Hello everybody,

I took GEM sk880 to the studio for recording and I would like to share my impression:

1) SK880 broke my back. It was very heavy.

2) The sound qualities of strings, flutes, drums, base and others were excellent.

3) when it comes to recording and editing internal tracks in SK880, it was perfect and easy to do so. There was a learning curve but after you learn, the ride is smooth.

4) When playing the piano at very high and very low octaves, it sounded EXCELLENT. Only the middle octaves were lacking... very lacking.

5) internal mixer of the SK880 sounded sometimes better than the proffesional external mixer at the studio!!!

6) I appreciated the button "bypass effects" on the keyboard, Now I understand its use *smile*

7) the effects on sk880 are not too bad. The proffesional dsps were not lot better..


SK880 is the kind of keyboard that when you buy it, you are not sure if you bought the right thing, but after you get to know it, you start appreciating it. I will not trade it for anything. *smile* by the way, I remember our friend George Kay when he commented about the keyboard that it was a good one but you just have to really know it.

Thanks

SK880 User,
How right you are!
Last week, I shipped a WK8 oriental to a new customer in San Diego, California. I think after the first 4 days and about 40 phone calls to me he was on the verge of wanting to return it. I told him to hang in there because at first he was floored with how great the arabic sounds, styles and every other style and sound was, but as he kept trying to load things and change things he began to get frustrated.
Today, about 1 week later, he called me to ask me one simple question about how to load samples from floppy's into the keyboard and told me this was the best keyboard he has ever used.
I rest my case (and your's too!) Maybe the WK and SK's are a well kept secret among just a few of us.
Here's another great one.
Several weeks ago I sold a WK8 to a customers who exchanged it last week for a SK760. The reason he did this was because he thought the WK8 sounded like a "toy" compared to the SK760. Guess what.......They are exactly the same engine and outputs, but, I think that because one has a weighted 76 note keyboard and the other a synth action 61 note keyboard, velocity curves will feel different on each one and so mentally, you think you hear a difference. What do you think? I just smiled and said fine, lets make the trade.
Regard,
George Kaye

George,
My choice for a new keyboard is between SK760 and PSR9000. I have eliminated everything else for one reason or another. I have not had the chance to try out either one. How do you think they compare?
Incidentally, I am surprisingly pleased with the 740 after using it to "get by" for the past 3 weeks.
Don

Don,
It's very difficult to compare these two keyboards. To me, they are so very different in their design philosphy. Yamaha want's to build a keyboard that is really strong on user interface potential, stong on voice selection, and have a stong "comfort level" with their past keyboard models. Not so strong would be the Yamaha Sequencer abilities, however very adequite. On the other hand you have the SK760 which is the strongest sequencer to date, very good sound quality, better styles than the Yamaha,in my opinion, but weaker in the effect catagory. The 760 has a beautiful mixing confinguration but has a very slow way of calling up and playing standard midi files and songs. You must first load them into the song memory or into a song buffer which takes quite a long time compared to the Yamaha's direct disk song playback feature. Because the Generalmusic has 76 piano type keys, you might like this one better if you are mostly playing Piano and prefer this action, but there are no speakers in the 760 and you must go external. I personally think both keyboards are different enough that I would want both of them. In fact my choice would be to have the X1, the 9000, and the SK760. But then, I own a music store and I'm around all three everyday, and love to play on each of them. As we have all stated over and over again there is no clear "best". They all have there strengths and weaknesess.
George Kaye

This thread is at least making me feel a little bit better about the GEM. I know I was venting before, but customer support is a very important consideration when making a selection. "Strong Sequencer", I like that George(you certainly seem knowledgable in this field). I thought it was extremely easy to pick up on how to overlay and quantize tracks. What's the SK880 weigh, anyways? I'm thinking in the neighborhood of 80lbs. I know it takes two people 2 move it and you feel like a pall-bearer. . .lol!

Gregg,

It is about 90lb for Sk880PS. It does not fit my trunck so I have to place it in the back seat. By the way, two people are required to carry it.

Maybe I should have bought WK8 + Yamaha P80 *smile* but that was not a choice back then for me.