This afternoon, I took a 2 hour drive just to play a brand spanking new ROLAND EM 55.
I spent an hour playing it.

Last Sunday I spent an hour with the Yamaha PSR 1000.

What do I think ?

Go for Roland EM 55

64 Voice Polyphony,32 part mulitimbral
Please,everyone this is just my opinion and how i perceive it..

While it is true that alot of the sounds of the EM 55 sound similar, I promise you that that EM 55 has a good number of sounds that will blow the PSR 1000.Those 20mb of Roland Sounds show beautifully if you look for them.. I have compared the Alto Sax, Flutes, Guitars of the Yamaha to the best one's I could find from the vast number on the Roland EM 55 and the EM 55 WINS HANDS DOWN.You'll know you are playing a VA series instrument when it has a "V" before the name. I agree there are alot of sounds on the EM 55 that dont sound good...but there are so many that sound incredible....you really have to spend time with it to find them... The screen is simple but very clear...better than the fussy touch screen of the VA series.

I'll admit the PSR 1000 has a beatiful screen, alot mroe features....but I dont need 3 intro's and endings...and the EM 55's simple 16 track sequencer is fine for me.

And dont forget EM55's stiffy drive will play E, EM, VA and G series music style disks...


Another thing about the EM 55 that amazed me was the weight of the keyboard..just under 10 kg. Its also a very good looking board. The best way I can some up Yamaha's sounds is to say its like...they have less good sounds than the EM55...

EM55 has the usual transpose,velocity sensitive,lower 1, upper 1,upper 2, punch in
punch out,

Next consider the 116 drum kits you are getting.You are even getting the V Drums. I had time to hear one drum set and it sounded way better than my Roland E 500. The EM 55's D Beam is cool but the style morphing feature
is even cooler.

You can tweak the sounds on the EM 55 somewhat ( MFX: 47,Reverb : 8 Chorus :8)

You also get the music assistant feature of the VA series.

I guess I'm just a Roland follower..You must play both instruments yourself...maybe the PSR 1000 is what you are LOOKING for...you can only know if you play..thats what I did

Ok, Rolandfan, you are right, I also had liked Rolands. But...
EM-55 has more Mbs, yes, but for much more sounds. It must be considered.
In Em55 you can't edit styles: only mute parts, but not change volume or voices for them. And you have only two "direct" variations for style (you have more no direct variations).
About sounds, a month ago I played EM-55, and I rememeber I didn't like its piano voice. But it was grand piano voice, the first voice in kb. Perhaps there are more and better piano voices hidden (Roland uses a no logical form to order voices in VA series).
About styles, EM55 it has few styles. Although Roland styles are richer than yamaha styles, which always sound (for my ears) a little "metronomic".
At the end, they are two differente kbs, but specially two different ways to make arrangers. Rolands have a different philosophy wich you may like or not.
Cheers

Hey thanks a bunch for your insight and your kindness. Your right this is going to be my new home....Here's the deal....I sold my brother my CS2x (I had 2 of them) I also bought a RM1X real cheap and after using it for a couple of weeks I've come to the conclusion that it's not for me, I'm very computer literate and am currently blessed to have Sonar, Nuendo and Cubase SX in my studio. so as you can see sequencing power is not a priority. However I really need a nice portable board that I can just sit around with and flesh out songs on before locking myself in my studio to do the real project. secondaly I could use this for when I play out with my guitar player and possibly use it for backing tracks...I did spend time both with the Casio and Roland and I'm still drawn to the Yammi....I'm most likely going to pick it up tommorow so look out!!!!!! How many of you are interested in swapping songs and styles? I know it's one thing I'm really interested in doing.... If your interested in hearing my music, even though I have not uploaded some new stuff go to www.mp3.com/mdsonic...I'd love to hear your comments....Thanks, your all some pretty cool people.....Peace

Rolandfan,
The EM55 has better flutes then the PSR1000's sweet flute? How did you find this tone. Do you remember the name? How do you access all these tones? I did the typical 2 digit input then use the variation button. This is a serious question, I will re-examine the EM55 if this is true.
Starkeeper

madsynthman,

Let us know how you like your new keyboard (whatever you choose).

I will try the WK1800 for a week to test drive it rigorously.

-Han

Starkeeper, I haven't a clue the number of the instrument but I just loved some of the EM55's flutes...yes the PSR 1000 are excellent but the EM55 had 2 I remember that sounded just too cool.... i was going through so many diff instruments that I didn't even look at the names.

There is one thing that bugs me about the EM55 is that you cant adjust the volume of the different parts of the drum beat eg drums,bass, etc...

This keyboard (EM 55) costs just about $850 in your country. Here in South Africa the lowest price I got so far is $1050... I guess if I consider the shipping cost then it would be $850 + $200 = $1050... It is expensive for a keyboard with not many track recording features and a simple screen but its the sounds that I'm in love with
I've been shopping around and dealers have been dropping their prices till I got them down to $1050... The highest price I was quoted was $1500 for an EM 55!!! thats crazy .

Maybe I like this board's sounds because my previous keyboards were a Roland E38 and then a E500...the sounds were not so good...but I wish the EM55 had the E500's screen and menu options ...

I sure secound that...

Yes flutes are awsome on the Roland so as the Obos!

Here is some demos of the Em-55
if any one is intrested.
http://www.roland.it/demo_audioEM-55.htm

[This message has been edited by vic83 (edited 10-30-2002).]

vic83,

the demos sound great. BUT when I played it at the store using its internal speaker, I was underwhelmed.

I thought it was even worse than the cheapo CASIO.

It was night and day compared to the Yam PSR1000.

-Han