Roland GW-8 Quick Manualbook
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Roland GW-8 Quick Manualbook

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See also: Owner's Manual
Quick Guidebook
2008© Copyright Roland Corporation
1/39

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Summary of Contents for Roland GW-8

  • Page 1 Quick Guidebook 2008© Copyright Roland Corporation 1/39...

  • Page 2: Table Of Contents

    Creating Your Playlist - Play your audio/midi files in order Playing Your Playlist on GW-8 Performance – Saving your favorite settings Analog Modify Knobs – Use the GW-8 like an analog synthesizer D Beam – Move your hands! Melody Intelligence – Play harmony with just one finger 5.

  • Page 3: Introduction

    Guidebook, you will see most of the main features with explanations, pictures and screenshots. With this book, you can quickly start playing the GW-8 when you read this guidebook entirely, but it’s very important to read the Owner’s Manual for complete and detailed information about the equipment.

  • Page 4: Let's Play The

    2. Let’s Play the GW-8 Features: Page Selecting Tones – How to select Tones for Upper and Lower Favorite Function – Register your favorite Tones Numeric Buttons – Select Tones and Music Styles quickly Keyboard Mode – Choose Single, Split or Dual mode Key Touch –...

  • Page 5: Selecting Tones

    – How to select Tones for Upper and Lower The GW-8 has 896 Basic (default) sounds, 256 GM2 sounds plus World Bank (localized) sounds (excluding drum kit sounds). All the Basic sounds are divided into 7 banks (0 to 6). To select a tone, press the bank sound and turn VALUE dial to choose the tone.
  • Page 6 Skydiver: A kind of harp and koto, with tap pan delay. Good for lounge music. RHYTHM BANK (Drum Kits) All drum kits of GW-8, including the GM2 sets. WORLD BANK The GW-8 has its own WORLD BANK, with localized tones. 6/39...
  • Page 7 TIPS: Press the bank button and press [ENTER] button to see the list of sounds and the sound categories from this bank. Some banks have two or more categories. To choose it, use 7/39...

  • Page 8: Favorite Function

    avorite Function - Register your favorite Tones The Favorite Function allows you to register your favorite tones on each bank. With this feature, you can load your favorite sounds very quickly. See how to register your favorite sounds: 1) Select the tone you desire 2) Hold down the button FAVORITE [ON/OFF] and press one of [0]-[9] buttons to register the sound You can register up to ten sounds, one for each bank [0] to [9].
  • Page 9 For greater speed, you can use the numeric buttons of GW-8 to select Tones, Music Styles and Performances. See how to use the numeric buttons: 1) Use the CURSOR buttons up to the numerical value of the TONE 2) Press the button [NUMERIC].

  • Page 10: Keyboard Mode

    Mode - Choose Single, Split or Dual mode The GW-8 has three modes to play: (1) SINGLE: Plays just one sound at time (2) SPLIT: Plays one sound at the right side (Upper) and other sound at the left side (Lower) (3) DUAL: Plays two sounds at the same time (simultaneously) When the lights in both of [SPLIT] and [DUAL] buttons are turned off, you are in SINGLE mode.
  • Page 11 Sometimes, the user may feel that the upper sound is too quiet and that he needs to play very hard to hear the sound. With this feature, you can adjust the GW-8’s parts to your taste. Let’s see how: 1) Press the [KEY TOUCH] button so it is lit. You will see the Key Touch screen:...
  • Page 12 ey Scale - Select Arabian and other scales The Key Scale lets you switch the kind of scale, with different temperaments used in Western music. See how to use the Key Scale: 1) Press [KEY SCALE] so the button is lit. The Key Scale window will open: 2) With the CURSOR buttons, select the item you want to adjust, and use the VALUE dial to change the value.
  • Page 13 – How to change the octave Sometimes you need to play notes that you don’t have on a keyboard with 61 keys, like the GW-8. If you need to play notes outside of this 5 octave range, you can increase/decrease the octave. You can raise or lower the pitch by up to four octaves.
  • Page 14 Now, imagine that you need to play a song with another musician, and each one plays in a different key: you play the music in C major and the other musician plays in D major. With the GW-8, you don’t need to change your key, just transpose the GW-8 to so that it sounds in D major.

  • Page 15: Playing With Music Styles

    3. Playing with Music Styles Features Page The Backing Types of the GW-8 Try the Music Styles Variations of One Music Style Sync Start/Stop One Touch Lock Inside the Music Styles Part View Style Converter and User Style 15/39...
  • Page 16 Song. GW-8 is able to play songs with up to 16-tracks (instruments). (3) USB MEMORY PLAYER: The GW-8 has one exclusive USB connector for USB flash memory with SMF or audio files to play on the GW-8. You can load new Music Styles on the USB flash memory, too.
  • Page 17 (3) JAZZ/LATIN (4) TRADITIONAL (5) WORLD: In this bank, each local version of GW-8 has its own Music Styles. (6) USER: You can import new Music Styles from USB flash memory into this bank. Let’s try one of the GW-8’s Music Styles, 050Motown:...
  • Page 18 Ending with most of the instruments of the style ENDING 4 The complete instrumentation of the Ending Each style of the GW-8 has six FILL-INS. You can move from one variation to other using the FILL-INS. To do it, keep the button [AUTO FILL] lit. 18/39...
  • Page 19 ync Start/Stop The Sync Start/Stop works together the Music Styles. When you select Sync Start, the Music Style is in “stand by” to play: you just need to play a note on the lower part of the keyboard to start the style. The Sync Stop is good to use for some “kicks”...
  • Page 20 Touch For each Music Style, the GW-8 can suggest an appropriate sound. If you select a Music Style and are unsure which tone to select, you just need to press [ONE TOUCH] and a great combination will be selected automatically.
  • Page 21 The Lock preserves selected settings of your Performances even when you switch Performances. You can have dozens of Performances with different Music Styles and Tones saved in each one. With Lock, you can change the Performance without changing the tones or the Music Styles. See how to use the Lock function: 1) Press and hold the [LOCK] button for approximately 1 second.
  • Page 22 The Music Styles in GW-8 are a complete band to play many different musical genres. Using the Music Styles, the musician can be a kind of “one man band”. The GW-8 has a lot of fresh new styles to play any type of music.
  • Page 23 art View With Part View you can adjust the balance between the Upper, Lower and all the Music Style’s parts. See how to use the Part View: 1) With the [STYLE] button turned on, press the [PART VIEW] button. You will see the Perform Mixer screen: 2) Use to select the part whose settings you want change, and use...
  • Page 24 Converter and User Style You can store your own Music Styles to play on the GW-8. To do it, you need MIDI sequencing software (like Cakewalk SONAR, sold separately) to record the SMF file that will be converted to the GW-8’s Music Style.
  • Page 25 See how to use the Style Converter: You need to fill the empty spaces with information about the measures (bars). You have to provide information about all the style’s variations: Intro, Main, Fill and Ending. Sequencing Software Style Converter Flash Memory GW-8’s User Style 25/39...

  • Page 26: Real-Time Playability

    Creating Your Playlist - Play your audio/midi files in order Playing Your Playlist on the GW-8 Performance – Saving your favorite settings Analog Modify Knobs – Use the GW-8 like an analog synthesizer D Beam – Move your hands! Melody Intelligence – Play harmony with just one finger...

  • Page 27: Playback With Audio/Midi Files

    Audio/MIDI Files – Play with your favorite MP3 songs You can play audio/midi files on the GW-8 using USB flash memory. Here are the formats that the GW-8 accepts: .WAV/.AIFF 8,16,24bits/44.1kHz .MP3 32-320kbps/44.1kHz .MID SMF format 0 or 1...
  • Page 28 Cancel – Transform your GW-8 into a karaoke machine The Center Cancel transforms the GW-8 in a karaoke machine. You can cancel the vocals (in the center) of the audio file to sing or play along. See how to use Center Cancel: 1) After the Audio file has begun, press the [MINUS ONE/CENTER CANCEL] button The mid-range frequencies of the audio will disappear.

  • Page 29: Creating Playlist

    reating your Playlist - Play your audio/midi files in order With Playlist, you can play all your audio files in your favorite order. You can create your list using the Playlist Editor software. See how to create your list: 1) On your computer, collect the songs you want to use 2) Open the Playlist Editor and select FILE and ADD SONG 3) Select the desired song 4) Select EDIT and NEW PLAYLIST...
  • Page 30 5) Create a name for your new Playlist 6) Drag the songs from the PLAYLIST LIBRARY to your NEW LIBRARY 7) Now, choose the desired order of the songs with the mouse 8) Connect the USB flash memory to your computer 30/39...
  • Page 31 9) Click DRIVE SELECTION to select the USB flash memory from the list of drives 10) On TOOL, click on TRANSFER TO USB MEMORY and click OK. The files will be transferred 11) Use the Safely Remove Hardware on your computer to disconnect the USB flash Memory 31/39...
  • Page 32 Your Playlist on GW-8 Now, see how to play the Playlist on the GW-8: 1) Connect the USB flash memory with your audio files 2) Press the [USB MEMORY PLAYER] button. You will see the following screen: 3) Use to select PLAYLIST and press the [ENTER] button.
  • Page 33 TIPS 1: You can play all the songs in your Playlist consecutively, without stopping. See how to do it: 1) On the PLAYLIST SELECT screen, press to select P INFO and press the [ENTER] button 2) Use to select Chain Play and press the [ENTER] button 3) Press the [EXIT] button to go back to PLAYLIST SELECT.

  • Page 34: Performance

    Performance is very convenient for live situations, because you can change sounds and settings very quickly. See how to save one performance: 1) Make all of your adjustments on the GW-8 (Tones, Music Styles, Effects and other parameters) 2) Press the [WRITE] button 3) Use...
  • Page 35 Modify Knobs – Use the GW-8 like an analog synthesizer The GW-8 has two knobs to control parameters in real-time. With these two knobs, you can instantly control your sounds in a live situation. Here the parameters that you can control with these knobs:...
  • Page 36 Beam – Move your hands! D Beam is Roland’s exclusive revolutionary infra-red controller. With your hands, you can apply effects or control settings. It’s a good way to add an extra dimension to your performance. See how to select the options:...

  • Page 37: Melody Intelligence

    When beginners are using Music Styles, it can be hard to play more than one note on the upper half of the keyboard. But GW-8 can enhance your melodies using Melody Intelligence. You will still be playing just single note melodies, but you will hear added harmonies. The Melody Intelligence (harmonies) will be based on the chords that you play on the lower half of the keyboard.

  • Page 38: Faqs

    Audio Player With the GW-7 you can only play SMF files, not audio. The GW-8 is able to play SMF and the following audio files: WAV, AIFF and MP3. You can also use the Center Cancel to play along with your favorite artist’s songs.
  • Page 39 No, because the GW-8 has a completely different sound map to other Roland arrangers. Although it has the same Music Style structure as the E series, the GW-8 can’t recognize the sounds that were used to record the Music Styles.

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