Roland E-70 Intelligent Synthesizer

A while ago I bought a Roland E-70. Why would you want a 25 year old keyboard? Because when I was alot younger I had a E-30 and the E-70 was the top of the line keyboard back then. Thats why 🙂

They aren’t very valuable anymore these days and you should be able to find a nice one for 100 euro’s. The price back in the nineties was I believe 5000 Dutch guilders (around 2200 euro’s). So it was insanely expensive back then and used by semi-professional players who would use it to sing along in their one-man-band (wedding)party operation. Or just people who had one in their living room.

I picked this one up for 50 euro’s. I has 2 or 3 broken keys, a few keys that aren’t velocity sensitive anymore and is a bit dusty. I came with eleven music style cards to add extra  music styles (including a Beatles card and a card containing the Lambada. (wheeeeeeeeeeee :-))

I also bought a messed up E-86 with a entire octave of smashed keys. I looked it up in the service manuals and everything from the E-56 and up (except the way never models E-60 and E-80) share the same keys.

So i’m in the market for some replacement keys. I kept an eye on my favorite used stuff  website (marktplaats.nl) for the Netherlands and shortly a E-56 with one broken key and no power adapter popped up for cheap 5km’s from where I live. It was a sign 😀

So I got that E-56 and took everything apart.

The E-70 had a few broken keys that where glued back together. Functional but not very pretty.

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Removing the old keys is a matter of removing the spring at the back (after you take the keyboard apart that is) and stick a flat screwdriver in the hole on top of the key and gently bend a small plastic lip keeping the key in place. For some reason this works fine on the white keys but I broke a few black one’s.. they seem more fragile so be very careful!

I noticed something funny when looking at the mainboard of the E-70. Apparently it is also used in the E-36, the E-56 and the RA-90 (which is the small module version of the E-70) I had a look at the E-56 mainboard and it’s identical. Well except of a few missing chips and a different program / cpu chip.

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I put everything back together and played the E-70 for a while. Old keyboard but still sounds great. I enjoyed it very much. Would you buy this for your 12-year old if he want’s to learn how to play keyboard? Not really. Although 25 years ago very few 12-year old’s (or their parents) could afford one it’s a bit dated nowadays. I see a lot of these old E-series on marktplaats.nl and here is what you should buy if you don’t want to spend to much money.

The older arranger keyboards from Roland are the E-series and G-series. The E-series are the home keyboards. They have 61 (non-weighted) keys and built in speakers. The G-series have 76 semi-weighted keys (with the exception of the G-600 which has 61 keys) and no built in speakers.

The problem with the numbering of the E- and G-series is that it is kind of erratic 🙂

The first E-series keyboards where in order of coolness: E-5, E-10, E-12, E-14, E-15, E-16, E-20, E-28, E-30, E-35, E-38, E-40, E-56, E-66, E-68, E-70, E-86 and E-96.

Ten years later they released the E-50, E-60 and E-80.. So the E-50 is way newer and cooler than for example the E-70… still with me?

Somewhere between the E-96 and the E-50 the E-100, E-200, E-300, E-500 and E-600 came out. There where all loosely based on other E-series models. Number wise it’s a huge mess. Luckily they all sort of look the same and work the same So if you figure out how an E-70 works you can play all E- and G-series keyboards 🙂

The keyboards came out in this order:

• First Generation (1988-1991)

E-5, E-10, E-20, E-30

RA-50 (module version of the E-30), Pro-E Arranger (half an E-20, clueless why anyone would buy this)

• Second Generation (1991-1993)

E-15, E-35, E-40, E-70

RA-90 (module version of the E-70)

• Third Generation (1993-1996)

E-16, E-36, E-56, E-66, E-86

RA-95 (module version of the E-86)

• Fourth Generation (1995 – 1998)

E-12, E-14, E-28, E-38, E-68, E-96, G-600, G-800

RA-30 (E-14 module??? no idea :-)), RA-800 (module version of the G-800)

• Fifth Generation (1998 – 2001)

G-1000, E-300, E-500, E-600

• Sixth Generation (2001 – 2005)

E-100, E-200

• Seventh Generation (2005 – 2009)

G-70, E-50, E-60, E-80

I have had the E-50 (and many other E- and G-series) and it’s a very nice keyboard. It has a ton of good sounds and the option to expand the built in styles using a diskdrive or better: a CF memory card. This allows you to store thousands of new styles in the E-50 (and E-60, E-80) which makes it usable these days. It also has a style finder so when you setup the keyboard for a specific song you can make a snapshot of all settings and store them under the songs name. This makes it very easy to recall those specific settings.

You can get a E-50 for around 150/200 euro’s. The E-60 is exactly the same as the E-50 but has 76 keys instead of 61.

Of the old (first) E-series only the E-96 is somewhat nice. It has a built in diskdrive that allows you to load additional styles and it has user programs to store setups for songs. Price: approx. 150 euro’s. You can also buy the G-800 or G-1000 for around the same price. One octave extra and weighted keys but no built in speakers. The G-800 is the professional version of the E-96, technically identical but looks completely different and has more keys.

The E-80 is the flagship and has a very nice color touchscreen display and draw-bars for organ sounds. Very cool and you should be able to pick one up for 300-400 euro’s.

The E-80 equivalent is the G-70.

So.. bottomline: E-96, G-800/1000, E-50, E-80 or G-70 are still worth looking at. If you want something newer look at the BK-series.

Soon I will write a blogpost about my E-86 which I’m trying to rejuvenate by replacing the diskdrive for a usb stick reader thingy.

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