This could be a key factor in getting this KB on its feet and into the hands of the everyday player....Simplicity and Education is crucial....as much as I want to try one & possibly buy one down the road ...the more I read about its features the more I say to myself what the heck is all this stuff about? Sorry for my Open Architecture Ignorance....but could someone make all this so that the layman can understand its features,?

Its no more difficult than any other high end arranger and operates in a similar manner. The difference being you can load new sounds, samples, VST's, FX, and other features if you'd like to by using third party software Think of it as a car with all the bells and whistles installed. The stripped down car runs and drives the same but the fancy car has more amenities and controls to play with.

MEDIASTATION is not problem to use.

I had really easy start. On start you can not see all advantages of MEDIASTATION.

First look is really as all closed arranger with some sounds and styles.

After some good looks you can do anything what you want.
You can play your samples, styles, sounds, waves. This all is not hard to use.
If you are familiar with to computers and you are having same program as CUBASE, CAKEWALK or SONOR – you can use Rosegarden http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/.
Here you can make your songs, styles etc. all is simple.

This is fast education.


Sorry I forgot main thing: You are having help for all buttons.

and true:

It can be as simple or as complicated as you want to make it.

Let's see:
1) To turn on the Mediastation I press "run" and it powers up. I can now play a GM piano sound on the keys.

2) To play the arranger I select styles from either the touchscreen or the "styles" button on the panel. Then I select my desired category, and style and that's it.
Push "play" or "syncro start" and begin playing.

Sound simple enough?

Of course if you want to do more things you add other small steps, such as

3) to play the extraodinary NI's B4 you must press the "organ" button. It is then ready to play with all controls accessable from the Mediastation panel and screen.

or

4) to play a Giga sound from the Linux Sampler you must press the "sampler" button and immediately the Piano you have in your first slot loads, with just one button.

How could it be easier?

Here are a few more:

5) to play a Midifile you press "player" and use the browser to select which midifile you want and press "enter". Then "play"

6) to play an audio wave or mp3 you press "player" and use the browser to select which file you want and press "enter". Then "play"

How about a really complicated one? let's say you have loaded a mp3 as in the example(6) above. And now you want to engage this powerful timestretching, pitchshifting audio editing engine called Elastique. How many steps do you think this might take?

Two, you press BPM (beats per minute) then turn the data or tempo knob to speed or slow the playback. That's it!

To change the pitch you press Transpose up or down.

As you can see basic functions are really easy to use. Now if you want to get very Complicated, you can, with the Mediastation you can call up a "protools like" DAW named " Audacity," an extensive audio editor named "Rezound," a midi sequencer named "Rosegarden", rip and burn CD's and DVD's, edit video, download files from the intenet, etc....

If you go slow the Mediastation is very, very simple to use for the basic functions, but the beauty is you do not have to stop there. When you are ready for more, the Mediastation is too!

Hope this answers you question

Richard