Roland GO-61K GO:KEYS 61-Note Keyboard with Bluetooth

The Roland GO:KEYS 61 is a great keyboard for a good price for those wanting to get into piano-playing to those doing small gigs/events to those beginning to do their own music. It has mostly what you would want (and expect) from a keyboard.



Although it may look more like a toy with its bright, red, plastic parts and buttons, it helps with this keyboard being incredibly lightweight, ideal for transporting whether that’s for camping trips and hotel stays or for small, live performances and events. The keys themselves are touch-sensitive and have a nice feel. They do not have that cheap plastic feel other, cheaper keyboards suffer from. Instead of having a modulation wheel or an equivalent wheel, the GO:KEYS has 2 touchpads, each with 5 different settings that add an effect to varying degree depending on which one you touch (yes the buttons just need to be touched, not pressed). Although it can sometimes be faulty with the effect not working sometimes or the transition being a bit jittering and an obvious change being heard.



The tones the keyboard have are of a great quality, especially the varying synth and organ sounds (Also just an FYI, the keyboard’s default settings give you access to only around 230 tones despite almost all promo material saying it says ‘over 500’, the other 250 odd sounds are found in the settings under the ‘ GM2’ tab which is found as you scroll through the setting. This, by default is off for some reason but can easily be turned on, giving you now around 270 tones to chose from) give the keyboard a great variety of sound and an abundance of choice. You can also transpose and shift octaves in the settings to, unfortunately there is no smooth way to quickly change this. There also is not split mode, which would have allowed you to split certain sections of the keyboard into different tones. This can be a big drawback, especially to those who might be thinking of gigging/live performing.



A big draw in for the keyboard is its looping function for good reason. Tailored for beginners but still very enjoyable for the more experienced, it can make familiarising keys/sounds and improvising much more enjoyable with different sounds and styles (22 styles ranging from Rock to EDM to Reggae to J-Pop) to try out. It can be confusing at first to fully control and understand how to use but is easy to pick up quickly just by gradually trying it out. Moreover, the recording feature allows you to record both your own songs but also the loop, or even both if needed. Although the looping feature is limited, as in you cannot make your own on the keyboard and have it looped, going on continuously with the other pre-made loops.



But altogether for the low price and with everything included in this keyboard. It was well worth the money with its almost 600 different sounds and incredibly fun looping function, its fun for both beginners and experienced.