Paul Woodward

Announced today....quite a lot of features there for the money, especially after the RD08 reveal...both preset machines as far as I can tell, but with downloadable content from Roland Cloud Manager. The Go Keys 3 and 5 are similar in 'sound' other than the passive radiator/speaker system yet $150 difference. The 3 does not have audio lines out (or in)making it more of a 'fun' practice board and decent midi controller, although both have Bluetooth audio and midi. £349 for the Go 3 and £459 for the Go 5 in the UK https://www.roland.com/global/products/gokeys_5/features/

Not with speakers. Roland have the ageing VR, Korg tend to stick with pianos, synths and workstations.

Likely more than you want, but I have been down this rabbit hole and ended up buying different boards for different purposes. Cheap controller keyboard ended up with wires everywhere and then I wanted a better board for the studio. Always compromises somewhere but I’m hoping the Keystage will be the answer. 1. It connects via good old midi cable to my Grandstage so I can essentially use it as a full organ keyboard while the GS takes care of the piano with weighted keys 2. It connects to my DAW providing a cool way of interacting with gadget, Logic, Wavestate etc via midi 2.0 3. I connect my iPad with one cable to turn it into a ‘bread and butter’ Korg keyboard, with the advantage of loading up any sound engine (app) I want. Can even map the rotary knobs to drawbars. This makes it a second keyboard with sounds for gigs, small portable board for rehearsals/playing for fun. And I also have a keybed with poly aftertouch to explore more expressive playing of apps such as Wavestate, Pigments and Animoog. It also looks decent and weighs just 5kg so ticks a lot of boxes for me right now. Explansion plate with the iPad makes it look like a mini Oasys…if you squint really hard. Oh, it also powers from the iPad so add a battery powered speaker and you have a wire free busking machine with all the backing you might need available on the iPad as well.

A software upgrade or a physical upgrade (like Korg replacing the Nautilus keybed) for £299 maybe, but switching on a hardware feature already in the machine, not so much. Any manufacturing costs they might claim are involved in the upgrade were already there in the board when you bought it, just inactive.

And that’s not factoring the used market for the RD88 where, as shown above, you could get one in great condition with a bunch of extras for around £600 and that’s all the features active as well. Crazy.

Wow! Surely that’s hitting the price of the RD88…

I’d like to think Roland know their customers (ok, maybe not with the RD08), or maybe they just don’t want to go up against Nord, but I wonder why there is no VR-10 that has some decent pianos from the RD, decent VA synths from the newer boards and upgraded organs and Leslie with drawbars. They have all the tech, but the VR09 is over a decade old now with the B refresh doing nothing to address the quality of ‘stage’ sounds. Seems only Yamaha have tried this with the YC which, in some respects, betters the Nords…they just missed the net with the YC61 with its poor quality keybed crippling an otherwise decent machine.

I was thinking the same. Connected to the iPad app, I got some great sounds out of the synth section and, while the organs and Leslie sim were decent enough for a pub gig, the pianos fell well short of the YC.

Ahem, cough, Korg Keystage..... Admittedly there is nothing about 'paying' for these sort of features, but they are not there on a board claiming to be 'the ultimate master keyboard you've always desired to control your live rig'....I wonder if they will be added later, but its becoming like the gaming industry where we are essentially paying to be beta testers while the developer/manufacturer decide what to fix or add later.

Bear in mind that the Macbook can work without a power supply. While your other gear might need a mains supply, at least you wont have to fully reboot and setup a mac mini in the event of a power cut...plus one less trailing wire/power cable 🙂 Hell, get the new M3 Macbook with its 22 hour battery!! With regards to performance, my M1 Mac Mini (8gB) runs everything I throw at it without problem, the i7 Macbook I had did the same to be fair. An M2 iPad pro trounces both of them. Could you not upgrade your iPad to the M2 256Gb, load up Logic Pro and your plug ins and do it all from the one device?

If this type of board was something I was interested in I would struggle to invest in the 08 when the 88 can be had at this sort of price with extras…I expect the ‘upgraded’ RD08 will be near to RD88 prices anyway.

A little more transparency about the cost of the upgrade would help. It could be minimal, but you need to download the cloud manager, then the upgrade just to see what it costs to activate it. At that point, they are 50% of the way to getting you into their cloud based system. Anyone seen the cost of this? I still feel it’s hobbled, imagine the aircon in a new car being disconnected, but the mechanic will ‘switch it on’ for a price…

Sorry if I missed a detail of your rig, but how are you accessing the Mac mini? Using iPad as a remote screen? In which case I would ditch both and keep it simple with a MacBook.

Korg confirmed that 'the MIDI data received through the MIDI In port cannot be sent to the USB MIDI Out or MIDI Out port (ie 5 pin DIN). The MIDI In port is primarily for bidirectional communication with MIDI 2.0 devices.' Note its says 'primarily' but they offer absoutely no other use for it and nothing to say it can't be routed that way in a firmware update,especially if Roland can activate the audio interface on the new RD-08 at the drop of some dollar 😉 On a more positive note, I tried the Keystage with Gadget (MAc and IOS) and its nice how you can change tracks, see them in the OLED display and that the main 8 dials are automatically mapped to key parameters/knobs in the each relevant gadget. I had played with the idea of using Gadget as a multitimbral unit rather than Korg Module and I can see how this might work now. Also impressed how many gadgets you actually get in the 'producer' bundle. I think there are only 5 missing from the full set leaving quite a few gadgets (and more than the IOS version I think). Great that they are also added to Logic Pro as plug ins. Some of these are £10-15 each on IOS! Thats a £300 piece of software and Wavestate another £200 which almost covers the cost of the board. Yes, somewhat limited versions, but not enough to make them useless and more than I need from them. A few Acoustic Audio Solutions plug ins offered as well. Definitely having fun with it and the polytouch in Animoog Z is great.

I thought they were alright for playing at home but some users had trouble with low volume output and had to increase the output to at least +6db. This then led to complaints about distortion from the speakers. YMMV but I wouldn't be trading another board in for the benefit of the speakers in that situation. Lots of other nice features, but speakers were not a big selling point for me and I would still want some 'volume' for rehearsals unless sat in a small room with others playing pretty low.

I think it’s a cheap move and, as others have said, is a stripped down RD88 (which is also midi 2.0 compatible) for a meagre saving. Hell, that model has a working audio interface and MainStage support as well as downloadable sounds. Baffling really. Buy a used RD88, should cost you less when you factor in the upgrades needed. Not suprising that they are using a new board to get people to 'buy in' to their software ecosystem. Ni and Arturia been doing this for years and even the Korg Keystage works best with Korg software (although it is aligned with Ableton). Are we seeing the end of generic USB MIDI controllers from the big companies who also offer a range of software options?

Interesting, and I appreciate you can sell expansion sounds, but I have an issue with software locked hardware. Clearly has to have a hardware audio interface, but you have to pay to activate it?

I paid less for a lightly used YC61, than a new CK…but that keybed…what were Yamaha thinking. I’m sure the CK probably uses the same moulded multi key construction, but it’s not yet developed that ‘clacky’ noise the YC is infamous for. In most other aspects I found the YC to be a much better board, especially for organs.

When you say Korg Module and B3X, are you closing one down and opening another?

No, they are rotary knobs with a fixed start and end point. It's a divisive choice for sure.

@DeltaJockey sorry to keep asking you, but I don’t know if anyone else here has the Keystage. Have you felt any real limitations with Wavestate LE and/or a need to upgrade? I can’t image the half polyphony and one instance would bother me much, but is there much to be gained from importing external libraries or your own waveforms? Just curious really.

Agreed, two wheels are the best. I struggled with the little metal levers on Studiologic SL and those on the YC. The CK has thin wheels reminiscent of the DX. Used to like the four axis joysticks on the 80’s Korgs. Lots of wiggle potential there.

I used to connect via usb to use the editor...

It's a nice bit of kit. Midi 2.0 was more of a novelty for me. The built in audio interface/iPad integration and poly touch were what sold me. Ability to output over DIN and USB is potentially useful for live use.

No, just options like on other boards (that don't make such bold claims) that allow you to choose how midi data is routed to the various ports, output more than one channel etc. It's not a deal-breaker as it does what I need, but they are pitching it for live performance and, on the current firmware, it feels like it's more studio focused other than the poly touch offering greater expression. Still, early days and they can add new features, just as all the wavestates have been made midi 2.0 compatible.