Roland GO:KEYS 3 review

Full review

The GO:KEYS 3 is Roland's music-creation keyboard, and it uses the same ZEN-Core sound engine found in the company's much pricier synths. You get 1,154 tones and 74 drum kits, with 256-note polyphony, so even layered sounds rarely run out of notes.

The headline feature for most buyers is Bluetooth. Audio and MIDI are built in, so you can stream a song from your phone through the speakers and play along, or connect a learning app wirelessly. A USB-C port does the same job over a cable with a computer, and a USB-A socket records your playing as a WAV file to a memory stick.

Rather than lessons, Roland offers a chord sequencer with 304 patterns and 203 accompaniment styles. These make it easy to sound good quickly and to build backing tracks, which is great for teenagers who want to make music, but less suited to a child working through a structured piano course.

The 61 keys are velocity-sensitive with nine touch settings, but they are box-shaped synth keys. It runs on eight AA batteries for around five to six hours.