Hello

The Midjay really turned out to be a pleasant surprise for me. I didn't really expect it to sound as good as it did nor did I expect to find the OS as easy to operate as it does for me. Ketron has really packed a lot of goodies into this little 7 pound box.

The mp3s, wavs, drum loops all sounded fine. Although you can record on it, I have not tested that.

While there are a lot of styles that sounded kind of “European” or that I just didn't care for, there are plenty of styles that will work fine to cover anything you could think of. It does sound more like playing with a live band than anything else I've tried. I especially liked the combo styles. The cymbals and brushes were quite life like. The ones with horn section sounds was not my favorite, but after playing trumpet in many different bands including big bands, I'm probably more picky about it than the average player. There are 4 intros and endings, 4 fills and 4 variations. It sounds as close to having a live drummer playing with you than anything I have heard. I have the SD1 styles also.

The voices again were a very big surprise. They sounded as good as or better than anything else out there that I have heard. The piano is very usable. The electic pianos are very good. The organs are exceptionally good. There is a couple of string settings that sound fine. The accordians sound very good, but then what else could you expect from the Italians? haha. The vocal sounds were fine. There was an alto sax and a couple tenor saxes that were outstanding. The old trombone sound I liked a lot. The flugelhorn is the best I have heard. There was a trumpet with a lip trill that sounded great. The guitars could have been a bit stonger, but then, I'm probably pretty spoiled after playing the Tyros guitars. There was a sax section that really sounded nice. There were also a lot of other sounds that I didn't care for and wouldn't use, but then that's pretty much the case with any keyboard out there, and how many voices do you really need to play out? There are plenty of voices and styles that will cover anything anybody would want to do. It was just a matter of picking and choosing which ones I would use with the music that I do.

Here's a link to Ketron with all the info to fill in the rest of the details. The brochure is especially informative. http://www.ketron.it/prodotti/index.asp?idTipo=2

I tested it using my Tyros as the keyboard controller. It was easy enough to do. I just set the Midjay recieve to upper channel 1 and lower to channel 2. Then set the keyboard to transmit at the same channels. Everything plugs into it just like you were hooking up an arranger keyboard except you need one midi cable running between the two.

The Midjay used with an Edirol PCR-80 or a M-Audio MK-461C, both 61 note soft touch midi contoller keyboards both weighing about 7 pounds would make a good combination. I think the easiest way to use the Midjay is to use the style variation buttons on the Midjay and have your favorite voices programmed on the buttons of your favorite controller keyboard. Jaime Reyes who plays out using the Midjay and the MK-461C told me that he did not have to program the buttons on the MK-461C for the voices, they just happened to work with no knowledge of midi keyboards being necessary. BTW, he moves his equipment using a folding luggage carrier and stores eveything including his Bose PAS in the trunk of his car. Jaime was the one that started the Logitech craze after he used it at the west coast SynthZone jam a while back.


Best

Scott Langholff


[This message has been edited by Scott Langholff (edited 08-31-2005).]

ScottL: Thanks for your detailed report. In light of your review, I would have thought you would have opted to KEEP the Midjay, and instead, sell your Yamaha PSR3000. This would leave you with the Tyros & Midjay, each having uniquely different sounds & styles to expand your music making possibilities, with the ales proceeds from the PSR3000 to buy a lightweight keyboard controller, providing you the ultra light keyboard/arranger module combo for super ez gig transport you've been so long searching for.

My personal reservation about the Ketron MidJay is that it utilizes a "duo function" per button approach, meaning the SAME button triggers something entirely different depending on the mode it's currently set to. I would find this chaotic to deal with, especially in a live performance situation where I don't want to have to keep track of the specific function each button is currently assigned to. My other reservation is the inconvenient logistics of a module's placement & far away view of the module's LCD screen, positioned behind (away) from the keyboard controller, and less easily accessible than a traditional all in one arranger affords. Curious if you noticed this when compared to playing your Tyros and/or PSR3000. I guess all these things are part of the trade-off to consider to gain the MidJay's impressively live sounding drums and other unique features.

Scott

Hi Scott

If you take another look at my post you will notice that I edited it and there is no mention of me selling it now.

As it is, I really don't need a Tyros and PSR3000 and a Midjay. I can easily do with the Tyros which I love. I got the 3000 and the Midjay with the idea of having a lot of time to test the different possibilities of how I might use them, the pros and cons of each etc, etc.

After I wrote the post and mentioned selling it, I sat down to it again and thought, this is well worth keeping. I then deleted any mention of selling it. I may change my mind. I still have a few things up in the air about whether I need and/or want a PSR3000 or a Midjay when I have a Tyros.

I don't really need to sell the 3000 to get a keyboard controller that I'd be interested in. The ones I mentioned sell for around $250.

As far as the dual function of the buttons for styles and voices, that's why I would suggest using the Midjay itself to operate the style intro, ending, fills and variations and then use the controller keyboard to control which voice I would be using. Then there would be no issue of the dual function buttons. Although, really like anything else, if one got used to using the Midjay's buttons for everything you quickly get used to it.

As far as reaching the controls, they will be in about the same place as on an arranger kb if it is placed behind the SKINNY keyboard controller. The same with the LCD screen. It's plenty easy enough to see. Certainly easier to see for me than the PSR3000. The letters are not quite as big as on the Tyros screen, but you can see everything you need to quite easily.

The only real trade off for me was there is no right hand harmony which I love to use with my 3 layered sax and brass sections. This is incredibly effective for In The Mood or anything that you want to sound like a full horn section on fast moving passages.

Also, I thought I might add that I played everything as it was when I got it. I did no tweaking of any style or voice. While I know that can be done, I didn't really see any need for it and besides that, I didn't really want to. I'd rather play music than press a bunch of buttons.

So, at the present, I'm back in the test mode and trying to decide if I will keep the Midjay and the PSR3000 or sell one or the other or both.

The Midjay is a different beast. I approach it differently than the Tyros. I play it more like when I played the Lowrey home organs, I use the settings that are their with no tweaking and screwing around with that.

So that's my current update as of today anyway.haha

Scott Langholff

Also, Scott, as far as your idea of selling the PSR3000 and keeping the Midjay for those reasons you stated have been considered. It does sound better to me, my wife and her father (the only three people that have heard them) than the PSR3000. As a matter of fact, as much as I love the Tyros, there are very many sounds that are a lot better on the Midjay. Ketron did good, for sure, for me to make a statement like that.

The thing that I am considering if I keep the PSR3000 is that it is smaller, which means it will fit in a smaller less bulky and easier to move and store Kaces Porter #7 as opposed to the cumbersome Kaces Porter #9 that I use for the Tyros. The weight itself is no issue. The 3000 weighs about 23 pounds and the Tyros weighs only 27 pounds.

The other possible advantages is that I can use my Music Finder Database of around 600 songs and use Michael Bedesems program to put my Tyros song list into the 3000 and all the tunes will show up. For the songs that use a style that is not present on the 3000 you can use a default style which is easy to spot. I used one of the Worship styles that I don't use. I can either then pick a style on the 3000 that will work or, what I have done is take the styles off the Tyros that were used and put them in the user styles on the 3000 and then those tunes are automatically "reconnected" to those styles as they were on the Tyros.

The other possibility is for me to "suck" my styles with song names from my Tyros hard drive and use them on the PSR3000. This kind of works. There is more fiddling around with this though than I like. As the Tyros can have 3 solo voices where the 3000 will only take two. While I have found some styles and voices can be made to sound pretty much like the Tyros, other important voices that I like to use are missing or even though the may have the same name are no where close to the Tyros voice.

That and other obvious things one would notice if they became used to the Tyros and then switched to the 3000.

Don't get me wrong, the PSR3000 is by far the best value for the buck in it's price range, and even better than other kb's that sell for more. My opinion of it has raised some from my original thoughts on it, but it just isn't the same as playing the Tyros. Now that I own both, I think that none of my humble observations can be misconstrued as I believe was the case previously if I made comparisions between the two.

Is the Tyros worth twice the money as compared to the PSR3000? IMHO, it's worth more than twice the price. They are not the same. They are not identical like the original hype was that I originally heard. For the owners thats that disagree with that then I think one possible answer to that is, you don't use the same voices that I like to use.

So, just a few ideas on what I'm up to. I thought I'd post this only because there may be others out there that may be deciding between a Tyros a PSR3000 or whatever. The main thing is, don't take my or anybody elses word for it. Try them yourself and you decide what's important for you, the money involved and all the other options.

Hmmmmmmmm.. This got rather long winded. Sorry 'bout that, but I think that anyone that's interested in the differences will find this useable info.

Best

Scott Langholff

Scott, I TOLD you you'd like it, didn't I?
DonM

Yes Don and you were right. I was a bit skeptical so it was a big surprise for me.

You were also right about the 3000. Honestly, as nice as it is, it just doesn't feel right to me no matter how much I mess with it.

[This message has been edited by Scott Langholff (edited 08-31-2005).]

Me neither. If I had never had a Tyros I probably would have liked the 3000. Now that I'm used to hearing the SD1, the new Tyros II will have to be really super to get my attention.
DonM

Ok Ketron-holics ScottL & DonM, time for you guys to record some MP3s of yourselves performing on your respective Ketron keyboards. - Scott

Coming soon, to a website near you!
DonM

Ya, Scott, I'll do it in my spare time.hhaha