Roland RS9 Synthesizer

I was sitting in my office, running out of ideas for my brochures and well…idling…when I decided to write a review on something that I’ve always loved to do which is music. I have been privileged enough to be involved in numerous activities with various ministries of religious organizations. In the course of my service, I have used many instruments, bought some and traded in for better ones. The Roland RS9 Synthesizer is one of the superb equipments I’ve used to make sounds of and I still enjoy playing it (despite all the scratches...hrmph!) Vic is my editor. She’s pretty good at checking my grammar, grandmas and grandpas.

c l i c k o n i m a g e t o e n l a r g e

Ease of Use

• Manuals have NEVER EVER been Roland's strong point and nothing's changed since they first introduced the Roland Bible. However, I’m not gonna base my ratings on a manual, cuz manuals don’t produce sound :p
• Any Tom, Dick and Harry can operate this. Just make sure you connect the correct power adaptor, remember to switch on the power switch, plug your audio cable to the synthesizer that says ‘AUDIO OUT’ and not ‘PEDAL IN’ to the Keyboard Amp/Speaker. Oh and please also remember to switch on the power-point / extension power cord / whatever your synthesizer is drawing its power from. If all this is done properly, you should be able to get sound out from your synthesizer (RS9 doesn’t come with a built-in Speaker, if you do not have a Keyboard Amp/Speaker, use a headphone. Don’t panic, it’s a shy synth :p).
• Not a lot of buttons and easily accessible. Buttons are in standard sizes (rectangular) and the other controls (Volume, LFO, Release etc) are in variable knobs. Comes with a joystick bender(2-in-1 pitch / modulation) which comes in pretty handy when I use ‘Lead Synth’ patch.
• Easily programmed Quick Access. Just press the ‘Shift’ button and any Quick Access button (1-8) to store.

Features

• Polyphonic is 64 and about 40 multi-effects that are very easy to use. No expandability, typical MIDI IN/OUT/THRU, no Sequencer or Sampler. XV-series arpeggiator which is good if you are into that stuff; I’m still learning how to use this by the way.
• It is EXTREMELY light (only 23 lbs) for an 88-key synthesizer and you wouldn’t need any case for it; ‘cuz it’s too long’ :p It makes a decent controller, with 6 RC knobs, 4 are assignable. You can set up all those MIDI splits and stuff you might need. The titanium top is rock solid tough. One of our BoL member accidentally smashed it on a wall and then railed it down the stairs while carrying it and there wasn't even a mark on the top…oh, in case you don’t know the keys and the bottom part of the RS9 is NOT *I repeat* NOT titanium. I found out that the components which are not made of titanium are EXTREMELY ALLERGIC to concrete walls, asphalted courses (tar road, that is), abusive users and basically anything hard (or anything that threatens its existence)!
• It is one of the few 88-key non-weighted synthesizers in existence. If you have hand pain problems, or want a light action to play fast parts like organ parts, or you just don't like weighted action, you have got to seriously check this board out…of course it is nowhere near piano weighted keys. If you want piano weighted keys, then GET A PIANO! :p
• Fantastic reaction to the keys; touch sensitivity is practically…hrmm how should I call it? ’GENIOUS’ the word! Try the ‘Tin Whistle’, ‘Jazz Scat’, ‘Alto Sax’, ‘Orchestra’ etc and you’ll see what I mean.
• Although I have figured out where the sounds are, there are only 8 buttons available (under Tone Category) where you can assign sounds and parts to for quick access. Other than that you either need a separate midi controller or you scroll thru the sounds as fast as you can.
• OOOhh, I am in the zone, but wait, there are only two zones! How can a keyboard with so many features including 88-keys only have two zones? And those two zones are completely lacking in flexibility and are completely dependant on each other. The RS9 can either split, or completely overlap. But you cannot have a zone that only overlaps a little bit. The Organ (Technics) in St Joe Cathedral has 8. Ben’s JV90 - 4. Might ‘pinjam’ from Ben to review his JV90...hehehe.

Expressiveness/Sound

• There are plenty of sounds to choose from (over 400 sounds) but when it comes to the piano, it’s RS9’s biggest weak point. For keyboard/synthesizer musicians who play a lot of Praise & Worship (P&W), the piano sound is mostly used (usually overlapped with Strings to enhance the ambience of the music). If English is the International Language, then the Piano is the International Sound for P&W. The default ‘RS Piano’ sounds pretty muffled. I use ‘Bright Piano’ and I customized more ‘bright’ into it. After doing so, it still doesn’t sound as clean as it should be. Well, my only comment to Roland is “sound quality should be your number 1 priority, not the quantity of sounds (extensive editing needed).
• Listed here are some of my favourite combo: Lead Synth+VoxSyn (I solo with this), Orchestra 2+Henry VII (for full orchestral effects), 2-Lead Saw-Synth+Natural Lead (when I play ‘Jump’ by Van Halen), Tin Whistle+Morph Pad (for Instrumental /Inspirational Music), Cheese Organ+Rock Organ (when I play some really old school rock progressions i.e. Perfect Strangers by Deep Purple), Rhodes (Raggae ‘stuffy’), etc. I’m also experimenting other sounds for other genre.

Reliability

• I had an experience during the 2005 SJPYM Youth Dinner held at Grand Continental Hotel and during the sound-check, the whole system freezes on the 'NOW SAVING... KEEP POWER ON!!' screen. After 1/2 hour or so I had no choice but to turn the power off, and promptly lose all my USER patches; blah… had to re-set the “Morning into Dancing” and the “One Way” patch again.
• TOO LONG TO PUT IN A KANCIL! It takes up a passenger seat and a seat belt :p

Customer Support

• I shall revert all problems to Lee’s Music Centre cuz I bought this unit from them. So far so good, no problem; well except for some minor software twitch as mentioned in the Reliability Section.

Conclusion

• My attraction to it is the APPARENT SUPER REASONABLE PRICE (for an 88-key synth, it only cost less than RM 4,000.00) and cool looks. However, the sounds are just not quite good enough and it still takes up too much space in my kancil :p