Generalmusic Promega 2

Love some of the presets, but have ability to change them totally and save them as my own presets; good feature! The manual is OK, but could be better, but instrument explaina itself, and you get the hang of all the controls within a week.

Plenty of polyphony. May use it in the future, though!

The piano sounds are fantastic, expecially the Fazioli 10' grand, and the rock piano is one of my favorites as well, and is good for jazz.
Lotys of ablity of change ambiance (echo), loudness, other effects, brigthness, touch, has an equalizer, etc.

Seems solidly made and reliable. No glitches in the sound whatsoever.

Excellent, but if you can afford it, go for the Promega 3; I played that at a store, and it's better and has slightly better action (a little heavier).

Harpsichord sound is also one of the best I have heard on a digital, I I ought to know, as I own the real thing as well. Very imprssive, and ability to tune to historical tunings as well.

Only thing I regret is that it takes a mintue to warm up, but the stand-by button is great to have it ready right away again.

Other than that: no complaints; it's the ebst digital piano around,a dn I am very finnciky, have played large Steinways and Bosendorfers, and this thing comes pretty darn close to the Imperial Bosendorfer.

If had an action like a real grand, that would be great. It has everything else and then some....

I wish it had more internal sounds; but they are easy to get by using a PC and software, which I what I am planning next. I now feel liek: why did I wait so long to get into digital?

Regrets: I wish you could layer octaves, and make the sound fuller.

No Menus upon sub menus to get lost in. Hurrah!!! How many times have you forgotten why you sat down at the keyoard because you got so lost in menus an confusing operating systems? Not the case with Promega 2. I am now playing more music now.

Polyphone of 160 is more than adequate. Keyboard action is fast - alhough I had a hard time getting keyobard to respond to very light touch. Effects are nice and easy to tweek. Not sure about expansion. Although I opened the lid and noticed this keyboard uses a computer like mother board with 4 PCI slots. Only one used with DRAKE card and chip installed. May be expandable.

When playing the Piano sounds, rhodes, Wurly alone they sound awesome, inspiring, great. Having a hard time getting sounds to blend well in live applications.Rhodes needs Low EQs cut and Hi EQs raised
Hi registar of piano sounds seems a little too thin to cut through on leads.

So far since Apr 03, so good. I was able to use a 76 key Gator Case to hold keyboard. Saves room and weight for the gigging musician.
1 minute boot up time for operating system concerns me - what if I am in middle of live show and power is interrupted for a second. DO I have to wait a whole minute for the keyboard to reboot?

Dealt with company reps via email and they were very helpful. Purchased from USA headquarters because I could not get any support from local music stores in MD DC VA area to get keyboard.

I love the way the piano sounds when played alone without competing against other instruments. Best digital piano experience I have had. Been playing for 25 years. I hate the 1 minute boot up time and the thin sound in upper register when playing in live applications.

Ok, at first English is not my native tongue, so bear with me :-)

This is a BRIEF REVIEW!!

I'm a keyboardist who had been playing in bands for several years now.
Started my career in arround 1994, I have played on many boards arround. People whom I played with, say i'm a perfectionist as of sound characteristics in total. Ok enough about me..

When I unpacked the board from it's shipping box, I noticed the nice interface staring at me. It did felt like it was begging "touch me, please!". The interface of the board has been done brilliantly well. Easy to use knobs and faders and buttons. You can use the board allmost without ever needing to start reading the manual supplied. When I powered up the board, I noticed that it took like allmost a minute before I could start playing! This, because it was loading the DRAKE computer calculations and effects. As soon as I played the first chords on the board, it felt like playing a real piano again.
Very, very impressive! You can, if you really want to, change the FX, EQ and layer settings like you wish. After finishing, you can store the new settings in one of the 63 user memory slots. If you do start reading the supplied manual, you've noticed that it has been written with the beginner in mind. Very nice done.

The board had a polyphony of 120 Notes. For me that's way too much :P
I have only 10 vingers who can press the keys at one time! But if you add e.g. a layer to the piano sound, you need 20 Notes polyphony. *ten for each layer* There are situations thinkable, where you might actually need like say 100 notes of polyphony. But for the general player, this is way too much :P. The build in FX are great. Very clean reverbs, etc. They're all adjustable to your own liking. The keys on this board are very nice to play on. Superb feeling, I might add. Although the hammer action is not that good. It still has a bit of a synth touch. But in general it's a very keyboard to play on! Most digital piano's i've played, are very unpleasant to play with..
The board has the basic MIDI functions, who you'll find on any digital board (like synths, keyboards, dig. piano's). 16 channels to choose from. 3 MIDI ports (IN / OUT / THRU). You can even assign midi functions to the Pitch and modulation wheels! There is no sequencer onboard.

Ok, let's say it.. this board has IMHO, the BEST grand piano imitation every heard before on a digital piano!!!
The sound is just 98,9 % close to the real thing. Magnificent!!
The electronic piano sounds are like 100% an exact copy of the original Wurlies and rhodes.. Stunning realism.. The sound are suitable for any type of music (as long as it needs piano sound in it, duh :P), form classical pieces to rock pieces and everything in between. Every time era has had it's on piano style (like the 1970's with the Rhodes/wurlies) All these piano flavours are included, and done brilliantly well! De sounds are adjusting to your touch (just like a real piano does), so it plays like your actually playing a real piano, what do don't offcourse.. or are you.... :-)
The velocity is done nicely.. realistic etc.

Well, the board feels very stable. The keys feel robust.. so, I think this board will stand the standard abuse it gets by using it on stage.
So, no backup needed.

No idea..

My conclusion is this:
If you do like realistic piano sounds buy this Promega board imidiately!
If you are a demanding keyboardist (lik myself), buy one also.
I'm sorry to say, that I was a person who (untill now) hated GEM boards because of the unrealistic sounds. But the Promega has changed all this. Yamaha, Roland etc. can learn a lesson from this.. use other sound systems, like Gem's DRAKE technology. It proofs that digital piano's DO can produce very 98.9% close piano imitations of the real instrument, from now on...

Overall, I found this to be a wonderful sounding, easy to use, stage performance 88 keyboard. I have been playing digital pianos for over 20 years and this one is probably the best overall sounding pianos I have ever played. Enough of the sweet talk. Do any keyboards have ALL great sounds? Well, the Pro Mega-2 has some of the finest pianos, strings, vintage keys that a professional keyboard player would love. However, although the organs were good, and would work well in a gig, I wish they had more leslie and overdrive. Why can't these keyboard companies make a keyboard that has the big three...i.e piano, vintage keys and a real fat organ? More on that later...The Pro Mega-2 has a sleek aluminum styled outer cabinet. Without reading the manual (which is an easy read, btw) I was up and running layering fat piano and strings together in minutes. I ran it stereo into some non- descript speakers and it sounded wonderful.

I believe it has 160 note polyphony and has a very realistic, solid action. I am a hard player and have broken a few keys before on a few Rolands, lets just hope this GEM one stands up to the abuse of a road musician (or was that rogue). The effects are very nice, reverbs, and delays are good. The wah does alright, however, I think the Yamaha Motiff has some of the coolest bizarre effects around. Its capable of being a controller too. I think it can control up to three additional units via midi. It does not have any sequencer onboard which does not really bother me, I am looking for a performance 88.

The pianos, rhodes, wurlies, and strings are as goog as it gets. The organ is good, however, I use a Roland VK-7 for true Hammond portability and tone. I wish it had a fatter organ with the leslie simulation like the VK-7. If it did, my road gear would decrease by one piece! The actual action and sensitivity were very realistic. The damper foot pedal aftertouch was amazing. I own a 7' concert grand and this has the same sound as sustaining the damper after a quick release, it opens up the strings. VERY realistic!

So far so good, I would keep a piano module around just in case for the time being, only because I have a backup. But I am very comfortable playing this board, and have full faith in its dependability.

I think this is one of the best breakthroughs in the digital piano world. I have owned Roland RD's, Korg T-1, Alesis QS-8, this, by far has the most realistic piano around.