tone_depot, I am not sure you could call my thoughts in depth, the G6 was only released earlier this week in the UK, I am very dissapointed not to be the first in the marketplace:)
First you have to understand that my use of keyboard is really as a hobby and playing occasionally in a church band. So my focus may be somewhat different, e.g. I hardly use any of the workstation features.
As a live performance keyboard, I really think roland addressed this well. The glitchless live set changing is so useful. The large display means everything is right there in front of you. e.g. even a small thing such as a rotary dial on the display showing how the amount of aftertouch you are using (in that respect the keyboard is really good, as there is a nice even progression as you put in more force).
The live setups that Roland have programmed, although not amazing give a really good idea of how things can work, especially using the pads to bring in and out sounds etc.
As far as sounds go, in all departments I tried, they are either the same as the X or better. I can only comment on core performance keyboard sounds (e.g. I haven't even tried things I don't use like guitars, synth FX sounds etc.). The biggest improvements to me seem to be in the Electric Pianos and Organs and to some extent Strings (although I already liked the X stuff a lot). For Pianos, Synth Pads (and all categories for that matter) there is now a lot more choice.
I haven't plugged in a mouse, but I can see that coupled with the large screen this is really going to be a good way to setup this keyboard. Infact difficult to imagine one would need the PC editor.
The only downside for me is that the keybed is identical to the previous G6/7. Now for most people that is probably a good thing. I already knew this, but what I had forgotten was how uncomortable it was for me personally. If you look at my link in the marketplace you will see a link to a keyboard that I have customized myself and I have really got used to the keys on that now. The main problem is that I get pain in my fingers when playing on a lot of synth keyboards, due to the very hard and abrupt end stop. On my custom keyboard it has a very soft and mushy end stop which works well. I could do another custom job on the G6 but I really cannot bring myself to invest the time doing it when I already have a setup that works well for me.
Best Regards
Paul.
