Roland G-1000

This depends on the user also. I've been playing keyboards for about 24 years, so I found the g1000 to be very easy to use. Ofcourse this sort of keyboards will take some time to get used to. We are not talking about a simple Casio toy keyboard!

Superb keyboard. Has got nearly everything, not forgetting this is a keyboard of the late 90ies!

Great sounds; the only problem is I don't see any point of putting all the old sounds in (groups e and f. Could have some better sounds.

Very Reliable. I've been using mine for gigs for 8-9 years, didnt have a single problem!

Roland customer services has always been very good, quick and helpful.

We are now in 2007 and I still think G1000 is one of the best keyboard around this day, unless you are willing to spend mega ??$??$??$ !!!

original sofware. It is very good. I guess I do not know to much about other styles beside the latin ones.

It is not easy to use... specially if you want to make quick changes in sounds during a performance.

Sopme instruments are very realistic. Pianos and some brass. Other ones sound a little fake compared with other instruments from technics or Korg. The build in styles are nice but some of the styles in the ZIP sound awsome but unreallistic. Some latin styles are good and others not. I hate some of the salsa and merengue sounds. I have heard better. I am not satisfied with it. I usually have to add a drum machine to spice them up a little more.

i do depend on it. I made my own styles and I am getting around with it. Again, I use an additional drum machine to reinforce (power) the drums. FOR RECORDING IS REALLY GOOD! i like it!

SUPPORT? Which one? -----Up-dates? Can somebody tell me where to find them? I will never buy another roland instrument.

HAVE YOU GUYS HEAR THE ROLAND 5000? IT is a BEAUUUUTTY! It has some more addings to the styles and I guess it is easier to operate.
I like it because it is a little less heavier and easier to operate during a performance. The price in Canada is more and less $3500.00 can.

The G-1000 is a good piece of hardware. The presets sound realistic and perfect. The only problem that I run into is having too many options - which isn't a bad thing. It took me a while to figure out most of the options, but once I started to understand how the keyboard works, it became exponentially easier. I wish it would be easier to save my settings, but that might be because I'm still on OS version 1.01.

64 note polyphony - more than enough for me. The sequencer is almost flawless. It would be nice to edit the pitch bend for the sequencer, though. Also, individual effects per tracks would be a nice addition. The addition of SCSI and ZIP drive doesn't hurt.

The instruments are so real, you would swear that it wasn't a keyboard. Just about any style would benefit from this keyboard. I really like the effects, but it would be nice if you could add effects to individual tracks.

It's locked up on me once or twice, but it was very rare. Also, it could be because I haven't updated the OS on it.

I don't know...I never deal w/ them. The one time I had to take it into the shop to replace a key, it took two weeks to get it fixed. To Roland's credit, it really was not their fault as the authorized service centers aren't owned by Roland. It would be nice if there were more service centers out there instead of the one that was in the 300 mile radius I had to deal with at the time.

I like this keyboard. Some things that I would change (effects for the tracks, for example), don't really bother me. To anybody considering this keyboard I would suggest reading the manual beforehand.

Roland G-1000 is a great arranger workstation. It is quite easy to use and you can have many utilizations with it. It may though be a little complicated to use in live situations but I think you get used to it's logic. At least I did. My G-1000 was second-hand so I didn't get the original English manual. You can't edit patches much. Only little changes. You save every setups and sounds in user programs.

G-1000 has 64-voice polyphony and for most of the music it's enough. It's keyboard action is really good. It's not like some cheap keyboards toy-keys. 76 keys of G-1000 has semi-weighted feel. It has lot of great built-in effects. You can though have only one effect at a time in use. The built-in ZIP-drive (100 Mb) is good (It also has a floppy). If you use midi files on a gig then you must have ZIP. In a normal floppy disk you can have only about 40-60 songs. You can also have an external SCSI-drive connected to G-1000. It has sequencer and lots of music styles. You can have more styles and songs in ZIP. You can find styles from the internet.

Roland G-1000 synth is based on SC88-pro module.Instruments are realistic. All acoustic instruments are excellent. You may have to look for best sounds (for example, best piano can be found in Bank E11 and Finger bass in C52 and steel guitars in C42). Alto sax and flute 2 are one of my favourites. Electric guitars sound also realistic (Which is rare in synths). And drums sounds are nice and not too electric. Only Hammond organ and Leslie-simulations are not useable (in live). In sequencies they are passable. I have found only one decent organ sound (70's organ). Aftertouch and velocity are great.

Ihave used it for half a year in gigs and it has worked well. I would use it without a backup.

You can get a software update some where from the internet if you look for it. Not much of support from Roland though.

I think 76 keys is must have. I would propably buy Roland VA-76 (next generation from G-1000) or Yamaha 9000pro. But if you can get it as second-hand and slow price I think you should go for it.

The ease of use is very difficult, but finally easy. I am playing with this synth for over 2 years now and after these years I can manipulate this instrument.

The polyphony is great! Only the inbuild effects are difficult to use.The seqeuncer inside the G-1000 is quite good, but you cannot record resonance and that kind of things. That's a pity. But the sequencer is easy to use and I made many records with the inside one.

The sounds are just great! A great variety of professional sounds. Every day i hear new sounds coming out ofthis synth. From beautiful strings to incredible dance sounds. The velocity is good and the aftertouch is very bulky!

I can depend on it. And I use ot on a gig. Althouh sometimes it stucks and you have to restart the synth, but this situation happens very rarely.

Not so very good. There are almost no upgrades and in the beginning I asked for some help, but the company didn't react.

An incredible good instrument. I use it every day and people in my neighbourhood are amazed by hearing a record I made on the G-1000. I will say: If you want to make some good stuff, use the G-1000. Even after two years playing on this synth I amaze myself about what it can produce.

Software:none at present
The presets:(tones;patches)sound incredible to my ear.I am a guitarist/keyboardist who uses Roland midi and Boss equipment almost exclusively in a two man situation with a live drummer.The sounds soar!
Editing patches;editor:I honestly haven't used it.
Manual:Almost "all" Roland manuals may as well have been written in Japanese or some other foreign language.I read and speak English;U.S.

Polyphony:64;is fine;action is excellent.
Effects:I haven't tried to use the built in effects.The onboard preset effects seem to be very useful for most track and tone applications.
Expansion:What for?!If this unit were "actually" designed for general purpose uses it already has more onboard sounds,effects,etc.than most users would probably ever "need" to apply.
MIDI capabilities:The G-1000 tends to understand it's internal commands quite well.Certain external commands tend to be a little cryptic.When attempting to send an external CLICK! to your live drummer on stage (in live performance)there seems to be no way to isolate it so that it does not come through the "house system" as well as the drummer's head set.This is a "SERIOUS DRAWBACK"!This situation forces me to utilize my Korg X3 unit to run songs with "Click tracks".Maybe the G-1000 was not designed to be used with a live drummer;although the owner's manual indicates you should be able to do so.(This is not very clearly explained at all in the manual).
Sequencer:is fairly easy to work with but hides the neccessary info.
to assign channel selection (again an item not clearly defined enough in the manual).

Instrument sound realism:I would rate them very highly on a scale from
1-1000,as I have pointed out before in the tone rating section of this
personal review as being extremely close to if not at 1000.I have to admit the sounds "SEND ME".
Types of music:All types.
Onboard effects:TOP FLIGHT!Roland will "always" be the BEST!
Play reaction:Just fine.
Velo.and AFT:Just fine.

Can I depend on it?:So far.
Use it without a backup unit?:So far;absolutely not!I can't take that chance in my line of work with the need to rely on an instrument that will cover all the bases neccessary to get through an entire night of live performance. (At this point this is so but I'm not ready to give up trying and learning yet;the situation may yet improve).
Ultimately,I may well opt to go to a much more practical unit even though I've already put out much more than I could actually afford for
the G-1000 in the first place.
I live in an isolated location that has no music products outlets within 700 miles northeast and 1'050 miles south of me in Nome,Alaska
where I canot even try out any new products first hand.This of course is not your problem nor your fault.I simply rely on the history and
quality of Roland products because they are ordinarily failsafe and
certain.
If I had to do it again,I would never have purchased this JONAH!
It's understandable that this FLAGSHIP unit has been discontinued.
Really nice try,but SAD.
Better luck in the future.

Customer Support:So far,almost every tech support group I have contacted in practically every company I have dealt with has been "tremendously" dissatisfactory;Roland techs not excluded.
Roland techs are of such little help I have always wondered how they
even managed to land their cushy jobs.
Upgrade or repair:no

Lost or stolen:I'd never buy this unit again.(Where can I trade or get rid of it?!)
Worth what I paid:I want my money back!
How long have I been playing:Since 1961
What other gear do I own:Fender,Gibson,Peavey,Korg,Yamaha,Boss,Roland
W-30,GI-10 with G-K2a,Carvin,Tubeworks,Electro Voice,Galien Kruger,JBL
Nady.
Love/hate:That's a relationship I don't subscribe to.
I believe that's it.

I have to correct myself. My LEAD guitarist (not lad guitarist) showed me the errors of my ways by introduing me to the distorted guitar presets and the power guitar preset. The bass sounds coming out of this thing are incredible. I have to switch on the moog and do some comparing right up front. So whatever I said about guitar/bass sounding like crap, I was wrong and am fully ashamed to admit it.

THIS IS A GREAT SYNTHESIZER. WE DON'T HAVE AN OWNERS MANUAL (THE STORE LOST IT AND HAS TO ORDER ONE), BUT WE'RE REALLY HAVING A GREAT TIME. CAN'T WAIT UNTIL WE START MAKING UP OUR OWN SOUNDS. UNTIL THEN, THE FACTORY PRESETS ARE VERY ENTERTAINING AND EVEN USEFUL!!!

The Roland G-1000 is an awesome synthesizer workstation, with impressive sounds and a huge variety. Easy to use, my lad guitarist (who has NEVER played a synth before, let alone program one) had a song all worked out when I came home that evening: basslines, drum tracks, guitar leads/solo, and melody. Pretty damn impressive! The unit has paid for itelf many times over just by saving time during arranging and having so many wonderful presets at my fingertips. I view this synth as a studio piece to create musical ideas, which are later recorded by the band on our separate instruments. However, in the absence of a band, I could use this beast to come up with some pretty convincing songs. Things I love: the organ, brass, string, bell, fantasia, drum, and special effects sounds. I love the Juno preset. Things I hate: guitar sounds - but I hate mimicking guitar on any synth. This is a great tool and a beautiful sounding synthesizer. It was intuitive to use and I'm completely satisfied.

Keyboard is touch sensitive - really nice. Knobs and buttons are convenient and well-placed on the unit for easy access. LCD display is easy to read. Midi & sequencer are great.

WONDERFUL!!! I LOVED ALL THE GREAT PRESETS!!! WHAT A TIME SAVER!!!

Don't know. Didn't purchase it for the road.

Roland Customer Service was very helpful in ordering manual. Their technical support people were rude.

I would replace this in a heartbeat. At the price we paid from the dealer, this was an absolute steal. Brand new, we got it cheap because it's been discontinued. I would easily pay $1500.00 for this synth.

I have read a lot of these emails complaimed about this roland G-1000 keyboard. Most of these email indicated that this keyboard is very bad. Well, I disagree totally. You see!, This keyboard was designed for you complantiff out there. This keyboard designed for a non-skill person and for a one band person. From my opinion, this keyboard desire a litle more respect. I gave this keyboard a plus 10 out of a 10. I just have it for about two months, I record everything from this keyboard. I have no music background and I can still find everything very easy. This keyboard beat my Trinity. I can write any song on this keyboard. I like the lay out, the styles, the sounds, and the custom-drum recording.

It is very easy to use for me. Again, I have no music background at all. But I can find thing around very easy. I had recorded five tracks for our local radio commercial. The manager thought that I used a 10 piece band to play these tracks for him. Actually, I only played and composed myself and use only my acoustic quitar for outside lead. everything I used only the G-1000 keyboard.

I like the Organ, String, and Digital Piano a lot. He thought that I use the Steighway Piano.

I replaced the G-1000 keyboard for all of my drum machine and sequencers. I took this keyboard to perform at the City manager's wedding and everyone was jamming like a six player band. I just bring my keyboard, mic, 2 mackie powered speakers, a shure mic, and my 10 disks to the wedding. They thought that I was crazy. At the end of show, two unknown friends asked me to help them to buy 2 G-1000 keyboard for them. They want me to join their band. But, I refuse because I like what I am doing.

I only call one time to roland support because I want to record my sound tracks to my DV Video. It was very helpful. Thanks.

I have heard that Roland discontinued making this keyboar. Too bad. i hope that roland update this keyboard instead discontinue. I want roland to update to G-2000 or G-3000, and increase the voice to 128-voice, increase the preset styles into 500 styles, and increase the patch sound into 3,000 preset sounds.

This is my 7th keyboard, but it is by far the most difficult to use - the poorly organized miniscule screen requires extensive paging to check even the basic settings. The 8-button sets for tone/performance and style selection multiplex the group and individual selection (e.g. selecting A64 requires pressing 6 and 4. If you double-click by accident, you are in trouble, as the extra click will be interpreted as the next group selection, which does not time out, so that next time you press the button (to select the group) it will be interpreted as the individual selection.

The number of pages of parameters is tremendous, and editing performance memories is quite hard, especially if you want to have slight changes.

On the plus side, the 4 lock buttons are very useful in locking in styles, tones, keyboard mode, and transpose.

The tones are organized very poorly, with the various instruments interspersed as "variations" of unrelated other instruments. Tone selection requires various numbers of key presses - Bank, Group, Individual, then scroll to the desired variation. This is unusable in live performance, though OK for studio use.

The polyphony is 64 notes. The keyboard action is great, though aftertouch requires a bit much pressure. The tone map is not expandable, though you can use an external GS sound editor and save modified sounds as parts of performance memories; however, when you invoke a performance memory, it will also bring in a bunch of other changes in the instrument setup.

This instrument is intended for playing auto-accompaniment styles, and as such it is very good. The ZIP drive allows storing a large number of user styles; however, it would have been more functional with a larger screen.

The rotary knobs are useless - I wish they simply had up and down buttons. Another useless (IMHO) function is the automatic lookup, where you have to program a portion of a song into the music database, and then if you start playing the programmed portion of the song, the midi file gets loaded and starts playing automatically. It is impossible to play back the portion of the song precisely enough to have the instrument recognize it reliably.

I like the sound a lot. The saxes are my favorite, and the brasses and strings are also great. I would have liked to configure aftertouch for slide of the trombones, but that is wishful thinking. The pianos sound fine to my ear, though some purists might be disappointed.

Of course, the trick is to be able to find the sounds you want amid the myriad of other tones (see my comment above).

I used to think I could depend on this instrument. Then one time (during a rehearsal, thankfully), the styles stopped loading from the ZIP disk. There was no cause for it (such as moving the instrument, removing or mishandling the disks). The backup disk was equally faulty. Luckily, I had my style database on the PC, so I could re-create the styles on a brand-new ZIP disk, and since that time the problem has not reoccurred. However, as I have no explanation for the cause of this problem, I am now afraid not knowing if or when it will happen again. Hence, I am not sure if I can rely on this instrument.

If you are trying to get any technical info from Roland, which is not in the manual, you are pretty much out of luck. A number of users have tried to find out certain file structures from Roland, in order to develop a PC-based application for managing the performance memories. There is no official contact point for Roland (in the US or most other countries). I am still hopeful that the unofficial Roland contact will fulfill his promise and provide the necessary info; however, it has been a long time, and the info is still not out.

When my ZIP problem (above) has occured, I tried to contact the Roland authorized service center near me. They told me to bring the keyboard in, so that they could look at it, although they were positive that it would not be for at least two weeks, because the tech is busy. If I needed parts, the shop time would be correspondingly extended. This is unreasonable and stupid. I suggested that they put my name in the queue, and give me a call a day before the tech would have time to look at my keyboard - No, I was told, they don't do that. I find this outrageous. I should not be forsed to give up my instrument for weeks just to keep the spot in the repair shop.

However, Roland publishes a "users' group magazine" where they tell us, the users, how to use our instruments. Why don't they spend the same money and LISTEN to the users to find out what we want in an instrument instead?

This instrument is an example of how Roland gives with one hand, and takes away with the other. I also own an older Roland keyboard (E-70), which has a small screen, a shorter keyboard, a third of the polyphony, one tenth of the sounds and quarter of the styles, and no floppy drive. However, it is much easier to use, and half the time I take it to the gig instead of the G1000.

I love the sounds of this instrument, and the styles sound great. However, I find it extremely inflexible, not being able to easily change either the sounds or styles. It is this lack of ergonomics, which makes it difficult for me to enjoy the positive aspects of this instrument.

I know that there is no perfect instrument, and many of the professinal players lover their G-1000s. However, if I had to decide to purchase it again, I would probably get something else.