I don't post here much anymore, but I'll tell you this. The GW-8 has its sound from BOTH the Sonic Cell and the Fantom X. This new GW-8 is a HUGE jump over the current GW-7. The GW-8 now has 128 note poly (GW-7 only has 64). The GW-8 now has 4 intros, endings, and variations (which is twice what the current model has), The GW-8 has a completely revamped voice engine-with more indepth velocity switched instruments (found in the Sonic Cell and Fantom X), The GW-8 has a completely new screen that is literally the difference of night and day compared to the current screem on the GW-7, The GW-8 has added the USB key player feature now where you can play wav, mp3, and aiff files directly from the USB key, and there's even a voice center cancel function that greatly reduces the lead vocal track in song files. Plus the GW-8 has a completey different color scheme that looks much more pro (especially with the new screen)

This new GW-8 is a vast jump over the current model, and with these new and MUCH bigger features on this unit I'm sure we can expect a price on this puppy at no less than $1000... The only thing I haven't seen posted yet is if there were any improvements to the sequencer section both song and style. Here's Roland's video demo for it. Sonic State (at the start of Namm) had a REALLY good video demo of the GW-8, but for some reason they replaced that one with something awful! Just simply a terrible demo. I don't know why they took the first one down.
http://rolandus.com/products/productdetails.aspx?ObjectId=968&ParentId=72



[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 06-24-2008).]