by ken horton » 17 Jul 2018 05:19
Hi everyone, I have recently bought a Ringway RS1000e and like Gillian's experience it's a steep learning curve and I'm 86 and that adds it's own problems!, it's early days yet to make a judgement but I did jump in with both feet and my eyes closed to some extent. First I did not know until I exchanged messages with "Chuck" that there are two versions of the organ, the original Chinese and the Orla European modification.
But like most organs each one has it's own route to get to a voice or a feature, for example the M O C is controlled through any rhythm section button while altering the octave is through the particular voice button and so on, it's just remembering which route to take and can be quite complicated as some you may have to double click and some you scroll through pages. There are also a full range of identical settings you can alter for each voice so you can tailor make it to suit yourself so it's very versatile. A very good screen and easy to navigate but for my eyes a little too small.
Lots of pros but on the other side of the coin I was surprised there are no conductor buttons, with two sets of upper and lower identical panels if you want to disable one you have to scroll the individual volume control down to minimum, and with some buttons laid flat and at arms length hitting the fillls , intros and endings etc can be a problem but there are 4 foot switches if you can manage them. But the labeling of the buttons at my age are hard to read but that is hardly the fault of the organ ! The USB stick system is quite refreshing after struggling for so many years with floppies but there are sufficient built in factory pre sets so you don't need to save very much as it has been done for you. And a very good range of voices that cover all I could think of.
My first overall impression was that in general style it is almost the size and design of a Yamaha El organ range with the lid doubling as a full width music stand which I have always found excellent and the whole instrument is lower and a little smaller than your "standard Roland, Technics, Orla cabinet models so it fits into the living pace easier if you don't have a dedicated room for it.
And it's white ! all in all quite a refreshing change from the more conventional home organs.