So, having remixed all my midi files curtesy of MidiPlay, and also manually revoiced them all, the PSR 3000 has been unleashed on a real gig.

Me + the drummer use headphones for foldback. The 3k is audibly clearer than the 2k. It also seems "louder". The guitars are also more guitar like (what a stupid statement but I can't think of any other words!)

Having all the files on one piece of media is superb. Having the "Next" functionality is also excellent.

On a negative note, however, I find the red/gree LED colours less distinguishable than on the 2k, possibly because the brightness is similar for both the red and green colours. I should explain that I am "textbook" male red-green colourblind. On the 2k, when the LED's showed green they were noticeably dimmer, so I could spot the greens this way. On the 3k this is not the case and the difference to me is very slight. As this moment I am seriously thinking of placing a red filter over all the LEDs so that the greens become dimmer. but this will look awful. I wonder - assuming the colour switching is a software thing - whether the software could be updated to "dim" the green (or red) colour but I think that's a bit fanciful. Maybe slowly flash the active LED's (probably would get annoying)?

And whilst I'm on annoying, is it me or is the "MusicSoft Downloader" unintuitive? Once you put files into the "temporary" window you can;t to delete them without transferring them somewhere else. You can't drag-and-drop files from explorer into either of the file windows. I can appreciate the slow speed is caused by the use of the "midi" USB connection but this software in general looks like something written to a specification without the use of any imagination.

I appreciate that I could do this just by removing the smartmedia card and using a card reader but I'd prefer not to have to distiurb the media.