PLEASE ROLAND!! A simple MID recorder for RD 700 GX + Supern

And think again: maybe Roland comes first with RD700GX, but the concurrents its on his tail, with the new Stage Piano CP series, where modeling its not an exclusivity of Vpiano or RD, and of course you can record and playback MID and Audio.

The only "modeling" likely going on in the CP series is in-line effects - no big deal. The CP sound appears to be old-school looped and stretched samples *yawn*. Yamaha really isn't in the same league as Roland at this point.

"The only "modeling" likely going on in the CP series is in-line effects - no big deal. The CP sound appears to be old-school looped and stretched samples *yawn*. Yamaha really isn't in the same league as Roland at this point. "

Maybe yes, maybe no, but, to its real direct concurrent, RD, its seems a copy or imitation, they claiming the same features of RD with the GX1.

In fact Im curious about... I will see soon on ExpoMusic 2010...

I've tested both via the DPBSD:

http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1...

Roland definitely wins in the sound department. Yamaha CP is the same tired crap everyone's been doing for what seems like forever now. Plus a cryptic user interface. Blea.

I second that about the user interface. Roland wins hands down in that department. The SN acoustic pianos are simply a pleasure to play. The Yamaha CP1 and CP5 sound good, no doubt about that, but I prefer the shear playability of the SN acoustic pianos. This new RD700NX that is supposed to come out should be quite interesting. It will obviously have the SN piano technology and hopefully revised SN Ep's. We'll see ; )

>>>I second that about the user interface. Roland wins hands down in that department.

agreed, yamaha interface always was weird, illogical and even in current motif's big color screen not much has changed.


>>>The SN acoustic pianos are simply a pleasure to play

cannot agree here, acoustic pianos always sound much better on yamaha boards to my ears.

BTW, CP series sound great but look bad I mean who designs UI for yamaha ????

"BTW, CP series sound great but look bad I mean who designs UI for yamaha ???? "

Insane rabid monkeys is my guess. It's really too bad. People walk up to their stuff in the store and get so exasperated with the UI they give up before demoing the sounds - that was my experience anyway.

I own the Motif XS Rack and am able to go maybe one level deep before running tearfully for the manual. The CP5/50 had me completely baffled in the store, so I'd say they're losing ground. Hard to believe they could design something MORE cryptic than the XS Rack, but there you go.

I highly disagree with the comments about the useless and obsolete srx cards and the oh so usefull arx card for the RD700GX.
Tell me, what would you do with an arx card in the RD700GX?
The e.piano arx is already implemented. What's left?
Does somebody really needs a dedicated drum card in an instrument mainly designed for the stage with pianos as the primary instrument?
Come on guys.
I had two srx cards in my rd700gx.
The world and the complete orchestra cards. Both gave me sounds which are regarding quality much much better than most stock sounds. It's not obsolete, it gives you actually more than the arx cards which are focused to just one instrument or a couple and costs twice the price of an srx card.
The biggest problem is simply that Roland always makes products with unclear purposes. The RD700GX is neither a stage piano, nor is it a synthesizer. The editing possibilities are very limited and the problem with the srx cards is that you can't create your own patches. So, you are limited to use the original patches. A shame since there are very nice samples on the cards. but you can't access them.

Don't dream about a dedicated srx card for recording, because most probably it technically cannot be done at all. A memory srx card alone doesn't make a recorder.
And you all shouldn't bother about the size of the samples. A lot of those samples are still bigger than the stock samples on the RD or the Fantom, with the exception of the pianos on the RD which are probably of equal size.

~I highly disagree with the comments about the useless and obsolete srx cards and the oh so usefull arx card for the RD700GX.

Gotta disagree with you mojkarma. The most pertinent sounds from the SRX collection should already be included in the GX, instead of supplying it with 1990's waveforms forcing customers to buy a discontinued line of expansion cards. Plus without the editing capabilities like the Fantom X had with the SRX series, it's pointless because your forced to use stock patches for the most part! (mojkarma, you're right about that) Yamaha got this right with the CP5, because the "other" tones included are from the Motif XS line, far superior quality to the GX. Roland should take note! (I think they may have, if the RD700NX is what I think)

~Tell me, what would you do with an arx card in the RD700GX?
Either stay with the current series of expansion technology offered or don't include the function at all. Since the beginning of the RD700 series, Roland has allowed users to stay on parallel with their workstation expansion capabilities. If Roland doesn't want to do this with the GX, then continue to make relevant SRX series expansion boards for their instruments that accept them. But, Roland has discontinued the line!

If the ARX expansion capabilities were truly implemented on the GX from the beginning then: Roland would have included an interface that allowed users to use them natively from the GX itself (similar to the SN Eps), but allowing any new ARX board to be integrated, say in a dedicated expansion mode on the GX (like the current expansion A/B mode)

As far as all the recording stuff, that is not what the GX was intended to be. It's a stage piano and Roland would rather you buy a Fantom for ANY type of sequencing or recording.....thats fair enough : )

Roland could put every sample they've ever done in there for almost nothing - so why not? PC ROMplers are killing them and yet they hold back on dated old sample sets - what gives?

If for nothing else, throw it all in just to give Yamaha a heart attack. Roland's got great keys (though please ditch the "ivory feel" guys) and the best APs going, why not make a drop-dead stage piano? Why hold anything back? Are they afraid someone somewhere won't buy a crummy old SRX card? This entire market makes no sense to me. It's like they're living back in the mid 90's technologically.

i also fail to understand the *obsolete* srx comments.. unless of course you simply do not want any additional patches, in which case simply do not use them.

the RD is a stage piano and has no sequencer or workstation pretentions.. yes like others i was a little irritated that i could not lay down evven a single part to practice with.. but then it would be 2, 2 + rhythm, then edit the rhythm pattern, then add effects.. then the screen is to small.. but its a stage piano... it doesnt even have a metronome?.. gasp throw it away...

it took me all of 7 minutes to hook up the usb record into sonar and drop the midi file onto a usb stick.. far less than the time it took to write this email.

The value and benefit of the RD is the awesome playability.. and great piano sounds.. now that sounds like a stage piano to me... but if you want something that does not play quite as well, and does not sound quite as good then get a fantom G8 or an XF8, pay the $1000 extra and you can record ad infinitum

> "i also fail to understand the *obsolete* srx comments.. unless of course you simply do not want any additional patches, in which case simply do not use them."

They are quite old, and hold a max of 64MB I believe. That's only six minutes of sample time total (stereo, 16 bit, 44.1kHz), divided by 88 keys is 4 seconds a key. Not nearly enough to do anything recording quality or to not hear things like looping, stretching, layer switching, etc.

>"it doesnt even have a metronome?.. gasp throw it away... "

It really should have a metronome. The CP series has metronomes, hell every DP I've ever seen has a metronome.

>"...but if you want something that does not play quite as well, and does not sound quite as good then get a fantom G8 or an XF8, pay the $1000 extra and you can record ad infinitum"

Why would I want something that doesn't play or sound as good just to get simple WAV recording? This isn't a zero sum game, Roland can put anything they want in there. The CP series can do it, most new DPs can do it, why not put this simple functionality in the RD? For many it is a hardship to bring a computer anywhere near their DP. If I could record a simple MIDI file to USB, edit that on my PC, then plug it back in and render it to WAV it would be a tremendous benefit to me. I'm not talking full blown sequencer here at all.

RD its a nice hardware, no one saying anything different from this, but some "BASIC" functions like record and metronome can be useful to people that lives more off than in home or studio playing, and YES, to people that want improvise, and record a few moments before a backtrack to solos or features...

Its easy to people that stay in their homes or studio, to live players can solve a lot of problems, just a simple record.

Its a shame a powerfull machine like RD, has no record.

I dont disagree that it would have been nice for midi recording to have been built in.. but its not and Roland is NOT going to redesign the hardware of the RD700GX, its that simple.. mebbe in a GX replacement, but feature creep is an issue across the board.

These are things that are really really easy to work around.. a pocket recorder, netbook or even your iphone..

My point is.. i would trade missing features i can workaround for benefits i cannot replace at any time.... and i would not trade the sound quality or playability for minor, irritating feature shortfalls... a metronome is easy to make as a mid file..one sits on my usb stick along with other rhythms i like.

Whats a better alternative to the RD?.... get an S90XS and you will get your audio recording.. and lose playability and sound quality.. Korg SV1 ditto on playability but at least it has some good EP.. its a narrow field, and as a PIANO first and foremost it both sounds and plays great.

2c gone!..lol, M38

I suppose thats not a hardware matter:

1 - We can upgrade the software
We can receive an upgrade, like I received in GX1

2 - We can record files on the USB
RD its capable of create files on USB devices with no problem

3 - RD can read and playback on background
RD have enough processor/memory to playback a MID or a MP3, thats in the second case, its a lot heavier than MID.

If we analise this points, my guess is thats perfectly viable record a MID file by a software update without harware involved.

As we see on FG in the past, its a characterisc of Roland release half backed OS, my hopes lies on that.