Originally posted by Albert168:
Greeting Everyone,
First time here. I currently have a Roland Fantom X6. However, I played electronic organ before, and really misseded the way of organ playing, ie with both hands and feet, as my Technics orgen been gone for many years.
Recently, I just found that there were some types of midi pedal keyboard available. So, I am thinking... if I get another keyboard and a pedal keyboard, then I can play organ again.
In searching of my second keyboard, preferably arranger type, I zeroed down to Roland EXR-7s and Korg PA50. Is anyone who has experience with these two?
I like that EXR-7s has 76 keys, but PA50 seems have more feature.
Also, PA50 was made in China, anyone knows where EXR-7s was made?
Any advice or info would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Albert.
I have a Yamaha PSR3000 that I have owned for the last year and a half or so and I just recently purchased a Roland EXR7S and have them both on a triple tear stand. I'll give you the pros and cons for the EXR7S in my own humble opinion.
Pros:
It has the 2 best pianos from the Fantom x. When properly amplified, the 2 grand pianos sound really good. The guitar voices are decent, but not in the same league with the MegaVoice guitars on the 3k.
The board is easy to learn with nice big buttons and my favorite feature is a numeric key pad.
It has 76 keys that I find to be a huge advantage for my own personal style of playing. Like you, I am not a piano player really. I used to play organ, so I don't care for weighted keys, so 76 keys gives plenty of breathing room for your left hand while still being able to set the split point low enough so you don't have to mess much with octave changes on the right hand. I like the key feel very much.
It has some really nice styles, and many of them I prefer over the 3k as they sound more modern to my ears.
Cons:
Apart from the pianos, E-pianos, and a couple of the guitars, the rest of the voices are so so. I'm sure you will prefer some of the voices on your Fantom x.
Although some of the styles are very good, there aren't enough of them for each category. You can easily however put a ton of styles in its 4mb flash via usb, or if you want, via floppy disk. I recently loaded some VA7 and G1000 styles, and it literally brought the EXR7S to life. There is something about many of the styles for some of the older Roland arrangers that seem to show a lot more creativity and naturalness.
Regarding the midi pedals, one of the forum members who owns a music store, George Kaye, very kindly recommended the Roland PK5A because they work out of the box with Roland keyboards. Although you can assign your own stuff, the defaults in the midi control mode are already set to do some of the start/stop/fill kind of stuff with the arranger of the EXR7S. They're pricy however at about $499 plus shipping. They cover 1 full octave and have switches you operate with your foot to use different modes, mono bass, poly bass, drums, effects, midi control, and a couple of others that work with the first 5 switches. I have seen these on eBay going for about $300 or so, maybe less for an older model.
Anyhow, what I love about this setup I have now is that I get the best of both worlds because I have some real quality voices in the Yamaha PSR3000 and lots of very cool styles on the Roland thanks to being able to find them on the net. I also have my 76 keys which makes a big difference at least for me. I still haven't experimented with midi between the Yamaha and Roland. Not real sure what to do there as I prefer the Roland styles and prefer the Yamaha voices. I'm not real good with midi, so I still have to explore that some more. Hope this helps some.
Rick Alfaro
Albert
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