The new G-70 comes with the new Roland sound generator chip. This chip is Roland's most powerful to date, and it not only makes it possible to play expressive 4-tone Patches with 128-voice polyphony.
The keyboard comes with a brand new wave ROM loaded with what Roland claims to be 1598 quality-focused sounds(192MB) like new string sections, expressive and fat-sounding drums, nylon string guitars and an amazing 88-key split acoustic Grand piano, which uses individual stereo multi-samples for each key and every velocity stage. There are over 700 samples used in this single Patch. The people who actually have head this keyboard are amazed!
But for organ freaks like me, there is more good news. The organ sounds should be fantastic and even more - you are now able to use "Drawbars". The 9 controls acting as drawbars are situated just under the screen, which gives you control over the Hammond emulation known from the Roland VK-8, with features like Percussion (On/Off)(Slow/Fast)(Second/Third), Leakage, Overdrive, Vibrato, Leslie and 8 pre-Registrations - and the tones can be applied for Upper1, Upper2, Upper 3, Lower 1, Lower 2 and Manual Bas. But once again - the Leslie emulation is no quite what we could expect - sorry.
Each expansion card contains 64MB of samples, 1/3 of the total 192MB built-in sound memory. (remember the organ sounds are not sampled but generated). A disadvantage however - the expansion sounds can only be used for the real-time parts (m-bas, lower1, lower2, upper1, upper2 and upper3) but not on the arranger parts.
The keyboard is what we expected - a 76 keys with aftertouch, but also the keys have been improved!
The keyboard is framed in a very robust metal cabinet and the weight is approx. 20 Kg.
The 133 buttoms of the G-70 is even more push buttom's than on the G-1000, which will now enable you to make an impressiv live performance. The Roland D-beam technology is also included - known on all Roland keyborads since the EM-2000.
A lot of features from Discover 5 is expected. I was very impressed of the build in voice harmonizer of Discover 5 - it even outperforms the TC Helicon. Using the pitch correction there's even hope for singers like me.
Vocal harmonizer presets includes presets - 30 small, 30 ensemble and 24 vocodor setups.
But Discover also contained a very impressive way of controlling midi-files. This facility alows you to mark looping points in a midi-file, so just by pressing the start/ending/original/variation buttom's you can control a midi just as easy as a style. And more - you can easily change the orchestration of the midi and save you choices in performance memory.
There will be 270 styles delivered with the G-70. The styles are of a new type and will not be backward compatible with former Roland keyboards. Roland have chosen to make the styles more "playable" instead of technical complicated.
I personally expect that there in a short timeframe will be a conversion tool available on www, as we have seen with other keyboards, so that all the old styles can be converted to G-70.
The styles contain 4 variations but with 6 fill in's.
This is a brand Roland technology, that will secure very smooth chord shifting. I havn't heard it, but it should be a new technology that we should expect on arrangers from now on.
7 Effekt-sections:
The Vocal Harmonizer has it's own seperate audio output and seperate effects processor (Noise gate, Compressor, Reverb and Delay).
There are also Audio Stereo inputs with seperate effects (84 different effects)
Plus each section of the keyboard has it's own effects. Right hand UPPER has 3 effects, Styles have 2, the Organ has 3 (Rotory, Vibrato and Overdrive).
The horrible ZIP drive will be replaced with 50MB built-in ROM and a memory expansion card (SmartCard og CompactFlash card 16MB-2GB), which will reduce the probability of mechanical errors! There is also the traditional diskette unit and a PCMCIA (a credit card size adapter slot know from PC laptops). A PCMCIA card can contain a 1GB Microdrive - The CompactFlash size harddisk from IBM, which should provide you with more than the space you need.
The onboard USB port serves two functions: First, it can be used as a USB-MIDI interface, eliminating the need for an external MIDI interface. Second, it can be used to import and export data to and from you PC or Mac.
The Roland G-70 Music Workstation is expected to be selling at a price of 3.000 - 3.500 Euro, and will be available for sale in Europe during November 2004.
Since: 24 September 2004
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