I just bought a load of Roland E-09W (white) arranger keyboards for a very good price. I had not tried this keyboard out at last years 2008 NAMM show because I thought it was just the same sounds as the older EXR series boards but I was thrilled yesterday when I unpacked one and realized that it's the same sounds as the now discontinued GW7. These are the well processed Fantom sounds, not the sounds we are hearing in the new GW8L keyboard.
The E-09 has 130 factory styles (20 more than the GW7) and it includes styles from around the world, including Western, Middle Eastern, Indian and Asian. The Styles can be played as Bass and Drum, Combo or full band and there an original and variation button and one fill in button.
There are over 800 sounds and 70 Drum Kits.
The keyboard has built in good sounding speakers, stereo outputs, midi but no USB or Floppy Disk Drive. You can save 99 performances and then bulk dump out midi to save them and reload new ones.
There is a 16 track sequencer, however only one song can be stored and again you can bulk dump this information out to a computer or midi sequencer( a reason to use any older midi sequencers that might be lying around your house).
The keyboard weighs a mere 16 lbs and is one of the easiest to use I've played in a long time.
There is even a dedicated scale tuning button if you want to program middle eastern scale tunings and all this data can be saved in the performance memories.
Most noticable to me is how good the sounds are in this model. It's the best of the Roland Fantom sounds and expansion boards. It has the really breathy sax's and the expressive guitars, both acoustic and electric with all the velocity element changes taking place.
This keyboard is a perfect take around or even be considered a pro sounding model even though you don't load in new styles or play lots of midifiles. However, for sounds, you can't beat it for this price point. It has Roland's G70 piano sounds, both electric and acoustic. I think it even has a better selection of styles then I've heard in most arrangers costing up to $1000.00.
Best of all is the Price:
UNDER $500!!!
PS My guess is that Roland will discontinue this model soon too because they never marketed this one correctly either (like the E80).

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George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566
www.kayesmusicscene.com