roland u-20?

[flash2ace]

hi all, what i need to know is is the roland u-20 any good. i realise its older, i will be using it for my home studio.all i have wright now is a yamaha psr series. and i have a chance to buy the roland for 100 bucks. i work with the guy who has it he said that two of the black keys dont work and said somthing about somthing that goes underneath the keys that is replaceable. i know very lttle about keyboards other than playing them and im learnong that as i go.he said the piano sounds are great. does anyone have some stuff theyve recorded with the u-20 that i can hear? thanks guys. tim pate god bless.

 

[Chriss]

waste of money... cheese factory #1...
pay a little extra and get an emu sound module instead i say...

 

[brzilian]

It will easily cost you $100 to have the keys fixed. The lowest F# on my XP30 was chipped and worked intermittently. It cost me $60 at an authorized Roland service repair center to fix it.

I would also go as far as to say than any of Yamha's higher numbered PSR models (200's - 300's and up) have very good piano sounds and would give the U-20 a run for the money

 

[mikeh]

I never really thought the U20 was very good - Roland was just trying to come out with some low cost "performance board".

Candidly, I think the sounds on most of the current Yamaha and Casio consumer keyboards have better sounds then the U20.

Given the broken keys, I would not recommend buying the U20 for $100.

 

[drawbars]

noway, especially considering the broken keys.

unless you're using it to trigger other modules, sound generators, etc. it's really not that good. the sounds are terribly dated and not very useful.

if your psr series yamaha has midi capabilities, put the hundred bux towards a module.

 

[geekgurl]

Well, I have a U-20 and I have to somewhat disagree with my esteemed peers in that I think there ARE useful sounds on the board ... but you have to layer them, for the most part. I also have to disagree (this time perhaps with Roland, if a previous poster was correct?) that it is a performance keyboard. It's the biggest pain in the ass to get around in, EVER. Pages and pages and pages of menus on a tiny LCD screen to edit ANYTHING. And the feel of the keyboard really pisses me off.

Where I agree with everyone else here: If it's broke, don't fix it. With the technology out today, this broken board just ain't worth it. Depends on what you want to do with your keys, but there are so many boards out there you can buy used that will outshine the U-20.