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Re: ROLAND gw8 or YAMAHA psr s710

Posted: 09:18, 12 March 2010
by tom_
good to know about you,so you r a mallu...nice" well iam also the same..actually my budget is low i cant afford a s 900 or s910/ not an issue..i may go for s 710..what you say?& yes what your full name&profession?

Re: ROLAND gw8 or YAMAHA psr s710

Posted: 14:55, 14 March 2010
by kenchan
huh, those yamaha ones sound pretty good. they're kinda known for their acoustic piano, guitars, and other wind instruments so i suppose if that's your thing the yamaha would be the way to go.

if you're more of a modern player the Roland definitely sounds better, well at least to me. :p plus, the roland looks better too. hahaha.

Re: ROLAND gw8 or YAMAHA psr s710

Posted: 17:53, 14 March 2010
by cminor
I am still waiting for a demo with the S710.
I see many people "talking" about it, but none of them with demo's.

Re: ROLAND gw8 or YAMAHA psr s710

Posted: 19:42, 14 March 2010
by kenchan
plenty of demo's also check out yamaha's site.

try youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtadcoGR ... re=related

Re: ROLAND gw8 or YAMAHA psr s710

Posted: 06:39, 15 March 2010
by cminor
the "quality" of the Youtube is not something that should be "evaluate".
I meant at list a mp3 (320) demo.

Re: ROLAND gw8 or YAMAHA psr s710

Posted: 09:53, 15 March 2010
by tom_
710&910 i connected it to a nice poweful JBL PA system....wow..in its a wonderful arranger,with classic tones&styles,& great features,wish i could buy it....i think roland need s to learn & upgrade many features in its ver 2.0 gw 8 model

Re: ROLAND gw8 or YAMAHA psr s710

Posted: 12:12, 15 March 2010
by Parsifal
The same demo can be found in several other places at a (possibly) higher sound definition than youtube. Check http://www.thomann.de/gb/yamaha_psrs710.htm

I had almost the same debate some time ago and I personally tend towards Korg PA-500. Should you be able to transpose MP3s on GW8 - now that would be a powerful feature. Otherwise you can always get a separate MP3 player. I know that Yamaha probably has a bigger sound variety but Korg is also a synth and you can tweak the sounds at leisure. If you need a voice harmony processor you can always get a separate Roland VP-7 or a TC Helicon one. TC Helicon looks better to me but on Roland you can get some instrumental parts (dunno about the polyphony though) with choirs, voices and stuff that removes some of the burden on your main synth / arranger boards.
Sound editing is weak on GW8 and kinda absent on Yamaha. I never liked Yammy interface. Lots of buttons, one needs to know which one to press at any given time. PA-500 gives you touchscreen. Cannot make A-B comparisons but after looking into the manuals I tend to consider Korg at its best in arranger territory. Sounds are debatable. You want best synth sounds, go after GW8. Best acoustic guitars - Yamaha (or you can always take a new guitar player into your band or recording project :) ). Korg has a knack for organs and distorted guitar but beware - korg sounds don't sound well in a mix. They're great as solo instruments but tend to become muddy in complicated, overlapping layers and arrangements using the same and only Korg board. Use Roland / Yamaha / whatever for your most polyphonic sounds and use Korg for solo / monophonic sounds only - to get the best results. The only polyphonic sounds that don't experience sound degradation as you press more and more notes on Korg boards are pad / strings sounds. Arranger section works as a breeze though (the aforementioned problem does not occur when using the arrangement). I wish GW8 had a touchscreen and fully editable sounds... or a PA-500 version without speakers. I always wanted an arranger with touchscreen but WITHOUT speakers.
My views might be subjective and biased so don't take them for granted. Go check the boards yourself and come back here to tell me what I did wrong :)

Re: ROLAND gw8 or YAMAHA psr s710

Posted: 19:50, 15 March 2010
by kenchan
cminor- let's be realistic now. those low-end arrangers sound pretty decent for wat they are, but they still sound pretty fake to me when i 'listen' to them. even the tyros3 sounds kinda iffy when you listen to them, especially their drums.

if it cant sound good on youtube with lost generation, then it's going to sound worse in person. that said, i think the demo's at youtube are a good representation of wat it can do in general.

i donno, why dont you guys check out the MOTIF-XS? those things have appegiators that can pretty much do wat you guys are (i think) trying to do but using much higher quality sounds and full blown outboard sequence software (CubaseAI) as backup.

Re: ROLAND gw8 or YAMAHA psr s710

Posted: 21:58, 15 March 2010
by Parsifal
Kenchan, I'd say the other way around. I recently auditioned demos of some old romplers (Korg M1 and the likes) and they're nowhere near these "low-end arrangers". There's a long way since the days of FM-sounding crappy kiddy keyboards. Sure, the Motif XS is at the very top, as you say. But there are lots who don't want to pay more than 2 grands in order to get a high-end workstation and neither want to start a recording career. I agree with you that the youtube fidelity is enough and I bet there are gigs where youtube fidelity is also enough :) Having that in mind, I think you'll agree that some of the high-end workstation users will never (or rarely) get that "perfect crowd" to check their impeccable sound.
I think that sound expression is better than sound definition and I grow ever impatient seeing new musical instruments getting better and better sounds but less expression features (poly aftertouch, ribbon stripe, breath controller, multiple pedal switch inputs, etc.) by the day. Maybe I'm in the minority but I'd like to start such a thread (What's better? sound expression or sound definition?) and I'd like to see it a sticky because it will define the musician of tomorrow.

Re: ROLAND gw8 or YAMAHA psr s710

Posted: 22:38, 15 March 2010
by kenchan
parsifal- you know M1's was one of the first workstations that was ever released into the market back in 1988... when DX7FDII's were still considered kinda cool.

wat are you doing comparing a old fart vs a fresh kid to dash a 50meter drag race? ofcourse the youngling is going to win. hahaha. ;)

yah, completely agree about dynamics and expressivity. most keyboards out there have lost this tremendously.

thus why i have been toying around with such instruments like VPiano and nord's. they are very expressive. actually the FantomG can be very expressive if programmed correctly (sound and sequence).

with the arrangers you kinda get wat you pay for and then the rest is left to your right hand's playing. with those non-weighted keys it is kind of difficult to get the true 127 steps of expressivity... but it can be done if played correctly, i suppose. :)

Re: ROLAND gw8 or YAMAHA psr s710

Posted: 13:11, 21 May 2015
by mafiauser
@cminor i know it's kind a old topic by now but...

Code: Select all

1. GW8 has only upper and lower, meaning two tones that can be set as dual OR split (not both in the same time). the only way I could use more was thru midi with other midi controller (PCR-500), but I had to make some maps to send the Program Change/Control Change for the tones I loved.
The good news is that GW8 saved in the performance the settings I've don on channels that in the GW8 menu can't be seen ( channels from 11 to 16 and 9, channels that are visible only in song mode for GW8). 
for same thing i'm using android phone and app called Midi Commander (it's free on market). the app can rechannalize data from upper and lower parts to whatever two parts of style. in that way i can have up to 4 tones simultaneously. problem is in each style track i have to change MSB, LSB and PC as well. after that tone selection gets locked with these values since they are saved as parts of style track. so, those additional tone parts are style dependent, something like OTS...

and how did you do it? did u find a way to change those additional tones "on the fly"?

you see, in commander we can save virtual buttons with up to 3 midi messages, midi thru rechanalize data map, short sysex and RPN/NRPN. each midi message contains 2 CC and PC, and can be sent to a specific midi channel. but i stil can't change tones "on the fly" because they are style parts, i can only change upper and lower but there is no point in that since it can be done from keyboard itself.

if you could explain a bit what exactly did you do to get more than two tones it would be much appreciated.

thanks in advanced.

best regards

P.S.
i send you pm but it got stuck in outbox.

Re: ROLAND gw8 or YAMAHA psr s710

Posted: 05:35, 13 October 2017
by sheddy
I have been using Yamaha PSR1100 and now I play Roland GW8. To be honest GW8 is better overall as it can read mp3 and allows you to connect USB drive as well but there are few drawbacks as well. First of all it is not easy to turn off/mute beat only during a certain part of your performance and you have to enter the screen and use dial guage, but if you change the tone, you are out of that screen.

Second drawback is the software issue. Playlist Editor and Style Converter do not work with Windows 8 and above so you cannot play mp3 from your USB at all. Sounds are very good but there is no Arpeggio effect there. I also own a much older Korg Triton Le (not an arranger though) which has got stunning sounds and effects. So I play both together (aranger + synthesizer) to get what I need :)