DeeSquare Posted October 21, 2001 Share Posted October 21, 2001 I'm thinking of picking up a used Roland A-80, but I have a question that I hope someone out there can answer. Assuming the board is in good condition, how does the action compare to say Yamaha's P80/200? I have no way of trying it out myself. I know feeling is subjective, but I could really use an opinion. Thanks in advance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Bryce Posted October 21, 2001 Share Posted October 21, 2001 IMO, the A80 had one of the best actions of any 88-key controllers that I've played on. I've heard quite a few people say the same thing. dB ==> David Bryce Music • Funky Young Monks <== Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nursers Posted October 22, 2001 Share Posted October 22, 2001 I use an A-80 - it has an organ feel more than a piano feel. Very happy with its expandability etc. ------------------ www.mp3.com/thirdstoreystory The Keyboard Chronicles Podcast Check out your fellow forumites in an Apple Music playlist Check out your fellow forumites in a Spotify playlist My Music: Stainless Fields Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marino Posted October 22, 2001 Share Posted October 22, 2001 The A-80 has a piano-type weighting, maybe a bit light, but its response always felt very good to me. Curiously, my current favorite is the P80 action, I know it's not a master keyboard and I'm not dying for its piano sound, but I find the combination of keyboard feel and portability very good. The A-80, despite its slim profile, is too heavy to move easily. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dogfur Posted October 22, 2001 Share Posted October 22, 2001 Yeah, the A-80 is a moose to lug around - Be sure to get the case with wheels on it, you'll be glad you did. I like the action on mine alot, but the sliders are a little too touchy, and now if I'm playing hard the LCD goes out. Damn! Another repair! Grumble, grumble, grumble... Woof! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dogfur Posted October 22, 2001 Share Posted October 22, 2001 oops-double post! This message has been edited by Dogfur on 10-22-2001 at 01:37 AM Woof! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nursers Posted October 22, 2001 Share Posted October 22, 2001 I'm an idiot - I own an A-70 http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif IT has organ weighting. ------------------ www.mp3.com/thirdstoreystory The Keyboard Chronicles Podcast Check out your fellow forumites in an Apple Music playlist Check out your fellow forumites in a Spotify playlist My Music: Stainless Fields Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philee Posted October 22, 2001 Share Posted October 22, 2001 I had A-80 for five years and replace it with A-90EX. In my opinion, A-80 is not appropriate for jazz and classical applications where you need delicate control. Believe it or not, when I played A-80, my neighbors complained (I live in an apartment) about the keyboard-action noise and not the music noise (I was using headphone all the time). Because there was not much of shock-absorbing material underneath the keyboards, normal keyboard actions created such vibrations that would transmitted to the keyboard body to the stand to the floor and ultimately to upstairs to downstairs to next door neighbors. Things that I liked about A-80 was its simple heavy duty design and "rock solid" keyboard action. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mats Olsson. Posted October 22, 2001 Share Posted October 22, 2001 When I saw "A-80" in the subject line, I expected it to be about a classic Studer... I used to own one, but sold it aerlier this year... Hmm..., was this reply on- or off-topic? /Mats http://www.lexam.net/peter/carnut/man.gif What do we want? Procrastination! When do we want it? Later! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guestuserguestuser.com Posted October 22, 2001 Share Posted October 22, 2001 Originally posted by philee: I had A-80 for five years and replace it with A-90EX. In my opinion, A-80 is not appropriate for jazz and classical applications where you need delicate control. Believe it or not, when I played A-80, my neighbors complained (I live in an apartment) about the keyboard-action noise and not the music noise (I was using headphone all the time). Because there was not much of shock-absorbing material underneath the keyboards, normal keyboard actions created such vibrations that would transmitted to the keyboard body to the stand to the floor and ultimately to upstairs to downstairs to next door neighbors. Things that I liked about A-80 was its simple heavy duty design and "rock solid" keyboard action. I own an A-50 (76 key, synth-weighted version of the A-80), and I've looked at many A-80's with the idea of buying one to keep at home. To me, the A-50 is a good gigging synth because of the 76 keys, all the pedal and footswitch inputs, etc. I use all that stuff! And it's weighs around 20 lbs, so it's easy to carry to a gig. I still haven't found an A-80 in good enough condition to buy (in my opinion), but at least I'm familiar with them, and I've looked at quite a few. Here's a couple of problems I know about: 1) The action is pretty good on an A-80, but as Philee mentioned, there does tend to be keybed noise. One of the first things to go on an A-80 is the felt pad under the keyboard designed to absorb shock. So, this could potentially be replaced, which might alleviate that problem a bit. You could probably even do that job yourself. 2) A neat-o feature of the A-80 and A-50 (but not the A-70, sorry) is that they transmit poly aftertouch (one of the few keyboards that can do it). However, on every A-80 I've found, the aftertouch sensors are worn out. To get any kind of aftertouch, even channel aftertouch, you practically had to stand on the keyboard and bounce up and down. As for poly aftertouch, forget it. If you're looking for aftertouch from your A-80, you should really check this out to see whether it still works. The aftertouch strips can be replaced, but only if parts are still available, which they might not be. Check your Roland repair centre, and also find out how much it would cost to replace them. On my A-50, this isn't a problem - my aftertouch still works, and I'm not a "banger", so I'm not likely to wear it out, unless it just dries up by itself, which it probably will eventually. 3) The LCD emits a faint but annoying whining sound. This is not a show-stopper, but it can't be fixed even if you replace the LCD (according to my Roland service depot), so if little things like that annoy you, it's something to think about. To me, it's just one more source of ambient noise in my music work environment, adding to the clamour of hard drives, computer fans, sampler fans, etc., etc. That shit adds up. I really would like to have a totally quiet working environment where the only sound is music, made by me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dogfur Posted October 22, 2001 Share Posted October 22, 2001 I forgot that noise problem - It is a clacky keyboard, my wife was pissed for a while with that. Woof! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markyboard Posted October 22, 2001 Share Posted October 22, 2001 I love the touch of the A-80. The key bed does make noise but it never bothered me. I never found a controller that didnt make noise. and I dont find the A-80 any worse then the Kurzweil 2600, Oberheim MC3000 or Yamaha PF80. I am selling my A-80 so of course I would never say anything bad about it. Except for the one thing I cant stand. You have to press really hard to get the after-touch going. I believe this is a result of having poly-aftertouch. This is the only controller I know that ever had polyphonic aftertouch. Some people prefer to dig in to the aftertouch so the aftertouch does not activate when playing loud and hard. I tend to have a lighter touch and so this was an annoyance to me. The controller functions are primo although I was looking for more realtime controllers (sliders).(was that another bad thing?) I used 3 of the 4 MIDI outputs which gave plenty of flexibility in my setup. However since I have some old gear like a Memorymoog which responds on all channels, I never liked that the same data comes out on all outputs(there I go again). You can turn each output on and off independently but you cant have for example MIDI channel 5 come out of output 1 only and MIDI channel 2 and 7 come out output 3 simultaneously. Since I dont like using my MIDI interfaces (2 MTP-AVs) to do this kind of channelizing I always found this a drag. Having the paddle wheel and regular wheels was nice too. The operating system was not as good as my MC3000 but once its was programmed it was set and forget. Except for sending program changes which I didnt think was so great since the programing uses an octal scheme instead of a decimal scheme. I am an extreme MIDI control freak and very picky about the above mentioned gripes. This controller lets you do just about anything you can think of but maybe not as elequently as one might hope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philee Posted October 23, 2001 Share Posted October 23, 2001 I forgot to mention that I am a mod-freak and I've disassembled both A-80 and A-90 piece by piece hoping to squeeze little bit of extra juice. Good thing about A-80 is that its got high quality thick plastic keybed. But due to the simple spring action, several keys combined together assert tremendous force on the bottom chassis. I even thought about replacing felt with high tech silicon pad. However, as folks above have mentioned, it would worsen already poor after touch response. The little whine noise is actually emitting from the internal power supply. When I was about to replace power supply, A-90 came out and I was sold. Unfortunately, plastics on A-90 is a joke compare to A-80. Also, black keys move side to side about 2mm. A-90, too, makes keyboard action noise due to wimpy hinges, poor quality plastics not so high-tech lubricant and a free-hanging hammer on each key. Good thing about A-90's keyboard action is that an internal hammer action on each key moves against your finger motion, thereby canceling pounding noise inherent to A-80. A-80 is a fine controller, just don't play them on the wooden floor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeeSquare Posted October 23, 2001 Author Share Posted October 23, 2001 Thanks everyone; I appreciate the input. I think I will probably avoid the A-80 after reading some of the comments. I may give the A-90 a second look, but I wasn't initially impressed with it's action. I wish the P80 had more controller features, then my decision would be a no-brainer. Markyboard... How do you like the Oberheim MC3000? Thanks again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markyboard Posted October 23, 2001 Share Posted October 23, 2001 Alright... since you're not buying my A-80 I guess I can tell you the MC3000 is the best controller ever made. To me the touch and aftertouch are excellent. Not a Steinway as some use for there reference , but damn good for it purpose (I'm a Steinway fan too) . The operating system is what sold me on this controller. It does every nit-picking thing I could want and in an intuitive way. Except... when disbling a zone with the zone button, the controllers assigned to that zone still function in play mode. In edit mode they disbale the way I would expect. No big deal since there are 8 sliders and 8 zones to handle work-arounds. The built in mouse pad is perfect for my setup. I use it for my PC mouse . I cant believe someone would use a dedicated mouse to program this controller. I haven't got into the programmable velocity /aftertouch curves but this is as detailed as you could ever want. Sending program changes is much easier than on the A-80. It has a cool built in MIDI monitor for troubleshooting. And its about as ugly as they come. My wife thinks its hideous. I always wanted an OsCar for the same reason. 8 foot pedals, 8 independently programmable outputs, 8 sliders - this is a controller. I bought it in February 2000 to replace my A-80. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guestuserguestuser.com Posted November 2, 2001 Share Posted November 2, 2001 Originally posted by philee: I forgot to mention that I am a mod-freak and I've disassembled both A-80 and A-90 piece by piece hoping to squeeze little bit of extra juice. < snip > The little whine noise is actually emitting from the internal power supply. When I was about to replace power supply, A-90 came out and I was sold. Philee, I'm interested in how you were going to replace the power supply. On my A50, if I put my ear right next to the lcd, I can hear the high-pitched noise loudly. But if I put my ear above the power supply (i.e., right above where the power cord comes in), I can hear it eminating from there also. So, you think replacing the power supply would fix this problem in both places (i.e., the powere supply, and the lcd?). If so, what power supply were you going to replace it with? Were you certain that replacing the power supply would fix the whine, or were you going to replace it and see if it worked? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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