of Fantom keyboards or their RD-2000 Stage Piano ( and spend a good bit more money ) and for many churches that may be worth it . I am on a budget here and these keys do just fine for me . They have a nice ivory-type feel to them .
At 35 lbs . this keyboard is easy to move from the rehearsal hall , to the main stage to the youth room . That is another perk of advances made in keyboards . In older times your keyboard would be a bear to lug around . The 76-key version is even lighter of course at 15 lbs . dual sounds are simple to adjust if need be and you can save those that you create so they are waiting for you next time . You can mix the dual / layered patches on the fly , so your pads can have even more movement while you are playing them in that favorite new worship song of yours . You can even have a super layer , so you can double the same patch up to five times to make it even richer . Then you can adjust a few parameters that slightly shift things to make the patch sound even fuller .
More fun ensues when you get to the Phrase Pad section . Once you get the hang of it , you can sketch out songs to good effect . It is not a full sequencer where you would save an entire song . It is for mapping out 8-bar phrases and loops . Have drums , bass and keyboards parts all going at once to help you build your song from scratch or use some pre-sets they have made for you to launch from … to be inspired by and create with . Super fun in my book . You can mix the volumes between the different
tracks as well . Another use would be to trigger a phrase live for a certain section on one of your worship songs .
The vocoder allows you to use the pitch information from the keys , but the shape and texture of the sound comes from you voice . You can try that out and see if it would fit anywhere in your needs .
Playability . At my low traditional piano skill level , I really could get by fine with the 76 velocity sensitive keys version of this board . I did want the 88 keys for the better touch in case I had some real keyboard players over to help me record . You might want the same for your worship team as you may have different players cycle through your teams . I would place the feel and touch on the board as a strong “ B ”. If you want an “ A ” you will need to jump up to Roland ’ s higher line
Pet peeve – same thing I said about liner notes on CD ’ s – the font is way too small in the manual to make it user friendly .
This keyboard can be battery powered besides plugging into the wall . For personal use and songwriting remotely , this may come in handy .
All in all , you do get quite a boat-load of features for the money and I will use this JUNO-DS88 in a myriad of ways in my home recording processes . You can use this keyboard on the worship platform in the same way . It is a valuable songwriting tool , easily programmable with the user interface , great for recording , rehearsal and live performance .
JUNO-DS61 $ 849.99 JUNO-DS76 $ 1,049.99 JUNO-DS88 $ 1,249.99 www . Roland . com