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Home > Synth > Keyboard And MIDI Reviews > Edirol > PCR-50

Edirol PCR-50

Summary
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Edirol PCR-500 USB MIDI Keyboard Controller @ Musician's Friend
Manufacturer URL http://www.rolandus.com/edirol
Ease of Use 7.3 (30 responses)
Features 7.1 (28 responses)
Expressiveness/Sounds 5.6 (15 responses)
Reliability 3.6 (26 responses)
Customer Support 6.3 (12 responses)
Overall Rating 4.1 (30 responses)
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Product: Edirol PCR-50
Price Paid: UNKNOWN
Submitted 09/15/2009 at 09:51pm by LUIS CORTEZ
Email: myndlessproduktions<at>gmail dot com

Ease of Use : No Opinion
I just bought one and had it for only 6 months and now all I have is a big piece of@#$#@%^$%^#^$#$^ plastic sitting in my home studio DONT BUY IT ROLAND BURNED ME BAD, AFTER BIENG A LOYAL CUSTOMER FOR TEN YEARS.

Features : No Opinion
IT SUCKS NO KEYS WORK AFTER TIME GOES IN AND SETTLE

Expressiveness/Sounds : No Opinion
HATE IT

Reliability : No Opinion
IT SUCKED *** MAJORLY

Customer Support : No Opinion
JUST SEND IT BACK AND HOPE THEY CAN FIX IT IF NOT MAY GOD RELEAVE YOU OF STRESS

Overall Rating : No Opinion
LIKE I SAID IT SUCKED BIG TIME


Product: Edirol PCR-50
Price Paid: USD 250
Submitted 08/06/2009 at 07:37pm by ignot

Ease of Use : 7

Features : 7

Expressiveness/Sounds : 5

Reliability : 1
Nice keyboard but after two years of use I have one dead key. As what I see I'm not alone.!!!

Customer Support : No Opinion

Overall Rating : 1
They should made it better!


Product: Edirol PCR-50
Price Paid: UNKNOWN
Submitted 02/27/2009 at 06:36pm by dickknox

Ease of Use : 10
Easy

Features : 5
Velocity sensitive keys
Wonderful feel

Expressiveness/Sounds : 5
good velocity and aftertouch

Reliability : 5
Others have documented the key problem
I just bought a used unit via ebay and 11 keys were dead.
the following page
http://www.fixya.com/support/t451937-replacing_key_contacts
tells how to fix them
The problem is that the contacts are not conductive - apparently whatever made them conductive evaporates with time.
Very easy solution - see above - open the unit - remove the keys pull off the rubber strips.
At each pair of contacts on the strip coat them with powered graphite.
Real pain putting the strips back n - be patient
Mone now works like new!!! :)

Before I did this i tried cleaning the contacts - it made it worse.

Customer Support : No Opinion
They want $145 to replace the keyboard

Overall Rating : No Opinion
I like it but the manual is hard to read


Product: Edirol PCR-50
Price Paid: UNKNOWN
Submitted 02/17/2009 at 02:56pm by cl

Ease of Use : No Opinion

Features : No Opinion

Expressiveness/Sounds : No Opinion

Reliability : No Opinion

Customer Support : 10
Dead Key Issue..
Roland knows they have a problem, (they said so.. amazing!)... It's out of warrenty (by a couple of years) so when they said "send it in", and they said "No charge".... I 'bout fell over. They SAY they have problem solved with new keyboard... I'm taking them at their word (at least cant beat the repair price ($0).

Overall Rating : No Opinion
Used basically as a back-up board or lower board on CX3. HAve used it to run parameters on XV5050. At the time.. it was cheap, (and worked)


Product: Edirol PCR-50
Price Paid: UNKNOWN
Submitted 09/21/2008 at 11:01am by Greg

Ease of Use : 5
Since I only use basic midi I had no problem

Features : 5
More than I need.

Expressiveness/Sounds : 2
Worked great when new.

Reliability : 2
DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS DEAD KEYS UNRESPONSIVE KEYS. AND DON'T TRY TO FIX IT. I DID EXACLTY WHAT ONE REVIEWER SAID AND I MADE IT WORSE. I NOW HAVE A WORTHLESS PC OF PLASTIC.

Customer Support : 2
Don't know.

Overall Rating : 1
DON'T BUY ONE.


Product: Edirol PCR-50
Price Paid: USD 225 USED
Submitted 03/10/2008 at 01:04pm by neguscat
Email: cl at hyperdensity<dot>net

Ease of Use : No Opinion

Features : No Opinion

Expressiveness/Sounds : No Opinion

Reliability : No Opinion

Customer Support : 7
Contact rubber on the keys is known to dry prematurely; Roland US fixed the problem a couple of years ago; still working fine. Give it a try; it's a shame to throw a cool controller like this in the trash. Peace.

Overall Rating : No Opinion


Product: Edirol PCR-50
Price Paid: UNKNOWN
Submitted 01/12/2008 at 05:13am by Roberto

Ease of Use : 7
Good

Features : 7
Good

Expressiveness/Sounds : 5
Keys have never had the right feeling even when new.

Reliability : 2
Stopped to work after a bit more than 1 year. I used it maybe 10 times before the keys started to not work

Customer Support : No Opinion
dont know.. never tried to contact them

Overall Rating : 3
Dont buy that piece of plastic is useless since it stop to work after just a year even if you leave it in his case.


Product: Edirol PCR-50
Price Paid: N/A
Submitted 07/08/2006 at 09:29am by Brendan

Ease of Use : 7
Takes getting used to, but once you know how their menu system works, it's pretty easy to change parameters.

Features : 9
When I opted for this one over and M-audio radium, I chose the edirol for its higher resolution knobs/sliders and buttons. Compared to some of the other controllers I've tried (Raduim and EMU xboard), I still like the layout of this the best.

Expressiveness/Sounds : 7
N/A as others have said before. However, this was my first velocity sensitive keyboard, so I was initially thrilled by the simple fact that I could be expressive when running soft synths. This one doesn't have the option to set velocity curves like the PCR-M series, and only lets you change what amounts to a "velocity threshold," the default setting of which sucks for playing piano-type sounds (too much velocity). The other thing I wish it had was real aftertouch. Shame on edirol for using that word in their advertizements; the only thing close to aftertouch is changing that particular CC with a slider--you could do that with any controller. The EMU xboard (which I now own- see below) has actual aftertouch, which is a really cool feature if you program your synth to take advantage of it.

Reliability : 3
Here's where this unit takes a big hit, but IT CAN BE REPAIRED. Like a number of others have reported, I started getting dead keys shortly after the warrenty would have expired. This was the only product I've ever had an extended warrenty on, though I had some inital trouble getting Guitar Center to make good on it. Long story short, I was able to get the Xboard for free, have a few bucks for store credit AND keep the semi-functional edirol.

HOW TO FIX DEAD KEYS
Since the warrenty bought me a new board, I decided to take the Edirol apart and see if I could fix it. After opening it up and taking apart the keyboard mechanism (which involves removed the spring from the individual keys--very time consuming), you'll find a rubber contact strip, which can be pulled away from the PCB. Get a pink-type pencil eraser and lightly rub the two contact points on the PCB, then the black contact points on the strip itself. This apparently gets rid of whatever oxidation might be make the key unresponsive. I did this for every key, put it back together, and it works like new.

Here's the bummer part. After fixing it I tried to tighten the usb jack, since it was loose and breaking the connection to my computer. I broke the jack in the process--so I've got a working keyboard that I can't use through USB anymore--only MIDI. Bummer.

So, reliabilty kind of sucks, but I wanted to let people know that it is possible to repair some of those dead keys, if you've got some free time on your hands.

Customer Support : No Opinion

Overall Rating : No Opinion


Product: Edirol PCR-50
Price Paid: N/A
Submitted 05/17/2006 at 07:49pm by Nonegatives
Email: nonegatives<at>hotmail dot com

Ease of Use : 6
Difficult to set up without the PCR editor software. Multifunction keys take awhile to change settings.

Features : 7
Keyboard action requires a lot of pressure to get decent volume. Newer M series should help with adjustable sensitivity. The sliders and knobs worked as I expected them to.

Expressiveness/Sounds : No Opinion

Reliability : 1
The Chinese sure know how to make something work great until 1 day after the warranty. Same dead keys as others, though the other controls are fine.

Customer Support : No Opinion
Never called them, don't plan to ever deal with this company ever again.

Overall Rating : 1
If lost or stolen, I would thank them. I just put it outside for the trash.


Product: Edirol PCR-50
Price Paid: US $299.99
Submitted 02/16/2006 at 06:31pm by Hvordan

Ease of Use : 7
Easy enough to use. I'm a hobbyist that just wanted something to hook up to control Reason. Easy to change knob assignments with the included editor.

Features : No Opinion
I'm not qualified to answer this.

Expressiveness/Sounds : No Opinion
No sound - MIDI only.

Reliability : 2
The reliability is absolutly unacceptable. It doesn't get a lot of action, and is getting less and less action as more and more keys stop working. It is absolutly useless at the moment, as about 50% of the keys have stopped responding.

Customer Support : No Opinion
It's too old to bother as warranty is long gone.

Overall Rating : 1
I will never touch another Edirol product.

This was a waste of (unfortunatly rather limited) funds.

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