ROLAND AT60S V Technics GA3

[Davedrake]

Hi All, what's your thoughts in comparing a Roland AT60s with a Technics GA3
There is a Roland AT60s going for £300
And a GA3 went recently for £280...
Is there much between the two for the price?

[auronoxe]

Hi, the roland has more keys on the lower manual keyboard, it has more bass pedal keys, more rhythm styles and it has a TOUCH screen.

The GA however offers more real buttons to switch sounds faster and easyly and as far as I can judge it offers more different organ sounds (technics, lowrey, conn, farfisa, hammond,...).

[tobeycat2007]

They are both terrific organs and now both very cheap buys, I would get both of them if the at60 was nearer i would have had it but also out of room.

The roland is newer of the two but technics still stands up well despite its age.

[afuller5]

Davedrake,

First, I am biased. (See my signature below.) And I have never played a Technics organ.

I would say go with the Roland. It has incredible orchestral sounds. It has Hammond and Lowery type flute organ tones. Additionally, there are classical and theatre pipe organ voices that are from Rodgers. The styles are great.

One thing about the Roland is that the orchestral voices do no blend that well with organ voices (strings are the exception). Roland went for very realistic samples for the orchestral tones, and they are wonderful. However, as a result, they are "too realistic" to blend well when combined with traditional organ tones. Lowery organs of similar vintage decided to go with less realistic orchestral voices so that they blend better with the organ tones.

Just my penny's worth.

Later,
Allen

P.S. The AT-60s will have better and more voices than my first-generation AT-90, plus it has a touch screen! I'm stuck with a little two-line LCD display and scrolling forward and backward with buttons. :(

P.P.S. My YouTube channel has videos of my playing the AT-90. I tend to use more traditional organ sounds than orchestral sounds. But there are a few with orchestral sounds. There are examples of classical, theatre, and Lowery-like organ sound in various songs there. They are not professional videos either in production or playing. I play for my church but consider myself just a gifted amateur.