Although I was never a fan of either, but I would have to say if I had to choose between them, I like the dual direction joystick better like the one on Roland arrangers. Especially to turn on/off Leslie on Organs. It just feels right & tension is good too and very easy to access while playing vs the high located wheels on Ketron arranger Kb's which were difficult to reach when I owned and performed with them.. why they put it there in an un natural is a total mystery? I in turn am more of a let my fingers, style of playing, velocity and articulated sounds work for me...but that's me ......what do you guys think?.....I also see many players OVERUSE the stick or wheel to a point where it sounds weird and takes away from their playing because its not done to a point of realism. With the improvements of SA voices, velocity triggered sounds etc, etc, will joy sticks, mod/W, be a thing of the past? And where do beginners & pros begin to look for a place where they can learn to use these features "CORRECTLY" on different sounds? Instead of just thinking they are doing it right. Using them is an artform in itself.



[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 10-13-2009).]

I prefer the stick. I had the wheels on the SD1 and now the stick on the SD5... and back again to the wheels on the Audya. Unfortunately, the Audya has the wheels located about an inch higher than on the SD1. The fact is, though, you can adjust and become comfortable with whichever one you're using on a daily basis.

AS far as proper/improper usage, you have to be familiar with the instrument you are trying to emulate... pedal steel guitar is a good example. You have to know just when to mod and when to bend, and how much, for it to sound right.

Glenn

I like the Roland bender okay...that's what's on my Jupiter 8, and I also like the pitch/mod wheels on my Yamahas...it's all in what you get used to.

I only tried the Korg briefly...it was a synth, a Triton I believe...a joystick type affair that seemed pretty decent as well.

I had a big old Yamaha CS-80 synthesizer that I had restored and then sold to a collector...it had a horizontal strip just above the keys that let you bend pitch....the center was always where you first put your finger...you could do trills, flutters, and all kinds of tricks with it....it had a sort of felt-like covering; very cool.

I favour the mod wheel because it can remain where you pushed it, especially nice for activating the Leslie speed on the Tyros3 and S910.

Pretty much all of the systems have their strengths and weaknesses. I am not too big a fan of putting the wheels in the Ketron position (quite a lot of 88 controllers put them there, too) as, especially for the arranger player, getting to it and getting back to the keyboard involves far more distance than at the end of the keybed.

Roland have a very good system, one I've got used to over the years, but it has one fatal flaw... if you use the lever for modulation, it always returns to zero when you let your hand off. Now, this is great for note vibrato (you don't tend to want to leave it on all the time) but it is terrible when modulation is used on say the filter cutoff, or to crossfade between fast and slow Leslie samples of an organ, etc..

Unfortunately, this is EXACTLY what Roland have done, especially in regard to the Prelude and GW-8. There are a lot of patches that modulation does timbral things rather than vibrato, and sadly, no way to do it from any other controller. The problem is that these arrangers are derived from the Sonic Cell module, which is designed to be run from a MIDI controller keyboard. And most of THESE have sliders as well as levers or wheels for modulation. So, even if you have a controller with a Roland or Korg paddle/joystick, you can still set the modulation with a slider. On the G70/E80, most of the patches that do this have been programmed so a slider can be used (but it doesn't send mod commands, it's different controller# and the patches are written for it). But unfortunately, a lot of the SRX cards have the same issue... and the slider can't address them.

Somebody at Roland is asleep at the wheel

If you have a GW-8, I suggest a call to Roland. It would only take a minor OS fix to task the mod command to one of the 'analog modify' knobs and you would be in business. But without this, quite a few patches lose at least half of their usefulness (although, use them in style or SMF mode, and you can program the mod values in - it makes for some excellent organ parts in some of the styles).

I've already posted about how great pitch strips are... love 'em! (had a CS60 back in the day, too - first thing I played with a strip). I kind of prefer Korg's paddle to the Roland one because up/down can have a different negative function to the positive direction, and it has better resolution, plus my Triton has paddle AND strip - best of both worlds. But, push comes to shove, I think the K2500 has the best possible system. Wheels, small strip AND large strip, tons of faders buttons and keypads, and an OS that allows you to basically make any of them do anything whatsoever, no matter HOW whacked out your twisted mind can imagine you need!

But I always come back to the Achilles Heel of the arranger... no matter HOW good and sophisticated the LH controllers get, you can only pay them lip service because of the primary need to keep inputting the chords, no matter HOW repetitive they are. Most of the juiciest times to do bends is EXACTLY when you need to make a chord change. What's a boy to do? Foot bends (even for those lucky enough to have an OS that allows them) are generally in one direction only. We'd all bitch like hell if the pitch bend wheel or lever only went up OR down! And your feet are pretty busy already... (at least, mine are!)

Some way of handing this task off (playing the chords of a repetitive section) really needs to be introduced (or 'reintroduced' ) before we can start to impart the expressiveness that those working with SMF's or MP3 tracks have at their LH's command...

The pitch wheel on my Yamaha CS01 mini mono analog synth, is designed to only bend notes up.

http://www.vintagesynth.com/yamaha/cs1.php


Ian I used to love mine back in the day ....used for LH bass...sat right on top of my KB..

btw you got mail


[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 10-13-2009).]

I prefer the Joystick, but can use the wheels also. The stick on SD5 was nice. Don't much like the wheel location on Audya.
The puny little E50 is much easier to play.
DonM

My first synth, back in 1975, a Micromoog, had both the pitch ribbon and a mod wheel. I'm definitely a fan of the pitch ribbon, really tactile. i still have the old girl stashed away in a case - haven't touched it for years, though.

Joystick everytime !

Once I tried to play a demo Roland E series, don't remember which one... almost broke the lever.

I was used to "slap" the wheel up with my thumb, and forgetting that for the same effect I had to move the lever to the right, I just pushed it up and after maybe one cm of travel it hit the end. More like a switch. Lokked around, no one heard the abuse. Thankfully it handled the slap.