Hi Fran , Have had G70 over a year now and unlike all other keyboards i've had it grows on me .(Home use only - i am "intermediate to advanced level player" - suits my playing - both piano and chord / bass line) .

Unbeatable (no one can argue this atleast) no of keys / keyaction .

Other thing much better than other keyboards i've had that i find indispensable and easy to use is Music Assistant - i build up registrations for all my music books (have a trunk full of them) and being able to go back and tweak then resave using the touch screen is absolutely superb.

The 4 1 touch setups are helpful for starting and i find getting decent professional sounding accomps can be set up fast indeed.

Setting up the mixer is a doddle too as is muting style tracks .

The speed of recall of user programs using MA is brill too .

Great sounds include - Grand piano , hammond organs (there are good drawbars too but i tend to use the presets) , strings and choir and even orchestral eg: flutes oboes and the guitars are smashing . Also like the way you have manual bass 2 lower and 3 upper sounds (so you can play like an organ - wish there were a few more pipe - church and theatre sounds but this is my only gripe and the other keyboards on the market don't have anything better) .

I have had technics Kn6000,7000 before never tried Korg or Yamaha though have had DVD demos etc. orginially opted for Roland because of spec including decent sized keyboard 61 keys does not allow you to play piano music easily .

Q : are G70 warrantied for 3 years - i believe they are but if anyone from ROland reads this it would be helpful to get a response (and could be a big selling point) .

One other thing for Roland - If you bring our a new 76 key keyboard i will be hoping it can import the registrations i have built up for the G70 (assume using the new database manager software - which is i have tried and found to be a good little tool) .

What i miss about previous Technics keyboard - only 1 thing comes to mind - the abiliaty to directly record mp3 via USB. but this comes very low down my listof desirable features. (i bought KN7000 because of the organ tabs - but sorry Technics - was not impressed - the G70 is much better but wish there were some more church/theatre pipe combinations then it would be a keyboard that does everything i could possibly want.

PS On the topic of theatre organs - has anyone tried the Miditzer - it's a software based theatre organ console ! sounds pretty realistic as it is sampled on real pipe ranks - it's Free to download - Google for Miditzer - these are the sorts of theatre sounds i would like Roland to add , and with the ability to mix 3 on top and 2 on lower plus bass it would then be possible to use the keyboard like a mighty organ .

Cheers

Tony

[This message has been edited by tony harbour (edited 05-13-2006).]