Got it. Sorry, It's in a totally different place to the GW-8's. Tough to see on the Roland page.

But, basically, two identical arrangers. One with speakers, one with two live controllers, one with lyrics capabilities, one without the dreaded word 'Arranger' on it to scare off the under 30 crowd!

Same price, though...

Me, I put more emphasis on those live controllers. Just as I would HATE to give up my G70's plethora of sliders, that can control almost anything in the arranger for an E60 with none, I am not sure I would be happy with the Prelude's need to menu down to get to the same parameters. But then again, I'm a fairly 'seat of pants' type player, that likes to adjust things on the fly rather than preset everything.

If you are happy making registrations in advance, need speakers, want full compatibility with G/E series styles and lyrics on screen, the Prelude is the logical choice. If you are into more modern musics, want to play the filters as you play, mess with the sound in realtime (the Prelude/GW's electronica sounds are outstanding!) then the GW might be the ticket. Plus, you'll still look cool at a rave! (tongue in cheek warning! )

I still fail to see why Roland thinks it needs to divide the feature set, though. Sure, give one speakers and knock off the word 'Arranger' on the ersatz 'Workstation' version, but for Pete's sake! Why make anything else different?

Lyrics capability would be handy on the GW, and those controllers would be handy on the Prelude, too.