. For me, in particular, this will give a chance to focus on the areas of concern (to others) to see if they are going to pose a problem to me, once I get my hands on the instrument.

Thank you in advance,
Alex


today I will write something about differences of the functions on my G-70 and my Tyros.
All people know the there are 15 keys more at G-70, but some details of that perhaps are not
that familiar. There are five levels of initial touch on Tyros, three of them on G-70. The after
touch sensivity of the G-70 you cannot choose, (3 levels on Tyros) but it is possible to control
the arranger in addition to the voice functions. The G-70 provides an additional splitpoint for the
upper parts. It separates the upper three part. I often use it to fill melodic breaks. The lower
part split on Tyros is not that usefull.
The operating to choose the voices (tones) and styles is very similar. To handle the arranger
the Tyros has separat keys to choose the tree intros/endings. The four of them on the G-70 are
controled by the variation number and one separate key for intro and ending.
Because other functions are not that identical it is not possible to compare the operating. But
I can say, both instruments provide easy of use selection of their functions.
Of cource, the Tyros screen is much bigger and therefor you can some things better read
without a pair of glaces, but the information of that what happens is very good on both.
Playing the Tyros without changing any effect seems to be more satisfy. But it is not that
dramatic to change two ore three parameters to get good results on G-70. I know, some Roland
people work to do a better preparation. The potential of G-70 sounds I could study by two
demonstrations of Ralph Schink in Germany. There is not a especialy storage to save or load
user voices on G-70, modifications has to save on performance memory, named user program.
To get more voice material the Tyros can load Custom Voices, these are modified by a special
program on a computer. Roland provids 10 special sound cards (Expansion Boards) . One
of them can be installed by user. To modify styles or songs Roland provides some
good tools. One is called 'Cover'. It has the possibility to change the character of music, for
instance let a vienna waltz sounds like an oriental style or song. Another item is called
'Make up tool'. With this you can change the instruments and its sound by volume, octave and
effects during playing a style or running a song. The style and song creater of both instrument
are similar in order of functions. The style micro edit function of the G-70 is more effectiv than
it is on the Tyros, especaly to modify melodic and harmonic tracks. Pads are unfortunately
not available on the G-70. Melodic phrases you have to play by your self (upper 3 split) Some
other things can be done by the D-Beam controler. There are four kinds you can select:
DJ Gear (effects like scraching ore cutting), Sound EFX (finger snaps, bubble and more),
Instrument (Mandolin, Jazz scat and more) and controls (arpeggios, change tempo, arranger
control, keyboard part changes and so on).
The internal storage owner can use is 30 MB, if you delete factory presets 40 MB.Tyros 3.3 MB
I installed a 256 MB CF card. That will reach for 6000 styles or songs. It works very well.
The Music Finder of both are not identical. Tyros points to styles, G-70 to user programs stored
in internal memory. Addional to this the G-70 has finders to selest songs, styles and
user programs. All of them are very usefull searching items in a bigger enviroment.
That are just ideas I had to write it down. The quality of sounds, styles and vocal processing
every body has to find out personaly, I think. For me it is a good mixture because both instruments
sounds good to me, but different.
Regards Hanspeter