Roland GW 8L Keyboard Review

Today we are going to talk about Roland’s newest addition in the line up of keyboard workstations.

True to its form the new Roland GW-8L is housed in a sleek package much like its predecessor the GW-7.  In fact, this latest keyboard addition I would swear is built on the same frame as the GW-7.

Upon first inspection I can see that the keyboard layout is well-defined with buttons well-positioned making this keyboard a blast to use.

The joystick is really more of a pitch bend than anything else, which comes as a surprise, meaning that it lacks a vibrato which is usually standard on keyboards at this price range.

Another feature that is lacking in this keyboard is the fact that it does not have internal speakers.  The keyboard features no less than 1,293 sounds taken from previous models.  As is typical with Roland sound samples are very good.

The sounds include the usual grand pianos, electric pianos [very good Wurlitzer and Fender Rhodes].  In addition to pianos to keyboard features some pretty astounding Hammond B3 sounds.  And not to be outdone guitars are well featured on this keyboard with a range of well appointed guitar sounds.

The GW-8L also includes a number of synthesizer, strings, percussion and brass instruments instruments to boot.

Upon something very interesting about Roland’s GW-8 model lineup in that I noticed that the model features a letter that is appendd to the model number.  Upon further investigation I determined that these letters actually represent keyboards that are destined for specific markets.

For example, a workstation featuring the letter “L” signifies is a keyboard adapted with sounds and rhythms that are destined for the Latin American market.  So essentially patently Latin American music more Mexican music with a host of Latin American beats and instruments.

As indicated earlier this keyboard layout is well-designed and makes it even easy to split the keyboard or enter layered mode to assign sounds in either of those modes.  Keyboard features hundred and 128 note polyphony.