Roland E09 Musical Arranger Keyboard Review

      Roland E09 is the one of basic piece in Roland keyboards series. It is a low price, stylish, 61-key and high sound quality keyboard. E09 is arranger i.e. it comes with pre-installed music patterns. The keyboard comes with Western, Middle Eastern and Asian Sounds. It has MIDI 2 technology support.

Here are some key Features of Roland E09 :

1)      High Performance Speaker

     Roland E09 comes with two 7.5W speaker with great quality

2)      Pitch Bender / Modulation lever

     Moving this lever left or right pitch of sound changes. The amount of pitch bend required can be set. This type of feature is required when fluent change of sound pitch is required such as in flute or sliding string of guitar.

3)      Two Headphone jack

4)      Tempo / Metronome

     Tempo / Metronome is a speed / rhythm of song. It is measured in BPM (bits per minute). It is measured      at tics per minute that is 1 tick/sec is 60 BPM. Generally song has 120 to 150 BPM tempo.

5)      Tap Tempo

     It is great feature that automatically detects the tempo on tapping button in the rhythmic and regular style of      the song.

6)      Style selection

     As the E09 is a arranger it comes with about 100 pre-installed styles. They are categorized as

          * Rock

          * Pop

          * Jazz

          * Latin

          * Traditional

          * Ballroom

          * World

7)      Tone Category Button

     E09 has tone category buttons categorized as

          * Piano

          * Organ

          * Guitar

          * Strings

          * Vocal

          * Sax

          * Synth

          * World1

          * World2

          * Drum

It has about 800 sounds + 70 drum kits. The above categorized buttons are for quick switching between sounds. Tone button can be long pressed to set it for setting the sound of same category.

8)      Keyboard control buttons

1.      Split 

The keyboard can be split into two different sounds. For instance half part as strings and other as lead guitar.

The split point can be defined in the function button.

2.      Dual

If we want to play some sound same as lead but in background then this feature is used. For instance, “flute as lead and strings as background”.  The sound intensity can be set for both main and background.

3.      Transpose

The keyboard can be shifted from original position to desired position. This is useful feature when runtime pitch changes are required and you have practiced the song on different pitch.

4.      Touch Sense

Like other keyboard E09 comes with touch sense button that is jerk given while pressing key is detected and accordingly the sound intensity is played.

9)      User Program

          The whole keyboard status along with each and every function on the keyboard can be stored in the single button. There are 100 user program. This feature is useful while performing live.

10)  Effects

The E-09 provides reverb, chorus, and multi-effects (MFX). You can change the type of each effect. You can also adjust the amount of reverb or chorus that is applied to the keyboard parts.

11)  Save song

You can save one song with 16 different tracks. Drum kits can be used only at 10^th and 16^th track. One problem with this keyboard is tone effects cannot be applied while rerecording the song.

12)  MIDI IN/ OUT

         They are ports to connect keyboard with external MIDI devices. Musical Instrument Digital Interface           abbreviated as MIDI is a technology for digital recording purpose.

 

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION:

Keyboard	61 keys (with velocity)
Sound Generator
Maximum Polyphony	64 voices
64 voices	16 parts + Keyboard part
Wave Memory	32 M bytes equivalent
Tones	Tones: 614 + 256 (GM2), Drum Sets: 61 + 9 (GM2)
Effects	Multi-FX: 47 types, Reverb: 8 types, Chorus: 8 types
Transpose	-12 to + 12 (in semitones)
Arranger
Tempo	20 to 250
Styles	130 Styles
Band Orchestrator	3 types: Drum & Bass, Combo, Full Band
User Program	100 program
One Touch Setting	2 setting / style
Control	start/stop, sync start, intro original, fill in, variation, ending, tap tempo, Melody Intelligence: 18 types, Music Assistant: 130 types
Metronome
Signature	1/4, 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 6/4, 6/8, 9/8
Song Controls
Tracks	16
16-track Recorder Mode	4 easy modes (ALL, Keyboard, Single, Punch In/Out)
Control	start/stop, recording, reset, rewind, forward, marker A-B, repeat A-B
Others
Rated Power Output	7.5 W + 7.5 W
Speaker Dimension	10cm
Controllers	Pitch Bend/Modulation Lever: 1
Display	Large backlit custom LCD
Connectors	Output Jacks (L/MONO, R), Headphones Jack 1/2, MIDI Connectors (IN, OUT), Foot Switch Jack
Power Supply	DC 9 V (AC Adaptor)
Current Draw	2,000 mA
Accessories	Music rest, Owner's Manual, AC Adaptor (PSB-1U)
Options	Keyboard Stand: KS-12, Pedal Switch: DP Series, Foot Switch: BOSS FS-5U
Size and Weight
Width	1,045 mm        41-3/16 inches
Depth	320 mm           12-5/8 inches
Height	128 mm           5-1/16inches
Weight	7.3 kg              16 lbs. 2oz.

REFERENCES :

Product Website

Roland E09 Demo 

Price of the keyboard in INDIA is nearly Rs. 27000



Problems regarding Roland E09



1)  Only one song can be recorded at a time.
2)  Only parallel 16 tracks to record song.
3)  NO effects can be applied while recording song.
4)  Pitch Bend Setting does not get saved with user program.
5)  Abrupt change in voice when key is pressed and user program setting are changed.
6)  Run-time dual and split volume level cannot be changed.
7)  Keys are little hard to press as compared to the other same range keyboards.