Bill, thanks for your terrific report. I'm glad to hear that Technics is continueing its grand tradition of bringing the best jazz styles (imho) of any arranger brand out there, and trust (hopefully) that the KN7000, like the KN6500/6000/5000 'already' do , support (in both full & split keyboard modes) the legendary Bill Evans A&B rootless chord voicings jazz pianists (around the world) play. This feature alone makes the Technics KN keyboards (imho) a true standout ABOVE all other arrangers on the market, especially for the pro jazz style player.

Being able to download styles from your PC via USB to/from the KN7000 is also nice. How convenient.

The acoustic piano sound is the most important sound for me on an arranger. I'm looking forward to hearing how the sound has been 'improved' over the already excellent sounding piano of the KN6500. Longer sample loop and/or higher sampling rate maybe?

Bill, Derek, (or others): Can someone please tell me what the Sound Controler (which is eliminated on the KN7000) does? I don't remember using it when I owned my KN5000, so I guess I probably won't miss it on the KN7000 either , but still, now that you mention it here, you got me curious what its function is

The other 'new' KN7000 feature which really interests me, because I'm a singer is the ability to record your voice along a midi sequence. What format does it record your voice in? WAV, MP3, or? How many tracks of audio does the KN7000 support? A real cool idea might be to pre-record backup vocals (response portion of a call-response type thing ) to a song. Then when you perform the song (along with the sequence), you can have back up vocals come in as a delayed 'response' to your lead vocals, which is not possible to achieve with a vocal harmonizer. I'm really anxious to hear more about the the KN7000's audio recording feature possibilities. I assume the recorded audio is stored on the SD Memory card?

BTW, on the subject of vocal harmonizers: Does the KN7000 include one? If so, I hope that it's a HUGE improvement over the cheap sounding one included in the KN6000/6500.


My apologies for asking so many questions, but as I hear more about the features of the KN7000, I get more excited about the what this board has to offer. I'm really looking forward now to reading Alec's detailed review of the KN7000 (in August).

Scott

------------------
http://scottyee.com
_________________________