Hi Sammer,
Roland has the best oriental sounds and oriental drumkit I have
ever heard (but I haven't heard the Ketron/
Solton X1 oriental). I believe Vic83 has
mentioned in the past that the
"Roland EM-50 oriental" has all the sounds
that the "E-500 oriental" has; however, it
is more of a toy keyboard because,among other
things, it only
has 24 voice polyphony and does not have a
full sequencer like the E-500 does.
The other thing I have read in previous posts
is that the E-500 has a lousy operating system, and may be flawed.
I think if you are looking at used keyboards,
I would look for a Roland G1000, or for a
Roland EM-2000. They were selling them new
for around $1000 less than a year ago.
They have almost all the oud and kanoun
variations that the E-500 has, and are top
of the line boards. The only bad thing is
that they may take a little longer to learn
than a GEM board, but are surely better than
learning the E-500.
I, personally, would not spend $1200 for a
used EM-500oriental($600 to $800 would be the
most).
Good luck.