lots of kool features...Piano mode button, Auto Fill,
Chord Inversion, FULL Mixer, etc..

Looks nice a lots of features from what he describes. Wonder if it has enough Styles to satisfy the American market ? And how does it compare to the EA7 ? A replacement ?
Looks like Roland is going after the market who uses Arranger the most, smart move.

Thanks for the update.

Bill, it looks like the first 190 style slots would work for western markets.

They will sell thousands of these for sure at that price..
good move by Roland

I’m actually looking for battery powered KB for low key out door events. Maybe this would be a good choice?

Did I see 256 voice polyphony or was it something else ?
If it is indeed 256 voice polyphony then it’s possibly a new sound engine/generator that Roland could be coming up for medium or high end keyboards as well with this polyphony?
We wait and watch 😊

Entry-level stuff. I'm not sure that it's better than the E-A7 in any respect (except being lighter and smaller.) At least it demonstrates hope that Roland hasn't abandoned the arranger market altogether.

To me it looks suspiciously close to Medeli's products (well, we've heard the rumour that even Genos is made by Medeli).

Some people say, that if there's a specific demand from dealers for an entry-level keyboard and the company doesn't produce one, the company uses a suitable product of other manufacturer which in his turn puts a required name on it.

The problem is that now both Kurzweil and Roland went this way and it doesn't look good to me:

Paul, many, many years ago I discovered that instead of purchasing a battery powered arranger keyboard, the best and least expensive option was to purchase in inexpensive DC/AC inverter. Than you just connect it to your car battery and you can still use your best 110AC powered gear. Thus one is available at Home Depot for $85.



Gary

Gary ... how much does that drain the car battery, say for a two hour gig?
thanks

you'll find out Tony when your car won't start after the gig..

just teasing...I have one works great when you need ac power on the road

Good for you, but you didn't answer my question ...

Dumb question : so you actually connect this to your car? What if your performing where you can’t bring your car in?

Great tip Gary! I would say this inverter could be used with any 12V DC source. If a car battery is too heavy for your cart, a motorcycle battery should also work--but for a shorter period of time. I once played my BK-7m and Tyros 5 combo off of a computer backup power supply ("UPS") during a power outage. Supposedly my UPS was rated at 450 watts, but that's a peak rating and it only lasted 40 minutes. I would guess that my total current draw was 2 1/2 amps. I feel like they might have lasted longer powered directly from a battery, instead of going through the DC -> AC -> DC process of the UPS and in-line transformers. Obviously you would need the correct voltage and polarity. Also, NEVER try to save, edit, or do firmware updates when using this type of power. If you get a low voltage condition you could scramble the board!

Paul, Roland is my favorite brand. But the Casio CT-X3000 has a much better spec than the little E-X30 discussed here. It has Casio's newest acclaimed AiX sound engine. Rated to run 10 hours on D batteries, and probably more if you play sounds through a JBL Charge 3 or another battery-powered amplifier (and turn off the on-board speakers.)

Kabinopus, I don't know anything about Medeli. But I agree that this board wasn't developed by the Roland I'm familiar with. Even its chord recognition system is Yamaha's, not Roland's excellent Chord Intelligence. As you said, most likely "badge engineering."

Tony, the average car battery is about 48 ampere hours, which means at maximum load, the inverter draws about 9 amps, which translates to about 5 hours before the car battery would go dead with that amount of drain.

Keep in mind, however, that most of us use far less than 1000-watts of power with our full setup. For example, my Bose L1 Compact draws less than 150-watts when cranked up full. A typical mixer draws less than 20-watts. My PSR-S950 only draws 19-watts. So, for me, playing to a crowd of 150 or less ppl, with my full setup, I would draw 169-watts. Therefore, my total drain on the battery would be about 2 amps, which is less than the overhead light in the interior of the car.

Yes, most small motorcycle or tractor batteries would do a great job, though I have never tried using them for outdoors. In locations where I was not able to get the car/van close to the venue, I made a 100-foot long DC cable with heavy-duty battery clamps. I connected the inverter to the opposite end and it worked fine for hours on end, no car start problems - ever. I only used that long cable a couple times, though. Most of the outdoor jobs I performed, which amounted to about a dozen a year, the venue supplied me with 110-volt power.

For me, the biggest stumbling block of performing outdoors were seeing the keyboard's screen and buttons, which is a problem with every manufacturers keyboard I've ever owned. During the last 10 years of my musical career I insisted on some sort of dark colored canopy or gazebo to set up in. All of the restaurants and catered outdoor jobs complied with my request.

Now, when it comes to battery powered gear, most of which is powered with "C" or "D" cell batteries, the life of the batteries has always been quite limited. One of my first Yamaha arranger keyboards had space for 4 D-cell batteries. Usually, the maximum amount of playing time I could count on was about 1-1/2 hours at best before the batteries took a dump. Shortly after that, I purchased an inverter. I also have an inverter on my boat, which runs the TV, Microwave oven and a couple fans. The microwave sucks down a battery pretty quick because it draws 1,100-watts. The TV, however, only draws about 45-watts and it is a 21-inch LED TV.

Hope this answers some of your questions,

Gary

Thanks, Gary

Me too ... I'm getting a Korg EK-50 tomorrow. I'll let you know how I like it!

I'll have to pump my mic, and iPad into it thru the TC Perform VK.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gapIKK-yhR8

Dave good luck with the EK50.....
you gonna put keys back in the act?

I have a winery job that requires a very different approach, so, once a month, yes.

Thats great always loved the KB/singing act the best...
good luck!