I´ve read tons of reviews on Roland and other gear, but not much unbiased. I can give you a very brief (and somewhat biased!)idea of interesting keyboard brands.

Roland; Good to very good sounds. Especially acoustic (piano, sax etc)and electroacoustic (el.guitar, organs, etc) Rolandfreaks like myself find Roland to have the best overall sound. (But the "synthsounds" are better on Korg.)

Good to very good styles. This of course depends on where your taste is. Roland really excells in "popmusic" styles.

Userfriendliness is good if you can deal with various menues. I myself haven´t had any real problems with my Roland keyboards. But if this is an important issue for you, try it! The controller possibilities are on top! You can controll nearly everything in a lot of ways!


Technics; Sounds are good to very good. According to my taste they aren´t on par with Roland.

Styles are good to very good, BUT they sometimes are too intriguing wich make them very useful for one song but not for other. I especially like the jazz and bigband styles.

Generally very good userfriendliness.


Ketron (Solton); Sounds are good to very good. Especially the solosounds. (But they aren´t part of the accompaniment.)

Styles are good to very good. Especially ballroom.

Userfriendliness seems to be good. (I haven´t worked very much with Ketron arrangers.)


Korg; Sounds are good to very good. Especially synthsounds. The acoustics are in general a small step down from the best.

Styles are very good, especially rock and modern music. I have had some problems to trigger the chords with right timing om Korg. This is (I think) individually. Try it!

Userfriendliness is OK.


Yamaha; Sounds are good to very good. Especially solosounds. (Se Ketron)

Styles are good to very good, BUT they are a bit bland sometimes. They don´t engage in the same way some of the others do. This makes them extremely useful on the other hand. You don´t get tired of them in the same way as of the Technics styles for instance.

Userfriendliness is on top.


General music; Sounds of yesterday. (But they are coming up with a new line wich can be very good and very expencive.)

Styles are good.

Userfriendliness; A long learningcurve. But according to GEM-fans "worth waiting for".

Casio; Sound better and better

Styles, better and better.

Userfriendliness very good.

A lot of bells and whistles for the bucks anyway!

Summary; Roland (my favourite because of the overall sound), Ketron, Yamaha or Technics is just a matter of taste. They are all very good. Korg is especially interesting if you are in to modern dance and rock music. GEM is so far yesterdays news, and Casio is a toy getting more and more serious.

Regards, Michael