Roland Drums... my pride and joy!

Advantages: Great authentic sounds, feels like playing real drums
Disadvantages: knowing that if you had £5000 you could get a much better one

...I brought my Roland V Drums about a year and a half ago. I love them to bits. At the time, i couldnt afford them at all. However I played on a kit in a music shop and fell in love with them. I immediately promised myself to get a job and save up to get one. So, eventually I did. I still struggle now to understand the technology. You're hitting rubber and plastic pads, and real drum sounds come out... its increadible. Although the TD8 is not the most advanced kit in the series, it still does SO much. It registers how hard you hit the drums, where you hit the drums and they are really responsive. One of the major benefits of this piece of equipment is that you can play music into it to play along to. This can be very useful for practicing and picking up new things while listening to your favourite tunes! Also, its a great...

priesty8899 20.01.2007 · Read review
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Review of Roland V Drums TD 8

roland td3 electric drumset

Advantages: Quite a realistic kit, Good value for money, built in drum tutor, dual trigger pads for rims/bells
Disadvantages: pads wear eventually, price from roland- but im being picky, a very good kit

...Last year i got to the unfortunate positive of having so many complaints from neighbours i had to sell my acoustic kit and make way for an electric one. Obviously i knew an electric kit couldn't be as realistic, however i was pleasantly surprised with the TD3. I did a lot of research into what kit to buy going to music shows, shops, reading reviews and of course the internet :) I was looking for a quite cheap kit that i could practice on and eventually expand. For the same sort of price range the main competitor was the Alesis DM5. The Dm5 feels a lot less realistic. Kind of like pressing buttons instead of hitting drums, the response felt very unrealistic and didn't seem to alter with how I hit the pads (or velocity for you music tech'ers) It also had mono pads, so you would have to have seperate pads for the centre of the snare...

sean1234567890 18.03.2009 · Read review
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Review of Roland TD-3KW V-Drums

Experience with Roland EP-77

Advantages: modifiability, portable
Disadvantages: need of electricity

...I have been playing the piano for several years, each week going to a class, hard training all the time, concerts, and once, I got for Christmas this new invention. --- Advantages --- I didn't know at all what to expect. Before, I occasionally played for fun on keyboard. So I thought that it is comparable to such quality = not having a real size of a usual wooden piano. The other thing is that the number of keys, the low bass and high tones are usually missing on such a digital piano. But as I saw it then packed out, I starred on it with an open mouth because the keys had the usual size of a USUAL piano. What I really started to like on Roland EP-77 it was the fact that it is portable. - Several times it happened to me that I couldn't play the big piano at certain occasions because I cannot just put this instrument into my pocket...

Lirybka 31.12.2007 (30.12.2007) · Read review
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Review of Roland EP-77

Roland GR-20 Guitar Synthesizer

Advantages: Some very realistic synthetic sounds at an affordable price.
Disadvantages: Requires a lot of fine tuning.

...Background: I bought this pedal in Japan for £290. The Roland GR-20 is renowned for it's value for money. For this price you get: The GR-20 Synthesizer GK-3 Dedicated Pickup + Cable (to connect the GK-3 to GR-20) Power Supply Unit Short Guitar Lead Instruction Manuals Warranty Screws, tapes etc... to attach GK-3 to your guitar The pedal is very versatile and also comes with an in-built tuner. Installation: The GK-3 needs to be installed on your guitar before you can use the pedal. Ideally the GK-3 should be around 1mm away from your strings and should not be installed further than 1cm away from the bridge. The GK-3 has two main parts. The main body, which has the up/down buttons (to scroll through the patches) and a volume knob, and the pickup itself. The pickup can either be installed using screws...

Darkhodge 29.10.2005 · Read review
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Review of Roland GR-20

Roland XP10

Advantages: versatile keyboard useful for both studio and live work,
Disadvantages: User / Preset switching manual not auto

...the lights go down. There are a couple of functions that I have never used, for instance the Arpeggio and the Split keyboard functions but they are not necessary in the work I do. The range of instruments sampled is good to excellent but some of them are also quite poor and not particularly faithful reproductions. In particular the best ones (in my opinion) are the Piano sounds, the guitar sounds and the drum sounds, most of the Pad sounds. The middle ones being the strings and brass sounds particularly the ensemble sets. By far and away the poorest sounds (and those that i think are not really necessary on a keyboard such as this) are the SFX sounds, the Sitar and the Accordion. The drum samples give a wide range of kits, covering Rock to Jazz, Electronic to Brush, when recorded some of them are quite obviously keyboard...

davethemerlin 20.10.2002 · Read review
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Review of Roland XP-10

Are you smiling at this drum

Advantages: good for motor control and babies attention
Disadvantages: noise

...Smile at this drum, ~~~~~~~~~~~ This smile drum is one I have played with at work. It may not be what immediately pops into your head as a drum, but this is what it is it's a smile drum. This toy/musical instrument is a bit like a traditional hand mirror in shape. It has a long cylindrical handle with a drum circle at the top. The drum is just a drumming fabric stretched across the circle. The drum has a smiley face printed on it, it measures 20cm across. Young babies and children always respond well to a face on a toy the two eyes and mouth. The smile face printed on this drum is rather appealing. Attached either side to the coloured plastic frame that circles the drumming fabric are two beads that are attached with a piece of string. This drum is made in pink, y yellow, orange, or green To play this drum...

mumsymary 23.11.2007 · Read review
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Review of Toyday Smile Drum

The rumbling drums of Japan

Advantages: Variety of style, detailed booklet
Disadvantages: I cannot think of any

...A terrific blend of plucked Tsugaru Shamisen and feral drums. Wadaiko Matsuriza is a professional group from Hachioji, composed of twenty-one performers (mostly on drums). The power delivered by twenty-odd drums is very impressive. Tempestuous, electric, calculated and arousing would all be perfect words to describe Wadaiko Matsuriza. If you are not familiar with Japanese Taiko drums, this is the best place to start. Wadaiko Matsuriza manage to create a very intertaining style of folklore, mostly upbeat. This CD was released in 2002. Wadaiko Matsuriza have been touring since 1996. The group uses 3 distinct instruments: The Taiko drum, the Tsugaru Shamisen (the Japanese Banjo - not to be mistaken for the Koto instrument) and also the Horagai, the latter being a conch-shell trumpet. Gaku makes use of a Chappa too, which is...

gantzgraf 12.08.2006 (11.09.2006) · Read review
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Review of Japanese Drums - Wa Dai Ko Matsuriza

Roland EG-101

Advantages: Quality, sounds, grooveability
Disadvantages: Lacklustre preset patterns, clumsy OS

...I am into making dance music, and I previously had a Yamaha DJX. I would say the EG-101 is pretty similar in its features, but it isn't as immediately accessible, then again it is a much higher quality product. This is a nice looking keyboard. It has a vintage look, analogue style knobs and some nice backlit buttons. There is only a tiny LED display, however - adequate, just. The keyboard has 448 voices, some of which are just percussion sounds and not much use, but there are some seriously usable sounds here. The quality of sound production is truly excellent. The onboard speakers are also remarkably powerful. Roland's way of selecting sounds, voices etc. isn't intuitive or obvious. You have to work at it! This isn't a toy by any means, but I know they could have made the thing easier to use. There is an arpeggiator, which I...

sparkyonline 03.05.2001 · Read review
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Review of Roland EG-101

tap tap drum drum tap a tune on this drum

Advantages: children love it
Disadvantages: noise

...The picture on this category is not the correct one for the tap a tune drum I will see iof I can remedy that , Tap tap, tap a tune on this baby piano baby. You can buy this toy for £9.99p at most stores look online these are so many http://www.mailorderexpress.com/LittleTikesBaby Tap-A-TunePiano.asp, and http://www.amazon.co.uk/Baby-Tap-A-Tune-Piano/dp/B 00002QUNX do. This toy is suitable for a child aged between 6 months and 3 years old depending on their development. We have this toy in a special needs school Now this tunefull toy is made of plastic its very strong. The piano is red with a white keyboard. There are no legs on this grand piano as the shape of this toy is like a piano. It measures about 8" x 8" x 4". So your child can carry this around and you could take it to granny to show of your Childs musical...

mumsymary 19.06.2009 · Read review
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Review of Little Tikes Tap-a-Tune Drum

ROLAND FR-3S PIANO ACCORDION

Advantages: TOO MANY TO LIST!!!
Disadvantages: BELLOWS CAN BE A BIT STIFF WHEN NEW.

...The Roland fr-3s is the little brother to the fr-7 V-accordion, yet it is no small fry having a full 120 bass section, with seven registers and keyboard of 37 treble keys with ten registers and a dazzling array of features and sounds, it is lightweight and fully portable due to the built-in speakers and battery option. (It takes ten AA size battery's if you would want to use this function, and lasts up to two and a half hours depending on the batteries used.) Although I do generally plug mine into the mains. The electronic wizardry in this instrument means you can select from ten different accordion types, each with its own associated registers and to the ear is indistinguishable from its acoustic cousins, and as if that was not enough, it boasts several orchestral sounds including violin, steel guitar and choir. The fr-3s also has...

oakleigh 19.03.2007 · Read review
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Review of Roland FR-3s V Accordion