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Gw-8 vs Sonic Cell

Posted: 22:52, 24 December 2012
by curtisdog
looking at a gw-8 does it have the same sounds as sonic cell or it is lower end thanks

Re: Gw-8 vs Sonic Cell

Posted: 04:09, 25 December 2012
by PauloF
curtisdog wrote:looking at a gw-8 does it have the same sounds as sonic cell or it is lower end thanks
SonicCell is a 16 part multitimbral MIDI Sound Module + Audio Card + MIDI/WAV/Mp3 Song Player. Basically a Fantom X without the Sampling and sequencer

The GW8 is an Arranger type keyboard, more suitable for "one man band" type of usage, but very similar to the SonicCell in terms of sounds.

Very different machines that share the same "heart"

Re: Gw-8 vs Sonic Cell

Posted: 12:57, 4 April 2013
by joelfan
So, can you please tell us why GW8 is based on 256MB waveform storage (converted to 16bits) and Sonic Cell only 128MB? Is this Sonic Cell built on a lower quality waveform repository?

Re: Gw-8 vs Sonic Cell

Posted: 14:08, 4 April 2013
by rcraven
They have two different missions.
The GW8 is an arranger keyboard.
It will generate a song in many different styles like Band in a Box.
You can edit the styles but only use the preset sounds or output to Midi for other modules/synths.
You can't edit the sounds in the GW-8 very much.

The SonicCell's cell is a synth module that has a Midi/Audio player built in, but you can also edit and create new sounds using the waves on board.
It is designed to be tightly integrated with a DAW when building a song then used in performance by itself.
You can add 2 SRX cards to get extra waves (and presets) and then edit these sounds to synthesize new sounds.
It has 3 MFX where as the GW-8, I believe, has only 2 an Upper and Lower.
The GW-8 waves can't be added to and so probably needs the extra waves in ROM.

Although they initially appear similar they are designed different jobs.

All the best.
Royce

Re: Gw-8 vs Sonic Cell

Posted: 16:38, 4 April 2013
by specialplant
joelfan wrote:So, can you please tell us why GW8 is based on 256MB waveform storage (converted to 16bits) and Sonic Cell only 128MB? Is this Sonic Cell built on a lower quality waveform repository?
Yes, I can tell you exactly: the GW 8 constists of a main tone section and an additional world section. The main tone section is exactly the same as the SonicCell and consists of 128 MB WaveROM. The additional world section comprises additional 128 MB WaveROM, which the SonicCell doesn't have (unless expanded by SRX boards). This world section is different for GW8-L and GW8-E. In my opinion, the GW8-L has the more interesting one because it contains a lot of sounds from various SRX boards (most from SRX 09 world, but some from SRX 6, 3, 7 and 10). I once made an analysis of all the world sounds of the GW8-L and which SRX boards they are from (still have it as an Excel file). You can find the 'GW8 tone list' of the world sections as a PDF file on Roland's support pages, separate ones for GW8-E and GW8-L.

Re: Gw-8 vs Sonic Cell

Posted: 16:53, 4 April 2013
by joelfan
So we can say that GW8 is more gifted than Sonic Cell.
Ok, very few editing, but the sound inventory is the double!

Re: Gw-8 vs Sonic Cell

Posted: 17:30, 4 April 2013
by specialplant
Yes, if you take the waveROM, the GW-8 has much more to offer than the unexpanded SonicCell. I think for the time of its introduction in 2008 the GW-8 was a true sound giant, but it wasn't marketed very well. However, some people say that the D/A converters are worse so that the sounds don't sound as clear as in the SonicCell. I'm not sure about that, the demos of the GW8 I heard had clear sounds. The keybed seems to be rather low-quality, but the WaveROM of the GW-8 Latin has a lot to offer.