Roland Prelude vs. GW-8

Today I sold my Yamaha MO8 synthesizer. Now although I promised myself not to buy another synth, I do like to write about my product recommendations.

You need good quality presets? You are not in for hammer weighted action keys, portability is important for you? Although you like nice arpeggiators, some added rhythm and track variety might be nice too? And preferably excellent price-value? Then you need to have a closer look into the modern arrangerstyle keyboards, in this case the at Winter NAMM 2009 launched Roland Prelude:

Roland is pretty ecstatic about this new product, however it ain’t THAT new. The little older Roland GW-8 has a different color, and no speakers, but does exactly the same, at a lower price tag (of about €799)! Oh yeah another reason why to opt for the GW-8: it has the cool looking buttons from the JD-800. Want to see really cool Roland GW-8 demo’s to get an actual impression how it can enrich your music creation? Then have a look at the YouTube profile page of Cesar Guzman (Product Specialist and Support for Roland Corporation in Chili).

Update 12mar09: Saw the Prelude for sale at PeterVerspuy.nl for €999,  at Musik-Schmidt.de for €949, and at zZounds.com for $995. That’s at least a €150 a higher pricetag than the GW-8.