Roland RS-5

I bought this synth from Sound Control in Glasgow, Scotland in October 2003. I paid £399 for it, with £100 off, since the product was discontinued by Roland and has been superseded by the Roland RS-50. I had been looking for a synth suitable for gigging and that could ease me into composing my own music at home, and the RS-5 seemed to fit the bill.

What drew me to the RS-5 was its its range of functions and sound quality. It has a superb range of sounds at a very competitive price. I found that there was a large gap in price of keyboards that i shopped around for, there was very little in the budget range i was aiming for. With the RS-5 I found the perfect instrument. It has 640 internal tones, 128 can be preset by the user to suit their performance so a very good range of sounds can be achieved. Your most frequently used tones can be stored within the favourite tone bank. In addition it has a decent selection of on-board effects such as the arpeggiator function, chorus and reverb.

The only criticism of the unit i would have is the design of the knob controls. Since they project out from the unit, I can imagine that over months of continual use these could work loose if any bumps or knocks to the keyboard occur. This would be deleterious to accuracy of playing and would ruin the whole look of the synth. The RS-5 does not have integrated speakers, so I use headphones whilst practising and connect to a power amp in the recording studio. This should be also accounted for when considering your synth budget.

Construction and design quality of the unit is almost impeccable. The brushed aluminium finish is easy to wipe clean and surprisingly durable. The design is simple yet functional, not too many buttons and knobs and has a search facility to access tones quickly.

The bottom line is this: if you're looking for a budget synth which looks as good as it sounds look no futher than the RS-5 - it is a great buy.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

5 out oct/512 presets/effets/arp/2 audio / midi in, out thru.

UTILIZATION

Very simple to use, the access type classs sounds are, we can its perf mmoriser prfres.
manual very well done, excellent aluminum look.

SOUNDS

Good quality for sounds that can sometimes lack depth, but, used in compounds are quite correct.
Performance can CRER trs beautiful combinations of sounds, if you dig a little synth

OVERALL OPINION

A versatile instrument, which will delight fans of gnralistes sounds.
gnrale good quality, look, sound, connectivity.
I just bought it used, I was looking for one for quite some time, I'm not.
very complmentaire with other instruments, or VSTi hardware.

-> Keyboard: 61 keys, VLOC.
-> Type Synthse: Playing PCM samples.
-> Waveforms: 32 MB, 16-bit linear equivalent.
-> Polyphony: 64 voices.
-> Multitimbral: 16 votes.
-> LFO: Yes.
-> Envelopes: Yes.
-> Filters: Yes.
-> Sounds: 512 presets (including 256 GM2) 128 + prog.
-> Combis: 128 Preset + 128 prog.
-> Split: Yes.
-> Display: LCD (2 x 20 char.) Rtroclair + 3 LED characters.
-> Portamento: No.
-> Effects: Multi-effect (42 types), Reverb (8), Chorus (8).
-> Audio Outputs: Stro.
-> Arpgiateur (45 styles).
-> Lever pitch bend and modulation.
-> 20 preset rhythm kits (including 9 GM2) + 2 programmable.
-> 6 coders (including 4 assignable) allow rgler in real time frquence cutoff, rsonance, envelopes, etc..
-> Weight: 6 kg.
-> Dimensions: 103.3 x 29.4 x 10.3 (WxDxH in cm).

UTILIZATION

-> Setup, shipping and manual trs clear.

Enjoyable use (touch right, buttons a bit too "plastoc" relatively good, but ...)
=> Only problem (I got): no jog wheel to quickly change or give patch.

-> A shame also to the lack of aftertouch and layout of buttons DIFFERENT (especially the buttons "value + and -," "transpose" and the 8 button "Perform favorite bank" under the screen ).

-> The pots seem a bit fragile.

-> No squenceur house.

SOUNDS

-> The sounds are good quality and gnralistes (acoustic sounds are correct) agree a lot of music styles.

-> The effects are not evils at all, yet on 16 DIFFERENT sounds that can be, if you choose an effect (outside the rverb and chorus) for one channel, can not apply another effect to another channel (only one posible because 16 sounds for 1) damage! ==> We need a multi-effects device.

OVERALL OPINION

It's been a year since I have and I do not regret it: I rflchis long time and I needed a keyboard with marital synth sounds and gnralistes good quality acoustic ==> it is.

Report qualitprix honnte (especially now used).

With exprience, I do it again this election for a keyboard a keyboard complmentaire matre more complete (if possible with the touch piano).