Which do you like the best? And please post why. I'm getting a new one, and I have an idea, but I'd like to know the best and worst points of the companies. I'm looking for affordable, I just need a good portable with great synths and some room for user programmed stuff. I'm leaning towards this one Roland one, but I wanted some opinions.

Roland's the priciest, but is always worth the money. Their synths normally have the most "realistic" sounds. *shrug* quality shit.

I second roland, if your serious about your sound.

these guys are right: go with Roland.

i'm no crackshot pianist but if you need one piece of gear with keys as a sort of centerpiece for your studio, you cannot miss with the JP-8000 (goes well with the JP-8080) and you will never have a problem getting rid of it either.

a nice workstation that i'm not sure if they still make (it came out January 99) is their EG-101 with the built-in speakers, D-beam controller, its got all that ravey shit in it and a ton of options to work with. plus its housed in a nice cabinet, its real nice to work with although i haven't touched on in 3 years. if you're just getting started, these workstations are a nice bit of gear, fairly inexpensive.

my first pieces of Roland gear were a TR-707 and a CR-78 CompuRhythm drum box from '78. i still have them. they just make nice equipment, those Roland guys.

a couple of guys a few years back had those Korg Trinity and Korg Tritons and they just remind me of the candy-rave, super blow-up 1999 trancey sound of that era and for that, i will probably never buy a Korg...so don't go all BT on my ass. lol*

Yamaha makes pretty decent gear, i owned 2 of their drumboxes, an RY-10 and i can't remember what else. their DX-7 goes down as one of the classic synths of the 80s but when it comes to that category, you could probably name 20 pieces of Roland gear that were far more influential (i know you know 303s and 808s)

oh well, hope this helps a bit. good luck to you.

one last thing, BE A SMART SHOPPER! there are a thousand places who have what you're looking for.

Thanks. Yeah, I'm definately considering the roland. Looking at my latest copy of Musician's Friend, its the EM-15 Creative Portable Keyboard. 61 Key. It seems to be what I'm looking for. If any of you know stuff about this particular one, then I'd appreciate it. Its just $300, but like I said I'm just looking for a more updated thing from the shitty old Kawai Superboard II that I have. Realism is definately an important part of it for me.