From ynottnaro@yahoo.com Sat Jan 18 10:45:09 2003
Subject:Disgruntled cloners....lol
Too many choices? That is NEVER a bad thing, EVER.
Remember the day when the ONLY kid on the block was
the old CX3?
> (Note: I'm being jaded and cyncial....I know, I'm
> too young to do
> that ;-) )
> > So, with that in mind, let's look at the 4 clones
> Roland is offering
> us.
>
> VK-8: Single manual clone, their version of a CX-3,
> XK-2, XB-2, et al.
>
> VK-88: Dual manual clone, their BX-3, or (more
> closely) Key5, or New
> B3
Ok, the user interface on the VK8 leaves a LOT to be
desired...HOWEVER, as a Hammond owner AND a V5 owner,
when you get right down to it, once you program your
presets, why do you need an LCD? Electro doesn't have
it, V5 doesnt have, and the Hammonds certainly don't
have it. You want a realistic Hammond experience?
program 8 presets and you still have a set of
drawbars. Sounds about right to me... (minus an extra
set of drawbars obviously).
> VK-8M: Module, their V5, OB3m (was that what the
> Oberheim was?), and
> sorta like the electro rack or Hammond's little
> rackmount/DB
> controller combo. Heck, there was some company with
> "Blue" in the
> name that made a module clone, correct?
Yeah...the Blue Chip (dogcheeze, or so I hear). Can't
access the VK8 module page yet, so I'm holding my
breath.
> VR-760: Roland's Electro. Just strikes me as a kid
> buildling a
> cheap copy of someone else's better Lego thing out
> of his own spare
> blocks. MSRP will be as much or more than the
> Electro, I'm
> sure...but too many people are entrenched in their
> Electros to switch.
Well...as far as Cheap and Better...I can tell you
this: I've never had to have 3 or 4 Roland keyboards
of ANY model shipped to me to get ONE that works.
Can't say that about the Electro. And when you get
right down to it, the Electro's pianos (acoustic
variety) suck. Korg's top of the line pianos (their
discontinued SGX was more realistic than the Triton
era pianos) sound like Roland's 1980-era MKS 20 (which
I love), which is quite a distance behind Roland's
newer pianos (see the XV5080/3080/XV88 pianos, or even
better yet, the SRX Piano card). While I am
disheartened by their tendency to redux their
technology, their pianos have been pretty remarkable.
You can't knock their piano stuff. And trust me, no
matter how "entrenched" any of us seem, the minute
something comes out that blows us away, you'll
skidmarks.)
> It just doesn't seem like anything special...I mean,
> Korg has the
> tech to make one of these, and do it pretty well.
(see above comment...although we can't tell squat from
looking at a picture: if it will do splits with no
suffering from the FX, then it already has
capabalities beyond that of the Electro)
>
> I'm not tempted by any of these, I'm happy with my
> CX-3, if I were to
> buy a module it'd be a V5. If I were to get an
> all-in-wonder board,
> it'd be an electro. If by some chance I had the $$
> to get a dual-
> manual clone...well, I'd buy the real deal unless I
> had to gig with
> it, and then I'd snag a Key5.
>
With the Voce, you'd still need a leslie...or a sim.
When you get right down to it, I hope all these
companies keep trying to outdo the other, because we
will benefit...although they of course benefit from
our dollars!!!
Tony
__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com