My first ones came in today. The box is marked GW8L (Latin Version). This means that all the world styles from Latin American Countries and sounds are provided in addition to all the western, Latin and other world styles. There are 130 "basic styles" and 100 "unique for the region styles". In Europe, the model they sell has 100 middle eastern styles and sounds, in the USA we get all the Latin American styles and sounds.
The polyphony of this board is 128 note and there is 256MB(16-bit linear equivalent) of wave rom. There are 128 Preset Performance memory location, 128 User Performance locations, 100 favorite performances and 100 favorite tone user areas.
There are 4 Intros, 4 main style variations, 4 fill ins and 4 endings for each style.
There is a 16 track sequencer.
The USB Memory player can play 999 songs or contain 999 playlists including smf, mp3, wave and aiff files.
There is a dedicated music minus one button for turning off the melody track of a midi file song or it is used to center cancel a live audio song you play. I tried it out and it works quite well in both uses.
You can change sounds by catagory or by numeric keypad input.
There is a D-Beam controller with two assignable buttons and 1 solo synth button.
There are two dedicated octave up and down buttons, transpose button, melody intelligence, key scale, dual, split, and effects buttons.
The sounds are just what I expected. Right from the Fantom library but with the addition of so many more than the previous GW7 model had. All the extra world sounds are from the SRJV Latin board which includes all sounds dedicated for Latin musicians.
The styles in the basic library include very good Pop, Dance, Funk, Latin, Jazz, etc. and there is a single one touch button for providing an appropriate voice for that style. For those needing authentic Latin American styles, this machine is a must!
Years ago, Generalmusic came out with a WK6Latino keyboard which I sold a lot of and it had all the authentic styles and sounds as well. But, this board sold for over $2,000.00. This new Roland sells for $895.00 and it's a bargan.
Next, I loaded up a USB 2GB thumb drive with MP3s, Standard Midi Files, Wave Files and tried playing them. EASY! and the drive just loads into the front with a cover which can be locked or not depending on if you are nervous it might get stolen at a Gig.
The display is large and there is no way I would have guessed this keyboard could be as inexpensive as it is.
There is also a stereo mini plug in at the back for external devices and you can also choose to have the center cancel feature be on or off for your external players.
In keeping with Rolands existing arranger line of E series products, there are similar operating system features and although this is not a new technology but rather a whole lot of Roland products all put so nicely into one 13lb. package. There are no internal speakers but for most, this is not a problem because of how good all the studio monitors and amps are today.
In conclusion, I've been waiting for something from Roland that I can feel good about showing customers that doesn't have a comma in it's price and this is it.


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George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566
www.kayesmusicscene.com

Just to add a few more notes.....
Yes, these sounds are from Roland's Fantom for sure... I just tried out the acoustic pianos and there are: rich grand, 88 concert piano, ultimate grand, x pure grand, so true..., concert piano, warm piano, concert grand, hall concert, etc. etc. These are the same sounds as what is in the fantom factory rom sound banks. I'm thrilled. I just compared these few first pianos to an E50, or E60 and these are Rolands best! They don't make the E sound nearly as good.


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George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566
www.kayesmusicscene.com

George, I am sure the sounds are the same as the Sonic Cell and Juno G...

George, when you get time..compare the sounds to the Fantom, or Sonic Cell....see if they are the same quality..

I know when I compared the sounds from the E-60 to the G70...many were very similar..but others did not have the same richness, some even seemed to lack some harmonics compared to the G70...Some difference may be the output conversion..

Just curious...If it had a lyric read, I would have gave you my order already..

I still may give you my order..

[This message has been edited by Fran Carango (edited 10-16-2008).]

I've had one a few days now... (on loan)

There are some really good points, and then there are some really bad points But at $895, some of the bad points are less deal-breakers than they might be.

Pianos... great. But except for the UltimatGrand, a little metallic at higher velocities. But I have a feeling that most Yamaha piano fans would like them... sparkly and mix-cutting, but with more depth to the sound, IMO. UltimatGrand is based on my G70 piano sound, and for me is the better balanced one.. 32 piano sounds altogether (plus some canvas stuff in the GS bank), but you're off your rocker using anything but the main ones!

E.Pianos... very great! something for everyone. Chunky Rhodes (3-ways), in everything from old 68 style to newer Dyno-My-Piano crisp. Pretty decent Wurli, a bit better than my G70's, actually. Lots of FM type and layers. Again, there's a preset for just about anything you want. Clavs, good, harpsichords, good (but I could do with more variation).

Now some bad news. Organs... terrible! There are a couple of things working against these. Firstly is the samples themselves. Most are derived from older Roland products, back in the day when there was no Leslie sim as part of the Canvas palette. So most of them have some Leslie sampled into them, usually slow. The problem now comes when these already Leslied organs are run through the GW's effects, which DO have a Leslie sim in them... A slow Leslie, out of sync with each note, being run through a fast Leslie Yuck!

So I went through ALL the organs, and yes, there are a few without any sampled Leslie. But those, the factory MFX Leslie is set up pretty poorly. You CAN edit it and save a User Tone, so all is not lost, and you can set a fixed velocity for the part, so you don't get velocity sensitive organ (so wrong!). You'll need an expression pedal, though. There are some boneheaded voicing decisions here (more on this later), including slathering chorus onto an organ sound after it has already gone through the Leslie sim The default parameter settings for both Leslie sims (one regular, one VK - a bit more mellow) are just terrible. You can do a LOT better editing these.

By the way, on the Latin GW, some of the better B3's are in the 'World' category. Some of them have slow Leslie and change to fast when the mod wheel is raised, but this has little practical use, as the paddle wheel is sprung, and can't stay on fast. Some of them have extra drawbars that get added when you push the lever... same issues there, IMO.

To be honest, OK, I did, with quite some trouble, manage to edit a few to usability, but I had to throw away just about ALL the factory programming, audition them carefully to find the few that DIDN'T already have a Leslie sampled into the sound, and completely reprogram the Leslie sim so it wasn't plain horrible (lessening the 'spread' value helped a lot). This area of the sound just goes to illustrate how piecemeal some of the soundset is. Some of it goes back to Canvas days, some SRX, some Fantom, some Sonic Cell. But there's little consistency in the programming, and some obvious clunkers due to CC's being needed to control the sound that the GW just can't provide, live.

So, a push... With work, it's usable, but nothing to write home about...

Guitars... OK, first, I'm going to talk about something else. It baffles me just how inconsistent the effects programming is on MOST of the GW sounds. One guitar will be nearly bone dry, and one will be drenched in reverb, another will have a tiny room, another some timed echos, but not much of it is related to the sound. For me, personally, I would have to go through all my favorites, load them into a Performance, and save those as 'Favorites'. It's just not what I'd call a very 'consistent' sound set. Pull one sound in from the Factory ROM, and you are likely to have to dive for the volume control or effects knobs in a hurry.

Now, for someone using a Sonic Cell in a WS environment, where everything is set up in advance and the controller likely DOES have enough knobs and levers to control the voice, this should be no problem. But in something this preset, it's a hassle no doubt.

OK back to guitars. Acoustics, very good, especially with a whole extra bunch in the "world' section, including a gorgeous 12 string, and the most playable mandolin I have ever used. Straight notes on the keys, raise the lever, you have a nice tremolo. With practice, it's uncanny! Good resonator dobro, too...

Electrics cover all the basses ( ) The MFX distortion helps a lot here, but again, you have to watch out for volumes. Not a very consistent batch. Quite a few with 'dive bomb' down bend ranges, but that CAN be defeated in a Performance.

Basses cover all the basses In fact, a lot better than my G70. Fat finger basses are MUCH better (I simply HAVE to break down and buy SRX-07 for better basses one day!), acoustics are good. Pick basses good (although, at times I almost felt like there was TOO much lows, but that's fixable). Fretless, synth basses, all good, all usable, all with room shaking bottom (that's much improved over the G70).

Strings... Good violin and cello (better than my G70) but darn near dry. I just can't stop thinking 'what drugs were they on at the voicing team?' Other than that, your pretty much set here. Marcato, staccato, pizzicato, big ensemble, small ensemble, Woodwind layers, big layered tutti stuff. I could probably do a decent classical score with some work... My favorite sound is to layer a medium string section with 1260 Vn+Va+Ct. - smooth, but with a bit of bite and detail to the line.

Woodwinds... not great, IMO. Very little choice (but some better flutes in the "World' section, including a great SingingFlute for the Tull and Focus fans!). Enough to get by, but not stellar.

Brass, not great again. I miss my SFZ Brass from the G70. Again there's a bunch more in the World section, but it's heavily weighted to those awful Latin horns with a vibrato that would kill even Burt Kaempfurt! There's SOME good stuff there, but on the whole, it's weak, for a Roland (my G70 is better). Strangely, after the Canvas era great french horns, they're gone, and there's not much french horn variety.

Saxes, again pretty weak, IMO. Nothing close to my G70. (I got to keep saying to myself 'but it's $895!). Again, most of the best ones are in the World expansion section. Best thing to do with these is layer them with a brass sound and get a good section sound!

OK, synths... nothing but thumbs up here... Everything you could ever want, and then some! Roland, doing what they do best! Some great arp stuff, but not tempo synced (at least not to the arranger - maybe SMF?).

OK, drums... much improved over the Canvas, but at a cost. Sorry, guys, but the days of GS are GONE You'll have to do some editing to get older SMF's to work with these. Foot closed HH is now half open (has been for a while, though), some toms are flams, some are velocity switched flams, the handclap on D# is now a 'ghost' snare note/roll. Nothing I haven't had to deal with on my G70's V-Drum kits, but be aware when plugging in older SMF's...

Great selection of different kits, lots of vel-switching, great dynamics. Then there are some great menu kits, every snare, every hi-hat, every tom, etc.. But still no USER KIT. So using these in a style means picking one kit and sticking to it. Which is a shame because... in the World section there are some GREAT latin kits and menu kits of just about everything you might need, including (drum roll please...) finally a back and forth tambourine, which GS guys have been waiting for a LONG time! The latin stuff is GREAT (as it should be!) But in Style mode, good old Roland STILL only give you ONE drum track. So if you want those latin percussions, you have to use a Latin kit that has some of them (there are too many to even fit in one kit!).

This is one area where the Sonic Cell roots show badly. As an SMF module, this thing shines. You can have multiple kits. no problem. But style mode is more restrictive. Roland better give us either multiple drum tracks, or User kits, or both, pretty soon!

But, overall, thumbs up to the GW drums, and the styles definitely show them to their best. Great dynamics, detail, punch, in your face!

Well... that's the good news... mostly.

Next up is the operational aspects.

OK... I'm back... I went to the smallest room, and said to myself 'but it's only $895!' over and over again till I was finished. I'm not sure how much it helped

Here's where I have a problem... The styles are completely UNEDITABLE! You can turn a Part off, or change it's volume... THAT'S IT! No pan, no changing a sound, no changing effects, no NOTHING! The included software is a strictly 'SMF to style' conversion program, there's no way to get the style out of the machine (AFAIK) and edit it outboard. I wanted to try a few in my G70, but no go!

Here's where it REALLY hurts. There's an MFX insert effect just for the style. But you can't edit it, assign it, unassign it, anything. It makes for GREAT rock rhythm guitar parts, but they are TOO LOUD! And guess what happens when you turn them down... Yep, it turns down the sound going INTO the distortion, not the final output of the amp sim. And you have to dial the part volume down to about 3 or 4 (out of 127 ) before there's hardly any volume drop!

So.... You'd better LOVE the styles! Because short of muting parts, there's not a damn thing you can do to them! This thing is CRYING out for a style editor, the one thing Roland got completely RIGHT on the E and G-series

Talking about muting parts... forget turning the ACC off and on in a hurry. Part muting is done with individual mute buttons done with the wheel and navigation buttons. Muting ONE part might be doable live, but not the whole lot (and still leave D&B going)

{But it's only $895! )

OK, the styles section... Something is different... The fills don't transition as smoothly as the E and G-series. Notes get re-triggered when you push the fill button sometimes. Nothing out of time, just not as smooth as the G70, etc.. In fact, it reminds me a bit of the Korg problem, in a way... No idea why, but this better NOT trickle UP to newer high end arrangers...

Three fewer fills than the E/G's, but still four Intros, endings and Variations.. Tap tempo is very accurate. Buttons are in a good place except for the button that turns off bass and ACC but leaves the drums going. It is RIGHT next to the D-Beam, and accidentally triggers whatever that is programmed for most times you touch it.

Overall, I'm impressed by many of the styles, baffled by some of the mix choices, though (more drugs in Roland's style dept., I think!), but overall, for the price, pretty impressed. I've never had a cheap arranger, tried a few. Compared to an S500 (roughly the same price) this thing rocks! Full sounding, punchy, very live sounding, MUCH better keybed and display, light as a feather but solidly built (why can't Yamaha manage this? ).

BUT..... this thing is not a tweaker's dream come true. Without style EDITING software, you either love the styles, or you can't use them. Same for SMF's. You'd better have something like Cubase to re-mix and voice your SMF's to get the best out of this (but what new thing DOESN'T need this anyway?! I had to do it for my G70, but at least there, the tools exist to easily revoice styles and SMF's)

Overall, for me, it's a push... I would love one as a 'backpacker' keyboard, light enough to go anywhere (but no speakers, damnit!), sounds are strong enough to not make me cringe much of the time (can't say that for much else in this range), and there are a bunch of sounds in here I would DIE to have in my G70. OTOH, my G has some essentials I can't do without (the B3, for instance) and everything I need to tweak until satisfied. OTOH, it's $2500 MORE than the GW!

I am tempted, I must admit. There are times I want to walk around with the lightest thing I can carry, and do 75% of what my full rig can do, on just a little toss around backup keyboard. I can record my G70 to audio, and use the GW to play IT'S great sound (plus add my K2500 and Triton for their best sounds, too) on a gig, or LH bass and just use the great drum patterns.

But as a primary arranger, I would feel limited, and would probably go for something else. Neither flesh nor fowl, neither straight ahead arranger nor loopstation WS, it straddles both. How successfully, you try for yourself. For me, this seems like a great 'go out and jam, no pressure' type of keyboard, that could cover as a decent backup for the G70 for gigs where weight or size are an important factor. I took it out last night to jam with a great guitarist (Chris Clifton - used to be with James Taylor and many others) and his band, and they loved it! (except the organs. I think I have some better presets now). Not too shabby...

But it's only $895!

My friend tried to get it back today... I told him I needed to do more work on it! That's probably a sign

Thanks George an Diki...

it is a very good thing getting unbiased reviews of gear from knowledgeable players.

Interesting waveform data specs... (all converted to 16bit linear)

Sonic Cell... 128MB
GW-8......... 256MB (must be the World area)
E60............ 512MB

Although the GW-8 has twice the polyphony of the E60, it has half the waveform data...

Don't despair, Donny

Diki,

Roland E-60 ROM size is 64 Mb (Megabit-s) not MB (Megabyte-s) as you wrote. So it is half the size of Sonic Cell, and quarter of GW-8 ROM.

Roland G-70 have 192 MB, and E-80 have 128 MB of wave ROM.

[This message has been edited by kalimero (edited 10-17-2008).]

Great reviews George and Diki! Nice and indepth too. Diki.., you touched upon something that I raised issue with before the unit started to ship.., and that was lack of style editing (outside of track mute, and volume changes). I had gone through the manual several times as well and I too was very shocked to not see that you couldn't revoice, adjust MFX, or even pan.

When we talked in the past regarding style creation on the GW-8 and using the software.., I was hopeful that you could at least take a style from the GW and use the software to tweek that, but it doesn't appear so.

I would say the focus on this unit was cleary the Fantom/SonicCell sound set and the world sounds/styles and NOT for user tweeks. It's odd though as they promote it as a "performers keyboard", but it seems someone forgot to tell the design team that. A performers keyboard wouldn't be so limited in the style editing. I could understand some seq limitations, but this is an arranger and users need to be able to get in there and tweek those styles (either internally or via included software)

One of the reasons I raised issue about this limited editing is that Yamaha's new S550 will allow you to tweek the styles now (internally). You can start from scratch or edit an existing one. However, the S550 lacks voice parameter editing such as (ADSR) and no filter adjustments either, and although the poly is less than 128 it's twice that of the typical Yamaha low end arranger.

IMO I think there's a feature or two Roland probably could have left off the GW-8 and replaced them with style editing. It doesn't make sense to me to make an arranger keyboard, market it as a performers keyboard, then cripple the style editing on the unit.

[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 10-17-2008).]

What's the key action like? Is it really cheapo? Is it the same keybed found on other Roland models such as the Juno-G or Juno-D?