Roland abandon hope of ever inventing anything new

Beware, your Roland oldies might refuse working once you put that obrobrious sh-toy on their side :)
 

Very disapointing. There are so many better options than Roland these days though. I thikn this is quite a desperate bid to milk their existing market because x0x boxes etc. mean nothing to kids these days.
 

I remember the days when Roland gear was sleek, professional, sexy, sleek, desirable, lust-inspiring and more.

They can't even make anything that doesn't look like a toy - even their high-end gear. Awful...
 

All this Roland bashing... somebody please name a compelling alternative to the RD700SX. Can you name even one other modern combination digital stage piano and master controller worthy of both labels?

Yamaha and Korg stage pianos are completely lacking in controller features (assignable knobs, sliders, wheels, sticks, etc).

Every 88-key workstation I've found and even the much lauded and dauntingly expensive Nord Stage sacrifice a piano-type keyboard to make it easier to play organ and synth runs. As a pianist, that's not a tradeoff I'm willing to make.

Kurzweil and General Music both purportedly have models in the niche that interests me. Unfortunately the former appears to be barely still in business (if at all), and the latter has no distributers in the United States, so good luck finding a place to demo it if you're an American like me!

Roland looks pretty dang good to me.
 

mux: You're right, the a la carte approach gives you more flexibility. But this isn't such an esoteric combination of features as to require the decrease in portability and the increase in cost of a multicomponent system. At least Roland seems to understand.

And I drive a WRX, a sports car with all wheel drive and very pragmatic hatchback. :-)
 

Just the other day I was drunk and saying that more keyboards needed to look lilke the old Juno 60/106. What kind of world do we live in where my drunken rant's are are answered but my prayers go ignored.
 

I would find it more interesting to know what they sound like than what they look like.
 

they sound just like all the other generic sample-based crap they've been churning out for the past 10 years! the last decent thing they made was the jp-8000. FU roland, Korg and Alesis are the only big boys making anything interesting anymore.
 

"I would find it more interesting to know what they sound like than what they look like."

You might want to look in another blog, dude.
 

i think roland should fire their developers. maybe they could be making more profit remaking their old stuff, just like fender does.
 

Yeah, but they've radically expanded their accordion line-up since last year. Seriously, their V-Accordions rule.
 

I stopped paying attention to roland synths years ago. they come out like open-source software revisions - every few months. the faxtol, the faxtol x, the faxtol xl, the faxtol xl2...It's too much. I can't remember the last thing they made that was an 'instrument'. Like a playable, musical instrument that was worth keeping. I'm sure there have been a few amongst the 36 new devices they release every 6 months but in the slew of walmart toys they put out, how could I even notice? I'm not historian but was the d-50 the last really forward looking thing they did? And of course, that was shitty instrument. Forever fearing that another m1 would come along and make them pointless for a while again, they seem to put out the next amazing wonderbox every day. All those friggin resources, wasted if you ask me.
 

divbyzero: looking for a stage piano, 88 keys, with knobs and sliders and excellent built in sounds?

mux: Forgive me, but that sounds like you're looking for something that just doesn't exist, like a powerful, fast, sleek and sexy sports car with excellent clearance, low maintenance, tonnes of cargo space, and good gas mileage. :)

Me: Clavia Nord Stage 88...
I've tried it, and I'm going to get the 76 key version... It sounds fantastic!
 

So nobody noticed their Handsonic 10? I only found out about it when trying to find the link for the HPD-15, to add to a post about how I love mine.
 

Retro is the new black.
 

Blah, the Handsonic is just a repack of the same SoundCanvas chip and sounds they've been using since Osama was on our side.
 

How can someone say that Roland has no new ideas?
The ROLAND V-SYNTH is a GREAT synth...
 

Try the Nord new stage piano. looks quite good. heaps od nobs well its 3 keyboards in one. they have taken a sntyh a orgain and a stage piano and put it all into one. and it has waighted keys which there other ones didnt have
 

For the person who says you want to know what it sounds like, not just what it looks like, watch a Roland Juno G demo video from Summer NAMM 2006 to hear the "synth" in action.
 

Hi, I own a Roland RD-700-SX. I would like to see Roland add a "Bender" and volume control capability to the Rhythm section. The Bender would be controlled via a side slider on the expression pedal, like the old organs had. Hence the expression pedal would need to be modified to provide 2 controls, bender and volume control, but would affect only the rhythm section, not the keyboard.

Any thoughts about this type of modification?
 

Hi there I'm searching for help regarding kenton pro dcb for my juno 60. I'm using it (or trying to) with ableton.

I just got my converter today and am having problems with it so I wondered if you might be able to help me out.
The cables are fine, the soundcard is brand new (lexicon lambda arrived today) and fully functioning (midi outs go to and are received by other external hardware).
The problem lies in the fact that I can't seem to send midi messages from ableton to the kento pro DCB. The juno can send them into ableton, and my midi keyboard can send them directly into the juno - but the reason i got the thing was to use ableton to play it.
I was wondering if there is some setting i'm overlooking.
Kenton haven't been too helpful as they say the device receives incoming midi (from my controller keyboard) so there can't be a problem.
I hope someone can help.