Topic by cat

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Topic: Roland A-90 ex

I know there are people here who use Roland, but I have not found anything on this model here. Since I am looking for a keyboard to use with Pianoteq, what matters is the keyboard action. The action will probably be fast enough, but there are two things I am concerned about. On some Rolands the keys have a tendency to break, and this is one of them.
I have never played an acoustic piano, and would prefer something that at least is not harder to play than an average upright piano.
I have also considered Kawai ES 6, and Roland RD700gx, but that will be more than twice the price.
Comments and suggestions would be welcome.
cat

Reply by jcfelice88keys

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Re: Roland A-90 ex

cat wrote:

I know there are people here who use Roland, but I have not found anything on this model here. Since I am looking for a keyboard to use with Pianoteq, what matters is the keyboard action. The action will probably be fast enough, but there are two things I am concerned about. On some Rolands the keys have a tendency to break, and this is one of them.
I have never played an acoustic piano, and would prefer something that at least is not harder to play than an average upright piano.
I have also considered Kawai ES 6, and Roland RD700gx, but that will be more than twice the price.
Comments and suggestions would be welcome.
cat


Hello Cat,

As an owner of a Roland A-80 (precursor to the A-90), I can tell you with confidence that this controller keyboard has wooden keys, and is not prone to breakage as some all-plastic keys may have done in products at the lower-end of Roland's price range.

My A-80 has served me well for the past 20 years, and is the 'board with which I perform all of the demos that find their way to this website.  The A-90EX (EX standing for expandable via soundcard) was introduced around the early- to mid 1990's.  Here is the URL for a Sound-On-Sound review of the A-90.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1996_ar...nda90.html

Cheers,

Joe

Reply by cat

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Re: Roland A-90 ex

Thanks a lot. Very good news. There are two of them for sale locally, so I might have one by the the end of the week.
cat

Reply by sound-board

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Re: Roland A-90 ex

I have a Roland A-80 in excellent condition for sale in London (UK) I know it's not the done thing to hijack a post and blatantly advertise on the forum but if anyone is interested, please PM me.

Cheers,

James

Reply by cat

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Re: Roland A-90 ex

Thanks again for good info, and thanks for nice offer. But I got a very good offer on a Korg Triton Le88, and it was delivered yesterday. The keyboard action suits me perfectly, and according to my information it is similar to an acoustic piano, but perhaps a little lighter. When I have decided what audio interface to buy, and have installed Pianoteq standard, the possibilities should be endless, since the Triton has a good onboard synth  But best of all, I will be able to play a well tempered Grimaldi harpsichord.
cat

Reply by sigasa

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Re: Roland A-90 ex

sound-board wrote:

I have a Roland A-80 in excellent condition for sale in London (UK) I know it's not the done thing to hijack a post and blatantly advertise on the forum but if anyone is interested, please PM me.

Cheers,

James

May I ask why you would want to part with such an excellent keyboard?

Reply by sound-board

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Re: Roland A-90 ex

Good question. I recently bought a Fantom G8 which has rather nice 88note weighted keyboard and has enhanced MIDI functionality that I find nice to use. I don't have enough hands to play both and I'd rather sell it and buy more VSTi than leave it on the stand and never touch it :-(

James

Reply by wansborough

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Re: Roland A-90 ex

As a former owner of a Roland A-90 I can report the following on the key breakage problem.  The keyboard uses very high quality plastic keys (not wood).  However they are prone to break if constantly played very hard.  The reason is that there is a small round lead weight moulded into the plastic hammer assembly to give it 'weight', and the plastic moulding at this point is perhaps narrower than it ought to be.  The plastic eventually splits outwards from the weight to both edges and the hammer on the end then comes away.

I've had one broken hammer in around ten years of use.  If you know what you're doing, its easy to fix - slot the two parts back together and set with a good dose of epoxy resin.  Mine has been fine ever since.

Last edited by wansborough (07-12-2010 11:54)

Reply by soudanpierre

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Re: Roland A-90 ex

Hello,
I have two A90s and a A80.
On the first A90, I had to change 5 broken keys (my dealer sells spare parts), with the other A90, no problem !
The reason ? in fact, There were two series of keyboards, the second was more resistant.

I use A90 for the incredible possibilities as master keyboard , no other one can do that.

Pierre alain, from France
º¿º

Reply by carsimm

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Re: Roland A-90 ex

I have an A-80 that I used for about 15 years, but not in the past 5.
It was rock solid and had features most 88 controllers lack nowadays.
I stopped using it when I switched from modules to a MacBookPro  using Mainstage.
I use a Roland RD-700 for pianos and a M-Audio Axiom 61 for organ/synth.
The RD does has decent action in my opinion and it is not a great controller.