roland EG101

fun piece of equipment of piece of shit?

been offered one for $175

Pretty much an MC-303 with a keyboard and a bit of SP-202 Dr. Sample thrown in. It looks like a ghetto blaster. $175 is probably fair. Probably fun to play with, much like a Yamaha DJX I'd think.

I bought one when they first came out for like $750. I bought it with the intention of playing it in a industrial/techno group but ended up waiting 6 months for one since it was back ordered. Was overall disappointed with the thing. For another hundred or two I could of gotten a JP-8080 and been a zillion times happier. It was advertised as a 'creation' station that you could sequence/sample and make full songs on....It doesn't even come close to doing that. You'd create more with a 4-track cassette recorder and a kazoo. Ok thats exaggerating, I'm still miffed I spent so much for so little but I was 16 at the time and $750 was a lot to dump!

First and foremost, the sounds get old quick and there just are not that many of them. No custom patchs as far as I know. I only found 20% of the sounds even that pleasing, the rest are tired and cheesy 90's house anthem sounds. The 'sequencing' and 'sampling' it has is total shit and a waste of time, making a full song with this keyboard just isn't feasable. I don't even think you can make drum patterns on it. The whole instant-cue loop thing is hilariously silly. D-Beam is over rated. Speakers are pretty bangin. Arp is also kinda weak but has its uses. Basically its a glitzy keyboard with a boatload of low-end features.

I forget the name of the feature but it has this loop cue thing where you hit keys to cue different bits. It comes with about 9 different premade ones (and as far as I know you can't really make your own). The first or second one is a total ripoff of Chemical Brothers block rockin beats - like an uncanny totally obvious ripoff!

$175 is about how much I got for mine when I pawned it years ago. If its not broken its probably an ok deal, mine had some busted knobs so getting $170 in 2002 worked.

If your buying it for some extra sounds or a play toy it can be fun to jam on or goof about. I was pretty bored and ready to toss the thing within a week but it still was fun to occasionally sit down and just play. It is in no way shape or form a 1-man song making station like it was originally advertised as and in hindsight I really wish I'd have gotten a MC-303 or 505 that actually had sequencing capabilities. Never did mess with the midi, if you can map the knobs it would be a neat interface especially if you could utilize d-beam.

Odds are you'll quickly find this thing is a kids toy with no real muscle, just like any casio keyboard from Wal-Mart. The big difference is all the sounds are 'electronic'. Just keep in mind that whoever made these patches probably hadn't heard much electronic music beyond Dave's Ultimate Techno Mix. It can still be a fun toy though, and it probably won't depreciate much lower than $150 if its in good condition and may even gain value as dated things tend to do over time.

  Drahken said:

I forget the name of the feature but it has this loop cue thing where you hit keys to cue different bits. It comes with about 9 different premade ones (and as far as I know you can't really make your own). The first or second one is a total ripoff of Chemical Brothers block rockin beats - like an uncanny totally obvious ripoff!

Here it is:

:teeth:

great feedback

good old watmm

i'm looking for a decent keyboard to buy and this got my attention due to the price. think i'll keep looking and spend more money.

i love the block rockin' beats ripoff in the sample. fucking lol.

Yea lol, that mp3 scones posted sums it up nicely. Thats basically what the whole keyboard sounds like...Only you can't sequence drums or sounds like those demos...Best you can do is play along with whats there. Biggest let down ever.

Seriously though, that chem bros rip is just classic. That is the 'Big Beat' preset I believe!

Edit: lol crazy nostalgia waves listening to that.

Can you do MC-303 style sequencing on it? Does it have 808/909 drum sounds? That alone would give it some redeeming value i'd think. :undecided:

It has some drum sounds but there is no sequencer. The closest thing it has is 3 slots that let you record for about 3 and a half minutes per slot but you can't over dub it and the only thing you can record is what you play on the keys. Unless you can play a beat on a keyboard for 3 minutes straight while playing your melody you just can't do much with it alone. It does have a bunch of drum kit sounds you could sample though. They sounds exactly like what you hear in that mp3 demo above :P

Despite what Roland billed it as this isn't an MC-303 with a keyboard...Its a keyboard with MC-303 sound presets.

Damn, that sucks. What a piece of shit. And that thing went for $900 back in the says?!