Does anyone own this, or has anyone played one.. There is one up for sale on Ebay with the buy it now option of $450.00 I've never laid hands on a G7.. How does this keyboard sound, and what are the features like, as far as sequencer, style recording and so forth?

Squeak

Uncle Dave is the Farfisa expert. He either still has one or just recently sold it.
As I recall it way ahead of its time in many areas, including having a built-in mic stand.
I believe all factory styles can be edited and replaced. Dave can tell you all about it.
DonM

I played one, sounded like a casio. I do not remember whether it is G7 or something else. But it was Farfisa.

CASIO got slammed again.

I will prove you guys wrong next week, hopefully with the WK1800. Laughin all the way to the bank for only $300 !

SK880user,
Here's a link to that Farfisa... I've heard some decent things about it in the past...
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=916757349

Squeak

ok, clearly what I played was not G7.

G7 clearly looks a modern and better keyboard. So most likely I was playing low-end way older keyboard than G7. So please ignore my remark.

lukitoh, sorry friend. I would rather get PSR740 instead of casio but you can prove me wrong if you create a nice demo for me.

I would play the G7 over ANYthing made by General Music to date. (never saw the Genisis .... to be fair)
It's a solid, powerful piece, but the styles are basic, and dated. The sounds are above average in the rhythic voices and about average in the solo sections. It has 4 DSP's (crappy)vocal harmony, and a great sound system with audio inputs.
Entire style bank can be replaced with user styles. Multitask Floppy drive - NEVER glitched on me - lyric readout - fill in's for each of 4 variations just like the psr2k.
Only trouble is - NO 3rd party support for styles.

UD,

How come it is not popular? I only know you who plays and likes this brand.

Sounds to me like from what Dave just said is why it's not.
Terry

Popularity is usually based on the "newest, hottest" stuff. This unit was never in the mainstream of styles or solo sounds, however - it had a great arsenal of "bread & butter" patterns that made it a great choice for lots of standard style songs. For guys like me,that love to play manual bass lines - it had all the basics covered, and added to that, the mic stand mount, right ON THE KB ! This was TOO, TOO cool.
Pity that it never really caught on, but like all things - the masses determine the neccesity. No one thought much of it but Fran C and I. We tried to sell them in a booth at the local mall - no luck. Lots of interrest, no checks written !
As a piano, bass & rhythm machine - it's a good, solid choice. As an "arranger dependent" style player - eh? not so good. As a midi file player - it's pretty good - very powerful engine .... you can't make this thing glitch.......unfortunatly, you can't make it sound new and fresh either. Oh well !

One major reason the Farfisa didn't catch on was marketing. When it was first introduced, I saw an ad for it in a music magazine. I thought "wow, this thing has many more features than anything else on the market." I phoned the number in the ad. It was the U.S. distributor. I asked where I could see one. They couldn't tell me. The only place they knew that had one was in New York (if I remember correctly).
They offered to sell me one at full retail, sight unseen, with no return privilige.
I passed. This was before there were so many resources on the internet for such items.
I never saw another ad, never saw a dealer that handled them, and never saw it mentioned again until years later when Uncle Dave mentioned that he had one.
At the time it was introduced it was miles ahead of anything else on the market.
But I figured that with zero dealer support, and a brand new, unknown product, it wasn't worth taking a chance. What if it needed service?
Anyway, maybe that helps explain the lack of popularity.
DonM

"They offered to sell me one at full retail, sight unseen, with no return privilige."

WOW!!!!!!!!!