Roland RD700GX and SRX-12

22 Mar 2011, 05:10

Had the GX a few weeks now and am realising the epianos are sub par even with all the supernatural hype..

I heard some SRX-12 demos and thought they sounded pretty good but am wanting to confirm a few things before purchasing one.

a) does the GX already contain the SRX-12 in some form
b) there are extra sounds available on the SRX-12 which are available to the Fantom but not the old RD-SX... but what about the GX
c) what are other GX owners feelings about the GX epianos?

Just some background on me. I've been a jazz fan since the 80s and have owned three fender rhodes pianos... so maybe I am a little picky.. currently have a Stage MkII right by the GX.

Re: Roland RD700GX and SRX-12

22 Mar 2011, 19:22

I am also a jazz fan for 20+ years and am on Rhodes No.4 atm (a Stage MkII)

Here are my answers to your comments.
a) no
b) not available to GX either
c) I hate the SN stuff but I am a big fan of NY Epiano... beautiful chill out rhodes esp when you tweak the MFX knobs a little!

Overall the SRX-12 is a bit dated now, I never use mine and in 2011 I don't think its good value for money especially as I think some of the EPianos in the GX already are getting close to the SRX.

Re: Roland RD700GX and SRX-12

23 Mar 2011, 08:03

Orangefunk is right about all that he has said. I've been missing in action from this forum because I got rid of my RD700GX(F) and went around the "world" with various digital stage pianos. I went from an Kawai MP6 to a Korg SV-1 and then a Yamaha CP5 and came back "home" to Roland with the RD700NX...go figure, lol! I too am a Rhodes fanatic and was frustrated with my GX(F) because if tweaked it allowed you to get in the ball park of a classic Fender Rhodes era suitcase piano. However you had to tweak the hell out of it and there was still something wrong with the character. The closest digital stage piano that gave me what I wanted out the box was the Yamaha CP5. However, the user interface sucked and most importantly the action was waaaay too light. I decided to give the RD700NX a try and really examined the EP sounds and discovered that Roland did in fact tweak them from the GX. I'm talking able subtle character differences. Where the GX had a problem with the initial attack and some release issues, the NX has been corrected. Now I can actually make SMALL tweaks to the sound and get what I want. Again the factory presets are no good and you will have to change the velocity settings in addition to some minor tweaks in the character of the tone, but on the NX it actually yields postive convincing results! The initial attack and the release phase of the NX are greatly improved from the GX.

Just wanted to give my two cents on the issue.

Re: Roland RD700GX and SRX-12

20 Aug 2011, 07:48

The SRX-12 migh be a bit dated in terms of technical design ( just 4 velocity layers etc.) but not necessarily in sound quality.

But all in all there's basically just one Rhodes sound. The others are more or less just variations.

There might be some sound programs that are available on the Fantom only but of course all of the waveforms are accessible from RDs.

This one Rhodes sound however is really really great, very well tweakable in any direction, still the best Rhodes sound available from Roland, to me even better than my Nord Stage EX's Rhodes sounds and the main reason why I did not change to the RD-700NX.