Roland Workstation GW-8 User manual

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Quick Guidebook
2008©Copyright Roland Corporation

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Table of Contents
Page
1. Introduction 3
2. Let’s Play the GW-84
Selecting Tones –How to select Tones for Upper and Lower 5
Favorite Function –Register your favorite Tones 8
Numeric Buttons –Select Tones and Music Styles quickly 9
Keyboard Mode –Choose Single, Split or Dual mode 10
Key Touch –Adjust the keyboard sensitivity 11
Key Scale –Select Arabian and other scales 12
Octave Shift –How to change octaves 13
Transpose –How to change the key 14
3. Playing with Music Styles 15
The Backing Typesof the GW-816
Try the Music Styles 17
Variations of One Music Style 18
Sync Start/Stop 19
One Touch 20
Lock 21
Inside the Music Styles 22
Part View 23
Style Converter and User Style 24
4. Real-time Playability 26
Playback with Audio/MIDI Files –Play with your favorite MP3 songs 22
Center Cancel –Transform your GW-8 into a karaoke machine 24
Creating Your Playlist -Play your audio/midi files in order 25
Playing Your Playlist on GW-8 28
Performance –Saving your favorite settings 30
Analog Modify Knobs –Use the GW-8 like an analog synthesizer 31
DBeam –Move your hands! 32
Melody Intelligence –Play harmony with just one finger 33
5. FAQs 34

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1. Introduction
The keyboard market has two very different categories: synthesizers and arrangers. Roland was the first
company to develop a keyboard joining both worlds, the GW-7. With the sound engine of their
entry-level synthesizer JUNO-D and the basic architecture of an arranger keyboard, GW-7 was a great
success around the world.
The GW-8 has other incredible features, like an audio player with Center Cancel, controller knobs to
manipulate the sound in real-time, Performances to save your settings and much more. In this Quick
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.

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2. Let’s Play the GW-8
Features: Page
Selecting Tones –How to select Tones for Upper and Lower 5
Favorite Function –Register your favorite Tones 8
Numeric Buttons –Select Tones and Music Styles quickly 9
Keyboard Mode –Choose Single, Split or Dual mode 10
Key Touch –Adjust the keyboard sensitivity 11
Key Scale –Select Arabian and other scales 12
Octave Shift –How to change octaves 13
Transpose –How to change the key 14

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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.
Let’s try some of them:
PIANO BANK (Acoustic and Electric Piano)
0001 Rich Grand: Very rich grand piano sound, with a sweet ambience. Play softly
for mellow sound and hard for bright sound.
0034 SC Pure EP: Amazing Electric Piano with classic Reverb. Play softly and hard to
listen to the variations in the sound.
KBD/ORGAN BANK (Clavinet, Harpsichord, Bell, Mallet, Organ, Accordion and
Harmonica)
0135 VKHold4Speed: Great Hammond sound with Leslie speaker. Connect a
damper pedal (DP series) to the Hold jack to change the Leslie speed: holding the
damper, you accelerate the speed of Leslie speaker. Without the damper, you have
slow speed.
GUITARS/BASS BANK (Acoustic and Electric Guitar, Acoustic, Electric and Synth
Bass)
0162 SC Brt Nylon: Very real nylon acoustic guitar. Play hard to listen to the “slide”
on the strings.
0188 Searing COSM: Electric Guitar with wild distortion. Good sound to show the
power of GW-8’s DSP effects.
Value Dial
Tone Banks

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STRINGS/SCAT BANK (Strings, His, Pad and Voice)
0304 SonicStrings: Rich Strings sound, with all sections (violins, violas, cellos, and
basses). Play staccato with this sound.
0778 JP Strings 1: Classic Roland sound from the vintage Roland synth.
SAX/BRASS BANK (Wind, Sax, Acoustic and Synth Brass)
0381 SC BrsSect 2: Powerful Acoustic Brass with a mix of trumpet, trombone and
sax.
SYNTH BANK (Hard and Soft Lead, Techno Synth, Pulsating and Other Synth)
0434 DC Triangle: Solo Lead with Delay.
0432 Juno Lead: Classic lead from JUNO series.
PERC/SFX BANK (Percussion, Beat&Groove, Plucked, Ethnic and Sound FX)
0893 80s Combo: Loop with arpeggios. Play the loop with left keys and solo synth
with right keys.
0867 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.

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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

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Favorite 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].
See how to select your favorite sounds:
1) Press FAVORITE [ON/OFF] so the button is lit
2) Press one of [0]-[9] in which you registered your sound

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Numeric buttons
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]. All of the TONE SELECT buttonswill light
3) Use the TONE SELECT/NUMERIC buttons to enter the desired digit 0 (zero), 0 (zero), 1 (one)
and press [ENTER]
TIPS: This saves time choosing your desired tone when you already know the Tone number. Please
refer to the numbers in the Tone List written in the Owner’s manual.

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Keyboard 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.
TIPS: To select Piano Mode, press SPLIT and DUAL buttons at the same time.

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Key Touch-Adjusting the keyboard sensitivity
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:
2) With the CURSOR buttons and select one of the options below:
LIGHT: The best option for the player who doesn’t want to play with a lot of force. Even
when you play softly, you can hear the sound at a good volume.
MEDIUM: In the middle between Light and Heavy. You don’t need to play as hard as when in
Heavy Mode to reach the maximum volume of the sounds.
HEAVY: Here you have the maximum expressiveness over the sounds.
FIXED: All the notes you play have the same volume, even if you change the velocity.
1-127: You can specify the volume value when you are using the FIXED mode

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Key Scale-Select Arabian and other scales
The Key Scale lets you switch the kind of scale, with different temperamentsused 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. Another option is hold down the [KEY SCALE] button and press the note of
whose pitch you want to adjust.
3) When you’ve finished making settings, press [KEY SCALE] button once again to close the
window.
Let’s see how to choose the Arabic Scale:
1) Press [KEY SCALE] so the button is lit. The Key Scale window will open:
2) Use to choose the ARABIC option and press the [ENTER] button
3) Now, you must choose if you want the Arabic Scale on Upper, Lower or Style parts. Use again
to choose the options and turn the VALUE dial to ON.
4) Press [EXIT] button to go back to the main screen
TIPS: By holding down the [KEY SCALE] button and pressing a key, the pitch of the key becomes 50
cent lower. It’s an easy and quick operation.

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Octave Shift –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.
Here’s how to change the octave on GW-8:
1) First, choose if you want to change the octave for the Lower or Upper parts. Use
and to select Upper or Lower
2) To raise the octave, press the OCTAVE [+] button. To lower the octave, press the OCTAVE [-]
button
Increasing Upper Octave Decreasing Upper Octave
Increasing Lower Octave Decreasing Lower Octave
UpperLower

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Transpose –How to change the key
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.
See how to transpose the key, using the example below:
1) Hold down the [TRANSPOSE] button and press the OCTAVE [+] button twice.
You will see the next screen:
Now, you are playing in C major, but the GW-8 sounds in D major, the same as the other musician.

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3. Playing with Music Styles
Features Page
The Backing Types of the GW-816
Try the Music Styles 17
Variations of One Music Style 18
Sync Start/Stop 19
One Touch 20
Lock 21
Inside the Music Styles 22
Part View 23
Style Converter and User Style 24

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The Backing Types of the GW-8
Before we play with the Music Styles, let’s see the three types of backing functions inside the GW-8:
(1) STYLE: The Music Style is a kind of “live band” under your hands. You can control the
tonality, the length, and many other possibilities to play any kind of music. It’s important to
say that you need to play chords with your left hand, because this “live band” needs your
command to know which chords to play.
(2) SONG: A song can be played back. You can record your own song or play back MIDI files
(SMF Format). You can use the Song function to sing or play along, muting one or more
tracks of this Song. GW-8is 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.

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Try the Music Styles
GW-8 has six style selection buttons for Music Styles:
STANDARD: The GW-8 has 130 standard Music Styles in 4 banks:
(1) POP/ROCK
(2) DANCE
(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:
1) Press the [STYLE] button
2) Press the [POP/ROCK] bank button
3) To select the style, press the [NUMERIC] button and digit 0 (zero), 5 (five), 0 (zero) and press
the [ENTER] button. You will see the Motown style
4) Now, press the [SYNC START] button
5) Press the [VARIATION 1] button and the [INTRO 1] button
Play one key on the left side of the keyboard to start the style. Now, try other variations by pressing the
buttons [2], [3] and [4]. Remember if the [AUTO FILL-IN] button is lit, every change of variation will be
preceded by a FILL-IN.

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Variations of One Music Style
The Music Style has a many similar variations that we listen to in music: introduction, soft variations,
fill-ins, heavy variations and ending. See the differences between all the variations of Music Styles:
Variation Explanation
(Here is the typical structure of each Style. Variations depend on the respective style.)
INTRO 1 Very Short Intro, normally only with drums
INTRO 2 This Intro was recorded only with one chord. This means that you can play your
own chord progression during the Intro
INTRO 3 Intro with most of the instruments of the style
INTRO 4 The complete instrumentation of the Intro
MAIN 1 Basic variation of the style
MAIN 2 Main 1 with a few more instruments
MAIN 3 Good to prepare for the chorus of the song, or a bridge section
MAIN 4 Full version of the style.Good to play the chorus of the song
ENDING 1 Very short Ending of the style
ENDING 2 Like INTRO 2, you can play your own chord progression, because ENDING 2 was
recorded only with one chord.
ENDING 3 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.

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Sync 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” when you are playing. With Sync Stop
selected, you need to keep your hands on lower keys to play the music style. If you take
your hands off the keys, the Music Style will stop.

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One 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.
See how to use the One Touch:
1) Select the Music Style
2) Press the [ONE TOUCH] button
The tones will be selected.