Professional musician could use help with comments on E-80 vs. G-70

Can I get a running conversation going here for a short time? I could use some help. I’m been playing Roland keyboards all my life. I thought I’d buy the G-70 and build a whole new act around it. Went to demo it, spent about 20 hours total, and found I’m not pleased with the sounds (mainly strings, piano and drums) or the dance styles. Played it through headphones, the Roland speakers, and my own EV’s and it never sounds quite right. As far as “ease of use” and design, I’d buy it in a heartbeat. Gorgeous looking too. I’m still considering buying it, but now the E-80 is on the horizon and I need to make a decision on whether to wait until summer. I would like to hear a few comments from you guys if you don’t mind. For now, have any of you actually heard the E-80 live and, if so, do you hear a difference in sounds (the rumor is it contains a different sound engine)? Also, I noticed when I took the reverb off some of the G-70 sounds, they sounded better. Do any of you G-70 owners find it helps when you edit the sound? Does anyone have the phone # for Roland in Italy where they actually make the G-70 and the E-80….NOT the administrative offices? I called them already (Italy) and they couldn’t help me. They said I need to speak to the factory itself. I appreciate any input from some of you professionals that will help me in my decision including personal opinions of the G-70. Let’s face it, after the sound card, carrying case, foot pedals, tax, etc it’s an expensive instrument to gamble on. Thanks in advance for your help.

i am also interested in this topic. i know o3bor has listened the e50 keyboard at musikmesse.
i think that are very few people until now that got the chance to play or listen a e50-e60 roland.
we might have to wait for couple weeks and then we'll hear some demos hopefully. they won t release the keyboard without putting some demo on the website i guess.
i am interested if the sound engine is the same in all 3 models, e80, e60, e50. somehow, i believe e80 has different (better) sounds, because the difference in price is too big, and the features are not that different.
we'll see...

Hey Lucky,
I'm curious - you said you played Roland all your life, and yet you don't like the piano sound in the new series? My thought is that Roland has ALWAYS had about the best pianos out there, and they got better with each new design. If the interface was different, and the mixer as complete as Yamaha ..... I'd go back to the Big "R", but for now ...... it's only the operating system that keeps Roland off my stand.
Just thoughts.

The e80 has many newer sounds than the g70 and 350 new styles. And it costs more and has 2 expansion slots instead of 1. To put it in a nutshell....whatever that g70 was...this e80 is that much more

Hi

I have been gigging a G-70 for about 7-8 months now. It followed a VA-76 which, itself, followed a Korg i3.

In general, I am not very satisfied with the overall sound quality of the G-70. Even after endless tweeking and fine tuning it still doesn't sound all that good. With both the previous instruments mentioned, I found I could get a decent sound quickly & easily, which could then be further refined if needed. Whilst personal taste comes into it, there are too many people (owners and none owners) who are making negative comments about the sound of the G-70 for it to be simple prejudice.

On the other hand, the ease of use of the G-70 is generally excellent - with two notable areas of exception:

1) - You cannot trigger drum fills completely freely and at will like you can with most other arrangers, as there are NO dedicated fill buttons. Instead, Roland have linked the fills to the various style variations. The main variation buttons then have a dual purpose in that a fill can be made to sound as you select the next variation. This is OK up to a point, but means that the fill that they have married to each style variation remains permanently permanently married to that variation only & can't be changed (e.g. you can't have the fill that they have used for variation one available to variation three, other than by programming a completely new user style).

2) - The one-touch settings facility is generally regarded by many G-70 owners as being less well designed than it could have been. Essentially, you can only link a group of one-touch settings to a particular style, rather than to a performance memory (full panel memory). One obvious consequence is that you cannot link a set of one-touch settings to a specific midifile as you can on instruments like the PA1X. Second consequence is that you can only have one group of one-touch settings per style. There are other limitations beyond this also.

One other point to consider between the G-70 and forthcoming E-80 is that the latter has has no separate output sockets available for the vocal harmony section. This may prove a problem, as the PA settings you might
want to use to get the best from your vocals (and to avoid feedback) may not be the same as you want for the keyboard sounds. With the G-70 you can do this by feeding the separate vocal outputs into a different PA mixer channel from the main keyboard sounds.

Assuming that the vocal section is essentially the same as the G-70, there are extensive tone, volume & FX controls available on the instrument to fine-tune the vocals internally, but - in practical terms -this ain't the same as being able to grab a physical knob on the PA to solve a feedback problem in a difficult venue. You certainly won't be in a position to change the internal vocal settings for every single patch once you've got to the gig and found that you are in trouble.

Hope this helps

Regards - Mike


[This message has been edited by MikeTV (edited 04-24-2006).]

"Another restriction of this design is that fills will always complete a full bar, whether you like it or not. You can't trigger a fill part way through a bar so that only the last bit of the fill sounds. You might wish to do this just to add a small accent towards the end of a bar, rather than triggering a full blown fill lasting the whole bar long (there is a "half-bar" facility on the instrument, but this is not the same thing at all)."

Yes that is a big problem......

You guys have been a big help. I've been wrestling with this for quite a while now. Everytime I go to demo it, I can't bring myself to get excited over the sound. So it's NOT my imagination. Forgot to mention, I spoke to the head of one of the Roland factories in Europe, and he told me the same thing about the sounds. He remembers the older Rolands. The sounds were grittier and had more bite to them because the wave forms were not digital in those days. He prefers the older keyboard sounds himself.

Dave: I think the dedicated Roland digital pianos probably have a great piano sound, but this one on the G-70 doesn't have the same quality piano patch (as the dedicated pianos).

Rolandfan: good info...can someone expand on the "bells & whistles"

Mike: that's a great letter you wrote. Thanks for taking the time for all that info, particularly the 2nd paragraph (In general, I am not very satisfied, etc) That has swayed me more than anything. Up to this point, I thought I was losing part of my hearing since everyone raves about the Fantom sound engine in there. I'd still like to get info on this mysterious E-80 before I'm tempted to start looking at the Tyros. Has anyone heard it, and....I can't seem to get the phone # for the factory in Italy. Not the administrative offices, the actual factory. Anyone have it? By the way, Italy told me the target date was June or July for distribution.

[This message has been edited by Lucky2Bhere (edited 04-22-2006).]

thanks for your comments Mike Tv. I was reading those same comments on he roland site and was going to ask your permission to publish them here when voila ! I have listened to your demos on the roland site and have great respect for your musicianship. I wil say only this, its nice to hear that you have given the G70 a thorough work out. Your comments on the sound of the G70 even with tweaking simply confirms what many other users of this instrument have already confirmed. I cant for he life of me establish why , even with subsequent operating system upgrades the G70 sound is still an issue.Thanks for giving this open and thoughtful critique even though you invested in this instrument yourself. As for lucky2b , have you considered the PA1x ? I know you love roland but an instrument is just that ..an instrument. I myself switched from the yamaha to the korg PA1X after playing and loving yamaha for over 8 years despite he in my view outstanding T2 sounds.

MikeT and Spalding1: just wanted to let you know that thanks to your explicit postings, I decided against the G-70 (I also have heard many rumors that Roland took a step backwards with the G-70. Does anyone have suggestions on other ways to go besides the Big 3 (Roland, Tyros, Pa1x for putting together a serious keyboard "act?". General Music, etc? And does anyone have ANY info on the E-80 (mostly ARE there improved sounds?)that I can hang my hat on and wait for it's release date in the summer? MikeT: where can I download your music that Spalding1 mentioned?

Thats simple, MIDJAY/Roland A37

Dnj: I downloaded some of the Midjay demo's. They sound pretty good. Can you tell me of YOUR experience with it as I'm assuming you own one? Thanks.

go here. http://www.selskabsmusikeren.dk/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=60&board=26.0

You are wrong about the G70 only playing complete fills. If you trigger a fill at any time up to the last quarter note, it just fills to the end of the bar. After that, it plays the entire fill starting on the next downbeat.

Might as well get the facts right about your own keyboard before you advise others..........

Hi Diki

Ouchhhh!

Thanks for correcting me on this. I've just gone back to the instrument and checked this point very specifically. It is, in fact, possible to trigger a fill part way through the bar and have it just complete the remainder of that bar. My earlier post was incorrect on this specific point. I have therfore modified the relevant post so as not to give out any dis-information.

Apologies to all - and particularly to Roland - for any confusion caused over this issue. I have no "anti-Roland" axe to grind. After all, I have at least put my money where my mouth is and bought their last two top arranger models ;-)

Regards - Mike




[This message has been edited by MikeTV (edited 04-24-2006).]

Hi

Further to this - our good friend Diki has pointed out (quite correctly) that I was talking through my @rse regarding this particular issue.

I have therefore amended my original post to remove this paragraph. Other comments still stand.

Regards - Mike

I'm a little bit late in this thread, anyway, being a G-70 owner and having tested the E-80 at FMM I can say that, compared to G-70, E-80 has a lot of new drum sounds, new guitars and basses, and the piano sound of G-70 (that was taken from Fantom-X) has been replaced with the new piano sound taken from RD700SX/SRX-11.
E-80 has also more MFXs available, so that you can apply multiple effects to styles, songs and realtime parts in the same time.
It has also a powerful amplification system, but, being a 61-keys, it doesn't have the wonderful keyboard of G-70.
I'm undecided about changing or not my G-70, because the new sounds and features of E-80 are amazing, but I'm afraid that I'll miss the touch and extension of G-70 keyboard.

I am just hoping that there will come a G80
with all the goodies of the E80.