The instrument
The E-66 Intelligent Keyboard belongs to the 4th series of E-synthesisers, which was on the market from 1995-1998. The first series with the models E-20, E-5, E-10 and Pro E had already been released in 1997. In the meantime, Roland had changed the sound generation from LA synthesis to GS synthesis. The company flooded the market with the numerous E models, whose trump card was the ‘intelligent’ automatic accompaniment.
Details
The E-66 is a polyphonic, 28-voice synthesiser with a 61-key velocity-sensitive keyboard. It is 16-fold multimodal. The sound generation is based on the GS, the Generation Sound System. There is MIDI and built-in 2 x 5 W stereo amplifiers and loudspeakers. There are 241 programmed tones, 9 drum sets and digital reverb and chorus with eight different settings. . The automatic accompaniment has 56 styles, four user styles with variation and advanced as well as eight tracks. The keyboard can be played in Upper, Lower, Manual Bass, Arranger, Manual Drums and Effects modes. The control functions are Master Volume, Pitch Bender / Modulation, Tune, Fill-In, Arranger, Keyboard Split, Transpose, MIDI Select, MIDI Part, MIDI Data, Kbd Velocity/Scale. The sequencer has six tracks.