Hi Fran

We are both correct! As you rightly say, the G70 does have a "Delay" setting withing the Reverb FX section for the keyboard parts, but if you select it, you then have no reverb available. It's either/or, not both together. The VA had separate processors for Reverb, Delay, Chorus, Insert (MFX), and EQ - all assignable and savable under any User Programme. The G70 lacks the separate Delay & EQ facilities (although, as I mentioned, it does have a global EQ available, but this affects all parts simultaneously).

In practice, I play a couple of numbers where one of the more prominent sounds uses reverb, chorus, delay and overdrive from the MFX section on the VA. Both the VA and the G70 have exactly the same raw tone available under the same name, but despite spending several hours with both instruments side by side, I cannot get them to sound the same. The G70 just cannot come up with quite the right FX combination to reproduce the same overall sound of the patch I had on the VA.

Not the end of the world, but frustrating none the less.

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It also appears that we can apply after touch on more than one parameter..
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....again that is partially true. Each keyboard part can have a choice of different aftertouch functions assigned to it, but what you cannot do is have more than one aftertouch function assigned to the [b]same keyboard part. What I was looking for here was to be able to play (for example) a mono trumpet solo and be able to use aftertouch to swell the volume certain notes, add an extra degree of brilliance and invoke vibrato - all on the same voice. The G-70 cannot do this. The VA7/76 can.

[QUOTE]
Also I agree with you about the drums..the G1000 just had more punch and overall presence than the VA series.
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An interesting one this. With the VA I have ended up using a fairly small number out of the overall variety of "kits" available. About 40% of the songs we play use one of the "tone map 4" kits, which were new to the VA series. The other 60% are mostly using "tone map 3" kits from the G1000, with a few songs drawing from the earlier "map 1 & 2" range.

I tend to be particularly fussy about the bass & snare drum sounds, trying to find something that sounds "right" for each number we play. Ususally the rest of the kit is less critical, so long as you have chosen one of a generally suitable flavour. The other drums, cymbals and so forth within a given kit generally sound OK. It's the bass & snare which is the "make or break". I often found that there was a crispness and clarity to some of the G1000 based kits which the newer samples lack.

As regards the VA and G70 drum sounds generally, my opinion is they they sound like very realistic samples of real drums, but the real drums chosen as the basis for the samples were not particularly impressive. Like a good recording of a cheap drumkit, if you see what I mean.

In contrast, I used to love the drums on the old Korg i3 I had. Whilst it could be argued that the i3's samples were less realistic and probably more "processed" than the Roland samples, they were actually a lot more musically useful in practice, having loads of punch, guts, clarity, life and feel to them. In fact, the Korg drums sounded the way a lot of live drummers wished their acoustic kit actually did sound. With the i3 it felt rather like playing with a really good on-the-ball live session drummer, rather than a dog-tired one who was using a borrowed second hand kit.

Interestingly, some (not all) kits which have the same name on the G-70 as they have within the VA tone map 4 actually sound different on both instruments. Same is true of some none-drum sounds. It seems that the G70 is sort of "tone map 4-and-a-bit".


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Another feature I hope is improved on the G70..is the way the SMF is played from the selection page..The G1000 works perfect with a single button push...The VA needed an extra button push to load before playing..Please tell me they fixed this on the G70..

Yep - they fixed it. Better than that, there is absolutely zero load time when reading from internal memory, plus there is a global setting which will "cue" all files so that they instantly start from the first note. No more agonizing waiting for any "pre-roll" empty bars to go past befor you hear anything. The G70 really is very good in terms of user friendly midifile handling.

Regards - Mike