Today was a fun day. I had to take my oldest granddaughter to see her specialist, as she has had some medical issues that now appear to be improving quite nicely. While I was in Middletown, NY I spent some time at Alto Music. Great store with tons of keyboards ( and everything else ). I wanted to look at KB controllers. I was also pleasantly surprised to see an E80 on display, and I got to play around on the PA1x again ( speaker version ) and the new Motif XS, along with a couple of electronic drum kits.

I liked the E80 quite a bit. Although I've never owned a Roland arranger, I found it quite easy to navigate and figure out. Seems like a very intuitive layout. Then again, based on what I've seen here, you would want to use some caution concerning my rating of an intuitive layout, since to this day I still prefer the Korg arranger OS to Yamaha's. The E80 styles sounded alive to me. The guitar mode has the equivalent of some of the basic features of Music Labs Real Guitar and Rythym N Chords. Pretty nice all in all. When I chose the Tyros 2, I demoed it against the PA1x and G70. It was by no means an easy choice, as I liked all three. I have no regrets at all regarding my final decison, but I will say that the decision may have been even more difficult than it aready was had the E80 been there at that time. There is a possibility that I would have gone home with it instead of the T2. One thing I will say though is that the keys feel a whole lot better on the T2 for my style of play than on either of the Roland arranger flagships. Other than that though, very good arrangers, all of 'em.

Then there is the Motif XS. The screen is much more to my liking. I see that the adjustable knobs have been doubled from 4 to 8. I noticed a much larger selection of synth based sounds, and some that the ES doesn't have an answer for. While I didn't get a feel of a vast improvement over the ES for staple sounds that both boards share or can closely relate to, there is enough there that I almost certainly would have upgraded.

Again, for me, and probably not all that many others, the main sticking point is the lack of integration with my plug in boards and a breathe controller. The breathe controller in particular has become a significant tool for me that also has a certain coolness factor that just adds to my enjoyment when playing live. I always feel that stuff like that translates well to the audience, so while it certainly is not an absolutely essential piece of equipment for me to have, I enjoy working with it to the point that I don't feel the tradeoff is worth it to me. Still, for those folks that want a workstation that also shares some characteristics of an arranger, and are in the large majority that don't care about the plug ins and breathe controller, I think this might be a worthwhile piece of equipment, that at the very least is worth a good long look.

When I take the time to reflect upon it a little, I can't help but think "What a great era to be a KB player / Electronic musician".

Regards,

AJ

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 04-25-2007).]