Many people ask the question what's the difference between the Roland Arranger Keyboards. On this page I try to compare the keyboards.

G-600 versus G-800	[updated 2-4-1998]
Roland G-series Comparison sheet	[updated 2-4-1998]
Steen's Roland Arranger Forum	[homepage]

Since: 2 April 1998

G-600 versus G-800

The major difference between the Roland G-600 and G-800 keyboards is in my opion the keys and the buttons.

The Keys / keyboard

Another major difference is that you have normal keyboard/organ keys on the G-600, but on the G-800 the keys are weighted which gives you the feeling of the keys from a piano.

The buttons and the wheels

For tempo selection G-800 use a big wheel, which can be a litle more faster if you want to change the tempo dramatically, but the G-600 up and down tempo buttons are in my opion more precise to hit the right tempo, as you go up and down step wise.

As I mentioned erlier the buttons makes the difference. On the G-800 Roland has a lot of buttons, Roland has chosen to built more functions into the buttons on the G-600. One bad choise. The G-600 has only ONE button to select one of the 4 drum variations, where G-800 has 4 buttons one for each variation. On the G-600 you only step forward in the drum variations, which means that you have to hit the button 3 times to go from variation 2 back to variation 1. (G-1000 has 2 keys to scroll back and forward).

Another example, G-600 has one button to shift between performance and arranger selection, and one button to hop between A,B,C,D banks, the 8 selector keys are in this way shared between performance and arranger. G-800 has 8 seperate button for both performance and arranger. The only drawback by using lesser keys here, is that you should get the habit always to shift back to arranger selection every time you have made a selection from the performance memory, if you as I do very often select new sounds while you are playing, because I need a lot more UPPER selection keys than the 2 available on both G-600 and G-800 (G-1000 has 3!).

MIDI

If you don't have the big demand of MIDI playback and interconnection G-600 with it's 16 channels and MIDI input, output and thrue is a good choise. But if you have a demand of using MIDI files with 32 channels/tracks, G-800 is the only choise. G-600 can't playback 32 track MIDI files. G-800 has also dubble up of MIDI connections (2 inputs, 2 outputs and 2 thrue).

But who are playing back MIDI files anyway! I only use this facility to digital record my own playing, but the G-600 don't work well, when you as I do always use the start-on-play button. G-600 do not every time start when you press down the keys (only when you are in recording mode!), the manual says that you should start on the first beat by looking at the 4 tempo lights.

.. more to come, when I get some time

Steen's Roland Arranger Comparison

Roland G-series Comparison sheet

Steen's Roland Arranger Comparison

Steen's Roland Arranger Forum