Roland is not lacking in advertisement, what it is lacking is communicating with its users (as if in the difference between talking to someone and having a dialogue).

The spend thousands of $ publishing their newsletter - it has snazzy graphics, and nice glossy print. However, the content is absolutely useless. I, for one, don't give a #$^@ about how Christina Aguelera's band uses Roland keyboards, and to me this is a money wasted. And still, while pushing their shamelessly self-promotional crap at us, they have for years not had a way for the users to contact them and indicate what works for them and what does not.

I have been voicing my gripes about Roland keyboards here for years, and found that I am not alone with my concerns. I have also tried to write to various Roland addresses for years, but generally received no acknowledgements. Then, when Roland would come out with a new keyboard, the design would suggest that our concerns were all but ignored.

For example, while we had been asking for an OS which does not require using a touch screen when playing, the G70 relies on the touch screen even more than the VA76 did. We were asking for more buttons, but got less, asking for a lighter instrument than the G1000, only to get a back-breaking behemoth. Chiropractors must love Roland and Korg.

They did add a harmonizer, and got rid of a Zip drive, but that was more to a response to the competition than in response to our requests.

I am not saying that the G70 is bad, only that it could have been way better had Roland done what we were asking it to do. Indeed, we have to use workarounds to get by the shortcomings of various instruments, but Roland could have had a lot fewer shortcomings to work around, such as not having enough buttons for necessary functions.

The fact that Roland decided not to sell the G70 in the regular music stores further underscores the disconnect between the company and their user base, at least here in the US.

Regards,
Alex