Gem Pro-Mega 2

I have owned this keyboard from new since October 2004
it is far and away the best portable digital piano i hve played and i have been playing for over 20 years and owned a lot of pianos - Wurli, Clavi D6, Yamaha p100 (still great practice piano) Roland RD 700 (unplayable and returned to shop), Roland FP-3 - (OK but not for solo piano) and loads of synths etc
The promega is still the best piano out there - more on sounds later

To use - Plug and play - the interface is designed by keyboard players for keypoard players - real sliders for independent parts on the board, MIDI in and out all great. You really notice that this this keyboard is for playing LIVE - tweaking the EQ makes a big difference and playing the pianos in stereo makes a huge difference (the mono sum on one output is a bit feeble)

the output level is very very low out of the main outs - I dont know why and this causes an issue when using smaller pa gear with no mixer (which you dont need because there is a dedicated input and volume slider for other stereo input - great!!)

finaly it fits in a 76 note bag - because the wheels are high up on the keyboard - again fantastic for portability

Polyphony is great - the DRAKE system covers that. The built in effects are fine - editable and the compression etc very useful if you want a lot of snarl in your sound - effects are plenty for live playing - the preset sounds are a bit swamped in heavy EQ and reverb - but you wont be using them you will be making your own
the board divides into three areas - pianos in one section and then other electronic keys section 2 and then miscellaneous in 3 - you can easily split and layer and also run them as seperate midi sounds - all program and midid channel assigments can be saved per patch - of which there are 64 which is plenty because of the quality of the sounds
a great live keyboard and midi soundsource and midi controller and NOT a workstation but a keyboard to play live on

pianos are - erm - amazing - the 10' Fazioli has everything you would need - i sometimes use a SRM 450 but two SRM350s sound much much better for the stereo effect to be there on stage
the rhodes is so good i thought that they had one in the shop when i wasnt looking - apparently GEM modelled it on Stevie WOnder's rhodes - which they bought and took to the factory for the purpose
Wurli - also great
After that Clav - adequate only - I havent bothered assigning controler pedals to wah wah etc, organs - I aplay a lot of hammond so would only use these if desperate (have gigged in that position with PC crashed on gig) - strings great if you use some compression on them (depending on what sound you need) vibes etc are really just workstation sounds to my ears - the church organ is amazing and the acoustic bass with ride sounds great - but you dont ever really use it
action(fatar) is, well, fatar but you get used to it - i mainly use this for PIANO and occasional strings - it is a GREAT piano and electric piano NOT a workstation
I have recorded it and it is very difficult to tell that it is not a real acoustic
this is the best piano that you can buy in its class and is HUGELY better than the offerings i=from ROland and Yamaha
the pianos are so good that you only need a couple of sounds - because they sound like they are meant to
it is like having the instrument on stage with you
try it and you will see
velocity aftertouch all send receive etc
the insides of the board is a PC - looking motherboard with PCI slot - so it looks like they were going for an upgrade but in fouryears i havent heard of one ! (apart from OS upgrades which i get through the distributor in the UK

October 04(when purchased) had a digital problem in the section II which was very irritating - had to have a new board fitted and had a substitute promega supplied for gigging while that happened
then 2007 somee dude at a gig was in a hurry - and even though i asked him not to he picked up the piano - and obviously dropped it although i didnt see that - had to have a new motherboard etc etc - mind you it is a new piano (again)
build quality is a bit of an issue - this is not nearly as solid as a ymaha digital or equivalent

not great - i have had two repairs and the distribution and business side of GEM is not terriffic
i do know where to get it repaaired - but on the other hand i have not had a keyboard ewhich has had to go to the shop twice - although usually i dont let people drop them either
the guys have been great but this is potentially a bit of an issue in general
i use it a couple of times a week though and it always powers up - accidents notwithstanding -but i di di running repairs on keyboard cheeks and jacks....

i would et anohter one straight away
it is a great board and i have never had anything like as good a piano to use and be portable
as i said above it is in another class compared to its competition
these [ianos would outsell everything if gem was a bigger and better company
On that note i notice that the prp800 and prp700 are out - they have the same sounds in them - that is probably what i would get the second time - although the MIDI and program implementation is not nearly so good and you cant do splits and lots of layers - on the other hand it is a piano not a workstation

It's really easy to use. Need to look at the manual for some preset-related things, and also for tweaking. I didn't get a manual with mine as I bought it used but you can get it off the internet quite easily.

Three sections -- Piano, Vintage Piano and Bass/Other. Each section has a dial of sounds. You can use any combination of those sections at once, and transpose in octaves for each section if required. Up to two effects can be used -- Various Reverbs and/or Profx, and these can be activated or deactivated per section.

There's also a 4 band graphic eq at the end if you choose to use it. The controls are all laid out very well, except that the transpose and demo buttons are too close to the keyboard!

160 note polyphony is great! I've noticed that while playing some of the electric piano sounds, the polyphony might act differently - if you play the same key twice with the sustain pedal, it will trigger it twice rather than cut off the first one. This obviously limits the polyphony, but is still OK if using Vintage Piano on its own. You will notice it if you're playing something crazy with pedalling, doing Vintage Piano and one of the other panels at the same time. Not really an issue.

It has got a port to connect to a computer (I think it's an RS-1 port) but not many computers would have direct connection for RS-1, so I think it's mainly used for repair people and the like for software updates.

I love that it has an AC input, rather than a DC adaptor like half of the other "professional" keyboards out there! (such as the Roland RD300SX and Kurzweil PC88X and PC2X)

The piano sounds are, on the whole very good. As one other reviewer noticed, in general, the bass end seems to be a little too loud in comparison to the top end of the pianos, especially ST. GRAND 1. This can be fixed to some degree with equalisation on the piano. When playing in MONO, it is not so much of a problem. The UPRIGHT preset sounds very good. CP GRAND is very convincing as is HONKY.

DRAKE works very well, and you can do some extended piano techniques that are not possible on other keyboards, such as depressing keys silently and then playing to get sympathetic resonance. You can also release notes and then put the sustain pedal on quickly afterwards and still get notes ringing, like a real piano, however I've found that real pianos have much more ring to them than the GEM. The slower damping on some of the electric pianos is a really nice effect.

The difference between registers on the piano is probably exaggerated a tiny bit as well, for example at the parts where the piano changes from 1 string / note, to 2 strings / note to 3 strings / note etc, and where the dampers stop. Perhaps this was part of making the piano sound "ultra-realistic". The effect is not too bad though, and doesn't really bother me too much.

The electric pianos are fairly good as well, but I do wish you could get a bit more "bite" when you play with more attack. This can be corrected to some degree by turning down the touch sensitivity a little bit. Some of them have more bite than the others, such as the Rhodes 2. They also tend to muddy a little bit when using the sustain pedal. Again they're a tiny bit bass heavy.

The final panel contains some interesting sounds. It would be nice if they had included sounds that keyboard players always get asked to cover for -- Harp and Celeste for example. There are also a around 10 drum samples at the top of the BASS presets, but they're missing a vital snare sample, which is a bit annoying. The ride sample sounds absolutely amazing though. There's a bass/ride preset as well which sounds pretty good. The bass samples are good, they have a bit of vibrato on the top notes which sounds very realistic. The ROCK ORGAN preset sounds a bit woofy, but the JAZZ ORGAN is pretty usable.

The effects panel has plenty of effects but GEM seems to have overlooked distortion sadly. The reverb panel probably has a bit too many reverbs (many of them sound basically indistinguishable), so it would have been nice to sacrifice a few of their reverbs for something like distortion.

The keyboard touch is probably a tiny bit lighter than most grand pianos, but it felt quite suitable for playing the pianos regardless. As I have said, you need to play quite hard to get "bite" out of the electric pianos, but it is not a big problem. I've also noticed that if doing very light glissandos, not all the notes will speak as they would on a grand. This not really a problem because I don't think many people play glissandos really lightly ...

I've heard that the earlier OSes for the promega 2 were a bit unreliable, and know someone who's GEM broke down twice whilst using the earlier OSes in the first 2 years of its life (bought in 2002). I'm not sure what OS I'm using but I think it would be ok.

It does take about 1:10 to turn on, because DRAKE has to sort itself out. The standby button overcomes this, but losing power during a gig would be a bit iffy.

Haven't dealt with them.

I think its worth the $2000 AUD I payed for it. It came with a case and also a stand with inbuilt speakers (manafactured by GEM) which sound great.

I used to play on a Yamaha P-70 live, but it was a pain the bottom because it's DC jack broke, and it only had stereo headphone outputs. (The Yamaha P-70 is not a serious keyboard.)

At the moment, I've got the Yamaha P-70 and a Nord Lead 2. I've also got a fair bit of guitar gear but you probably don't care about that.

I haven't gigged with it yet but I will be. I play in a rock band but I also play lots of musical theatre and I play in a dixieland jazz band as well. I play guitar and cello as well. I've been playing piano for 11 years now.

I compared it to the Kurzweil PC88X and PC2X (piano sounds not good enough and had DC in), Roland RD300SX (bad interface, DC in), Kawai MP9500 (just too heavy, 32kg), M-Audio Prokeys 88 (just plain bad)

By the time I bought this, it was either going to be the Nord Electro 73 or this. When I tried out the Electro, I realised that the keys were weighted beautifully for organs and electric pianos but just didn't feel right for playing piano on it. Since I'm a pianist first, this was a problem for me. Also, the fact that it only had 73 keys was worrying me. I was considering buying a Nord Electro Rack and a MIDI controller, but I tried out this keyboard and was blown away. It weighs about 25 kg, which is about 15 kg more than the Electro 73, but most of the keyboards in its class weigh about that much.

I wish it had distortion on the effects part, and sounds for Harp and Celeste (even though I dont' use them that much). It would also be nice to have more organs and possibly more bite in the electric piano section. A USB out would be great too.

Considering it had a case, speakers and stand I'd say the $2000 AUD is an absolute bargain, because they sell new and alone here for around $3500.

I'd recommend this keyboard, but please make sure you try it before you buy it.

Easy to use

good action

Good piano and vintage sounds, orgaN SOUNDS AVERAGE. aS ANOTHER REVIEWER noticed, playing live, the upper register is very weak compared to the bass. I have used it live at Rock and Jazz gigs and
other members of the bands have noticed how weak the sound is once
you get an octave above middle c, compared to notes below middle c. This is a major defect.Sounds great through headphones though. Anyone got suggestions how to fix this problem?

hAVE USED IT AT ABOUT 10 GIGS SO FAR, IS RELIABLE

For above reasons wouldn't recommend it for anyone who plays live
for a living. Have only purchased recently, so only used it at 10 gigs.

Very simple front panel layout. It takes a minute to boot up though.

This has 160 voices of polyphony. It seems to have a hammer action but personally I found to be too light and too "shallow" (compared to Kawai's MP9000). I didn't buy it because of this. It's not bad though if you don't mind a lighter action. I recommend you try before you buy.

This piano uses physical modelling entirely for the Rhodes, Wurly, and Clavinet sounds. They have a realistic full sound that you can "dig into" and get a nice overdrive sound. (One of the rhodes patches sounds a little weak in the upper octaves though.) Also there's a little bit of digital distortion I could hear using headphones. But overall they're excellent. The piano sounds are based upon samples and it uses a database to reconstruct the sounds based on the key velocity. As a result there is no audible velocity switching and it has a tremendous dynamic range. It also has a physically modelled sympathetic resonance which is very realistic. I've tried all major brands of digital pianos and found this to be the best sounding.

They answered most of my inquires about it.

I tried this at a store in Windsor Ontario. It sounded so nice that I was sorry to not buy it. But I'm so used to Kawai's excellent MP9000 action. I expect that Kawai will improve the sounds on their next digital.

The layout is so intuitive, I think the manual is superfluous.

I did not try a lot of competeing keyboards- the only keyboards available where I live with a suitable acoustic piano sound were the Roland RD 700 and this one. The Roland has more sounds available.

Here's where I want to comment. I have read the reviews, on this site, of the Promega 3, big brother to the Promega 2, and you should too. Most of what the reviewers say about the Promega 3 is also true for the Promega 2. However, in the end, I rejected the Promega 2 and got the Roland RD700 instead (In a close and difficult decision). I want to say why and see if anybody else notices what I noticed.
When you play long individual notes, or slow dreamy ballads, the Promega 2 sound incredibly real and has a wonderful singing quality to it, not shared by the Roland product, and I can see why everyone seems to favor the Promega product. (I'm speaking about the grand piano patches now) However, it's when one plays fast, or there are a lot of things happening at once, that the Promega's performance becomes questionable. As an example - try playing a boogie woogie bass line with the left hand and a trill with the right. A few notes into the trill, the notes seem to lose the highs or mush out- you have to increase your velocity to get the same brilliance. This doesn't happen with the Roland - keeping the same velocity keeps the sound of the trill uniform. Inotherwords, although the Promega seems to have a more authentic sound with slow simple playing, as soon as it comes to "busier" passages, it seems to lose the overtones and begins to sound mushy. The sound of the Roland, though slightly inferior, persists in busy passages, and thus, for me at least, is more useable.
I should note that I play mainly boogie woogie and stride styles. If I played a quieter style with more use of long notes, I would have agreed with the promega 3 reviewers that it is superior.
I mainly use acoustic piano patches, and my observations above are based on that. But I should mention: The clavinette patch in the promega 2 is FAR superior to the corresponding patch on the Roland. The Rhodes patches on the promega are also slightly superior in that they capture a slight distortion at higher velocities. The Bass patches on the Roland were more varied and useable.

I borrowed the keyboard and took it home to try for a week. No problems.

n/a

As I said, I chose the Roland RD700 over the Promega 2 in a close decision. The only other brands I tried in a similar price range were the Yamaha and the Technics, both of which seemed far inferior.
One limitation of the promega 2 was this: the Bass patches are on the same selection wheel as the organ patches, so if I wanted to set up a split with bass on the left and organ on the right, I couldn't. Mind you, I didn't bring the manual home - there might be a simple solution to this problem - but if you foresee using that configuration, it's something you should try to resolve before you buy.
I will probably spend the next 10 years wondering if I made the right decision in going with the RD700 over the Promega 2. I'd appreciate an e-mail from anyone who notices a similar problem with the promega 2, or has a fix for it.