Well, I suppose, especially as Roland specifically brand this one as more of a WS than arranger (gotta love those marketing dweebs, don'tcha? ) that a more WS-like method of choosing patches is likely. I hate to break it to you, but quite a large number of WS's have no keypad either.

I guess it's an approach thing... With WS's, you primarily set everything you need up in advance. Splits, patches, levels, effects, etc.. On the whole, WS's are far harder to run on-the-fly, but usually make up for it with vastly greater flexibility than arrangers. So here we have an odd duck... Neither fish nor fowl (or some kind of flying fish ). An arranger with a WS OS, or a WS with some arranger capabilities... Your pick.

I've been using arrangers, even in regular band situations for a long time now for precisely this reason. Most of the TOTL WS (I've got K2500 and a Triton, as well as some older WSs) suck royally when it comes to making a tone change on the fly. Simply calling up a sound, with it's associated effects, levels, pan, and position on the keyboard in the middle of a song is just not practical in the heat of battle, unless it is a simple one patch across the whole keyboard. I rarely play like that.

So the arranger has been of great use in roles you would normally use a WS for, simply because of the flexibility. I can do pickup gigs on the G70, and dial every tone up before the intro is over, and fast edit during the song to something that would take a WS user until the next song to even get close!

So, if you are a 'run it on the fly' kind of arranger player, the 'Free Panel' type, this GW series does not seem a good match. But if you are from more of a WS background, and want something with an arranger-like capability, you may be far more likely to enjoy it...

It certainly seems to point to the need (and many keyboards could benefit from this) for someone to make a MIDI keypad, programmable to send any PC#/CC00/32 with a simple maybe three digit code...

But be warned. With modern TOTL arrangers having THOUSANDS of patches, the old numeric keypad isn't quite the shortcut to patch selection it used to be. Simply remembering all you favorite patches' four digit number is quite a task! My personal favorite system is on the Triton and K2500, where you can gather all your favorite patches and combis all on one screen (or two or three!), no matter WHERE they reside in memory, or what type of patch they are, and select them from there. Simple and customizable.

Just what the doctor ordered!