While Sud Claviers are teasing the release of a new arranger keyboard, Roland — of all manufacturers — have announced a new entry-level ($400) arranger: the Roland E-X50 arranger keyboard. And a new synth kit from Moog.
Arranger forums are anticipating a new Korg flagship arranger, the Korg Pa5x, on 30 June 2022. Sud Claviers France have taken the lead for European introductions before, as arranger keyboards are more popular in Europe and Asia than North America. Various Korg (and Yamaha!) forums have leaked images and video — a lot of it blurry. Fans are usually good at spotting fakes, but this time it looks to be real.
You’ll pay a high price for the Pa5x jewelry. The Roland E-X50 is for punters having an estimated $400 USD price. (The Pa5x will cost 10x that amount.)
The E-X50 has a sleek, professional, squarish look to it, weighing 9.6kg (21.3 pounds). The new arranger kits out with 256 polyphony, 433 regular tones plus 256 GM2 tones and a total of 18 drum sets. Effects include equalization, chorus, reverb and delay. The stereo audio system is 10 Watts per side through a 12cm speaker and 3cm tweeter. With a 30 Watt power draw, it’s an AC adaptor; no battery power.
Bluetooth is built-in. The E-X50 has fixed formet LCD display which is typical for entry-level keyboards.
Auto-accompaniment and registration memory are on par with Yamaha, Casio, and Korg. Roland have not broken any new ground, here. The most novel feature is AUDIO PAD playback. The Scale Tune buttons are linked to WAV (or MP3) files on a USB drive. Striking one of the buttons plays back the associated audio file (one shot or loop). Unlike Yamaha arrangers which are notoriously picky about audio file format (16-bit, 44kHz stereo), the E-X50 supports a broad range of bit rates and sampling frequencies. (You’re still stuck with 16-bit samples, tho’.)
The E-X50 is supported by a free E-X Style Converter application (Windows and Macintosh), which converts a MIDI file to a style file compatible with the Roland E-X series.
Bottom line, the E-X50 offers an alternative to similar units from Korg and Yamaha. Every vendor has its own sound and this Roland may float your boat more so than Korg or Yamaha.
Moog Mavis is a new build-it-yourself monophonic analog synth kit from Moog. I rather like the looks of Mavis right off the top. The front panel screams “Moog”. It has a mess o’patch points (24-point CV controllable) on the left hand side of the front panel. The module is 44HP in case you want to rack it up. The Mavis form factor is compatible with earlier units like the DFAM.
Mavis boasts the Moog “legendary oscillator and filter circuits,” adding a diode wave folder. The filter spec is -24 dB Moog Low Pass Ladder filter. Mavis has a built-in courtesy keyboard. Serious folk will be driving Mavis from external, 1 V/oct gear.
“Build-it-yourself” is more like assemble it yourself as the mainboard is fully wave soldered, etc. No soldering required.
Mavis is $349 USD. That seems a little price-y, but you get an entire monophonic synth signal chain. Near as I can tell, Mavis avoids the shortcomings of the Werkstatt-01. I almost bit on a Werkstatt-01 until I realized its interfacing limitations. And guess what? Mavis is already in stock at a few on-line retailers! Nice work, Moog.
Copyright © 2022 Paul J. Drongowski