Yamaha MX88 vs Roland Juno DS88

[aj seaman]

There is an ass for every chair, & this saying was never more apropos than with music. As an old guy, I would like to make a possibly-irrelevant observation that millenniums won't understand. In my day, "rock" songs were often about cars/tires/clutches/engines. A ten-year-old pickup was pretty new, & repair shops (for everything) were everywhere. You could look-at a musical instrument, touch it, & tell its quality. Old instruments weren't tossed---they were treasured & some cost $millions today. Car companies advertised the details of their engines, suspensions & drive trains.

Today's cars (etc.) are advertised on the basis of how many toys are on the dashboard. They say brilliant things like: WE'VE INCLUDED A 42 INCH TOUCH SCREEN ON THE DASH & WIFI---BUT DON'T TEXT WHILE DRIVING. The design/strength of a car's frame is no longer touted. They don't even have frames.

When you are not playing with a band, having a complete band/orchestra at your command is an amazing innovation. My old PSR550 (in the shop since last year) gave me the support of any combination of musicians, & they play as I wish at the touch of a button or revolution of a knob. I recently sampled some top-of-the line keyboards. I admit they can do some amazing things---but to do them you have to read a host of menus on a tiny screen---then perform a number of executions to make them happen. It is simply not possible to insert what I call "schmaltz" at a whim to make the presentation more interesting.

This has become a throw-away world focused on gimmics. Milleniums accept that---but I never will.

 

[Edwin Gonzalez]

Hello, I sold my Yamaha S90 couple of weeks ago and was trying to decide between the Kross 2 88 and MX88, surprisingly the Juno DS was discarded from my initial equation. Once at the store i spent 2 hours with the Kross and to be honest it was nice, Keybed it's good for a 88 weighted keyboard, my concern from the very beginning was the piano sound response to velocity curves, to flat, totally unexpressive, that was a red flag from minute 1, construction is cheap and while the 61 version is beautifully designed the 88 version is just odd, weird and horrid and scream cheap, don't understand why Korg didn't use the same desing from the 61 version, also the 88 version come with 2 comparment, 1 for the baterries (IMO, no need to place that there and the other slot to store a sandwich baceuse is almost if not completely useless to store anything relevant). Drums are just right for any music style and every tone comes with a suggested rhythm and arpeggiator that you can just turn on/off as you wish. Very light, didn't like the fact it has an empty space with exposed bolts under the keybed, usually, that's covered with a sheet of plastic, carton board or aluminum. again cheap all the way. Then I spent 20 mins with the Yamaha, keybed is their graded one, sounds the same from original motif and beyond, everything as usual, in my case after playing an S90 with the superb S700 piano sample, nothing from the MX88 without that piano sample will catch my attention, very cheap plastic construction but way better than the Kross doesn't feel flimsy, it's kind of sturdy but flat, pitch bend wheel is kind of slow returning to Zero, that's weird, also fell cheap. While deciding what keyboard to get i saw the already without testing Roland Juno DS88, i give it a try and.... I bought it.

The Keybed is just awesome, Pianos are from good to great, not awesome but some are really, really good, plenty of sounds to cover any musical style, pattern sequencer, i don't like it but the whole unit is a USB audio interface with 1/4" Mic in with vocoder, same as the Kross 2, the MX just come with a 1/8" aux also a UBS audio interface but no MIC. I bought the DS88 to home after agreeing with the store manager it was for a test drive if I don't find what i was looking for i will return it. And yes, doesn't have the great sequencer capabilities as the Kross, but man, really feels good and just 32 pounds and during the test week i found the expansion surprise, oh, that's change everything, orchestra expansion give you everything with high-quality tones, and complete Piano collection just add ammunition to the already good built-in piano bank and so one, so many sounds, lot of good stuff. Anyway i want to give the Kross 2 a second chance becasue i still want an onboard sequencet and just can afford 1 keyboard at this time, so i spent the last sturday like 3 hours playing with velocity settings to make the piano response more to my liking, and while playing with the settings i dsicoverd this is a deep machine, but the piano, oh lord, not good for my taste, maybe not bad for mixing, but not expresive is ind of weird how is structured even with the keys which are actually good, even the lower range is heavier like yamaha and roland, but the sound lacks expression and have lot to do with the way it was layered and corss filtered, maybe fixeable, but no thanks, mid range level is like 3 layers, while upper is 2 and lower feel single sound volume triggered by touch response. I came back with my JUNO DS and now doing DAW setups, the Kross 2 will be an add-on as a home/secondary keyboard but not the main keyboard.

You see in year 2018 there are no excuses for a big player like Korg to deliver an incomplete product like the Kross, and Casio is demonstrating horsepower in that market range unfortunately here in Puerto Rico the deal breaker the Privia PX-560 was not available, that thing is 256 polyphony, touch 5" touchscreen, 16+1 sequencer capable of recording audio and USB audio interface with Ivory feel keys for the same price as the Kross 2. I really want to test it. Now to the original poster, if you are looking for an all-around workstation and you are in the $999 range and you don't care about USB audio interface or 88 weighted actions, your keyboard is the KROME 73, you can get it from AMAZON right now at $999. That's an awesome workstation with lot of muscle and the touch screen make everything easier.

Forgot to mention, Roland JUNO DS construction is strong and beautiful, while most of the case is plastic, but feels sturdy and firm and also has an aluminum bar just in front below of the keys which add a higher end look and feel while add support to the front of the structured, really well designed.

 

[anotherscott]

IOne thing I've heard about the MX synths is that it can be difficult to edit the voices on the synth itself

Not difficult... impossible. There is no editing function on board. You can edit through a computer program, though.

Strangely, there are very few 76 key or larger arranger keyboards.

One to check out could be the Korg Havian 30, which is very capable and has dropped a lot in price.