Wow,
I just returned from a wonderful 7 day trip to Italy to see first hand how Generalmusic products are made, designed and distributed. An awsome demonstration of new products presented by Generalmusic, showing Pro Products, Piano products and Church Organ products was provided. Generalmusic is so much larger then I imagined. I visited 3 different facilities. First,a drive to the Church Organ/Piano factory, next to the corporate office building which also houses a huge showroom of all their products along with design lab facilities, and finally on to the manufacturing and development facilities where all the Generalmusic Pro products and LEM Products (audio) are developed and manufactured.
What I found was such a great mix of computer technology intergrated with so much hand detail work in each division I visited. To see the workstations where the keyboards are assempled one at a time by individual workers was a real treat. Testing chambers for pro audio products were shown to us and the pride in workmanship was evident everywhere I looked.
I was impressed and amazed at the beauty of Italy and the way the region houses the beautiful countryside, homes, farms, historical wonders and commerce as one integrated resource. Unlike here in the US, where big cities have commercial areas and residential areas usually seperated, in Italy you could see a beautiful grove of grape vinyards right next to a beautiful Church, and then close by you might find a factory building musical instruments. Simply beautiful! Venice, Florence, San Marino, sights I will never forget.
I want to thank Generalmusic, the Galanti Family, and especially Michael Chin of Generalmusic for making this once of a lifetime trip possible for me and my wife.
Now, i could talk for hours on my trip and if any of you have any specific questions regarding production of products, or anything else I might have seen, please don't hesitate to ask. I know many of you are waiting to hear my impressions of the Genesys and so let's go!
First, as I walked through the factory, Genesys keyboards were in production. Europe will receive their first shipments next week. The US was shipped out a few Genesys last week as demo's for district managers and the office in Chicago. Product will begin shipping to the states within the next month if all goes as planned. I have a Genesys Exclusive Feature sheet in front of me and the only error I noticed while in Italy was the Weight. The product weight as told in the spec sheet is 21.6 kg or 47.6 lbs, but I thought this was wrong and brought it up to Generalmusic's attention. The weight is 27 kg or approx. 57 lbs as we were told at NAMM. If you could see the speaker boxes out of the product and the sub woofer cabinet built within the Genesys, you would understand why this keyboard is heavier than some would like. The sound of the speakers are unbelievable. You can turn up the 80 watt system and all you hear is clean, undistorted volume! However, for those wishing, a 76 key and 88 key version, these will be released as soon as possible..
The Genesys is a new product which inludes features loved from the past generation of WK products, coupled with many new and exciting features. The hope was to make a keyboard that would not have the need for pages and pages of displays to get you to where you want to go. Rather, the simple use of many buttons and sliders really makes this machine user friendly. For those familiar with the WK series, many displays will be familiar but the newly sampled sounds and styles are what sets this apart. For many thinking that the sounds and styles were not up to other newer arrangers, I think you will be very impressed. Pianos, Strings, Horns, Sax's have all been critically sampled. The styles now include realistic strums within the styles tracks which many of my customers have asked for. The Latin styles, now feature those sampled RASS loops to bring this keyboard up to and past the latest technologies we've heard in many newer machines. The 32 track sequencer, volume sliders, and the way styles are created is still similar to the WK series. Everything I reported back in NAMM about the tremendous use of effects to create realism in sounds like brass shakes, vibrato, guitar stumming, fret noise, was demonstrated so beautifully during the presentation show, but actually getting close to the product for a few minutes at the factory, I had a chance to hear and ask questions of it's designer. I only heard a prototype at NAMM with very few sounds and styles, but the finished product is loaded with great sounds and styles.
A very powerful feature of Genesys in the ability to store everything created in FLASH RAM. This means you can completely change all the internal sounds, styles, etc. with anything else, Generalmusic might want to produce.
A demonstation of the way you can record audio direct to the hard drive was seen and then a CD was created from the recorded data. This recorder is not a multi track recorder like you find in stand alone hard disk recorders, but you can record a mono or stereo track along with the recorded keyboard parts. Wonderful for someone needing to record a demo CD for distribution or just for friends to play in their stereo equipment.
I am extremly tired this morning, and will be happy to share with you all my thoughts or your questions as the days continue. Here is a list of some of the major features of this product right from the data sheet I brought home.
The price of Genesys should be in the $3500.00 range here in the US.
Here are the highlights of the specs:
Sounds and Styles: More than 1300 sounds and 800 user sounds .256 preset and 256 user presets (a preset is up to 6 sounds combined or split made up from the 2100 available sounds. Each preset sound contains up to 6 different layers/velocity switches, reverbs and effect setting, synthesis parameters(including envelopes, filters,etc.) track transpose and tuning.
.More than 200 factory styles and 64 user styles
.128 memories to store your styles and sound presets
.Music library with over 200 instant set-ups
.Real sounds samples with natural effects: scoops, shakes,vibrato, ambience, breath noise, dynamic effects.
.Keyboard mode includes single button selection of full keyboard, bass split, acc. split, piano style, manual bass, and pro split.
.Play Midi and audio files direct from CD, load files from CD to internal memory, copy files between CD and HDD/SCSI devices.
.44.1 kHz stereo or mono sampling direct to hard disk from mic/line inputs, read samples directly from internal CD drive, Akai, wav, Kurzweil, smp and snd.
.Play MP3's direct from CD, floppy, SCSI or HDD; MP3 syric compatibility
.2 tracks, 16 bit/44.1kHz digital recording, record direct from keyboard, record from audio inputs, record keyboard and inputs together.
.Internal Hard Disk size is 2GB, vocal genius card, high quality A/D converters, 64 MB flash Ram, CD-RW drive are all standard.
.61 keys with velocity and aftertouch (the keys are semi weighted and feel very good)
.64 notes poly
.pitch bend and mod wheels, 8 sliders, 2 vocal genius sliders,dial and cursor movement, inc/dec, enter/escape, page pre/next, 4 programmable effects +3 vocal processor effects (reverb+delay+compressor)
.Sound edit quick, sound edit pro, sample translator/editor
.start/stop, 4 variations,4 fills, 4 intros,4 endings, break, restart, syncro start, fade in/out, tap tempo, single touch play, manual bass
.16 song memories, 32 tracks,250,000 events, full edit with microscope editing, song player
.Stero out +aux out 1/2, stereo inputs (mic/line)digital out, video out, computer host.
20 + 20+ 40 W (3 way -5 speakers: 2 tweeter +2 midrange + subwoofer)
I'm sure many of you have additonal questions which I will try to answer. I did not spend too much time at the Genesys facility because sightseing was what most of our time was spent doing (and eating!).
I took lots of pictures but not with a digital camera, so I won't be posting pictures. I don't have a scanner for my computer. In fact, i'm on my way to get the film developed right now!
There is also a new low priced middle eastern keyboard which I will post about on the Oriental Discussion Forum later.
Thank you all for sharing your best wishes with me on this once in a lifetime trip. Nothing got stolen and my experiences of the beauty of Italy will always be in my mind.
Again, to the entire Generalmusic organization, my wife and I would like to thank you with all our hearts for such a great experience.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

[This message has been edited by George Kaye (edited 06-14-2002).]

Hi George,

welcome back home. It is nice to read your experiences.
Thank you for the long and detailed report. It is nice to see where things are moving towards. Does the new KB have vocal harmony?
I would be interested in hearing a little more about the styles and sounds. What makes them so outstanding and set apart from other brands at this time?
Maybe one or two examples are enough.

Thanks again.

If time permitts it, I might come down with Andrea when he visits down here.

Eric

George. We are all pleased you and your wife both arrived back safely. Although as you stated very tired, you took the time to put that very good and lengthy report together, well done thank you for that.

Graham UK

Eric,
Yes the Genesys has a vocal harmonizer. It is called "Vocal Genius". The controls for this are just to the left side of the screen. There is a mic volume and effect level slider and 5 switches which select different functions for the vocal genius.
What I liked about the sounds is what makes them unique to other keyboards. If you play a brass patch, as an example, you might have 4 different brass sounds combined as one, but if you hit the sound harder, using velocity, you add a 5th layer which is a solo trumpet and if you use aftertouch, you control the amount of shake if you want it or not. The sounds are newly sampled and so sounds like the grand piano now sound very realistic, much like all the other top brands. Many thought the piano was too bright on the WK products and now I think they will like the new piano alot. Generalmusic has released a few months ago a new product called the ProMega3 digital piano/keyboard. The sounds in this product are all of classic keyboards and pianos and many of these samples are in the Genesys.
Eric, you know how much i've loved the Ketron styles for their authenticity to styles and instruments. Well, generalmusic has captured this in this new product. My hat goes off the Chris Anthony as well as I'm sure many other developers for getting these styles right. I specifically asked to here many of the styles my customers ask for and am pleased to report that I wasn't dissapointed at all.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

Hi George,
Welcome Home
I`m glad you and your`s had a great time and thank you very much for the information you shared with us reguarding the "Gem - Genesys". It sounds like a great "studio" arranger KB, and that`s good even though alot of my friends here may dislike the 50Lb+ wieght the fact that you saw "humans" building them is a big plus and the fact that you reported "real synth-action" keys, sounds great . Thanks again for your reveiw, get some rest, I`m sure we`ll here more
jedi

Hi George,

thanks for the update. Looking forward to see his new KB at your store.

Ciao

Eric

Thanks for this great report George!

George,

Thanks for the report.

Hello George,

Thanks for the in-depth review.

I've been playing a WK8 for the last year and enjoying it very much (a WK4 before that, WX2 before that, Bachman before that, PanAccordion before that)

Anyway, my question is, "Are the sounds of the Genesys THAT much better than the WK8?"

And if so, and as much as I hate to quantify something as subjective as 'sounds', would you care to assign a number as to how much better?

How's that for puttin' ya on the spot?

I'm not sure if I'm going to get to hear one anytime soon...The last I heard, the local GM dealer is selling Technics now.(?)

Thanks!

mike

George,

Thanks for your insightful overview of the Genesys keyboard. I think all of us at Synthzone have learned to value your opinion.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm ready for something "new" so I was very eager to read your post about this new keyboard. However, I was stunned to read that GEM is releasing this keyboard with ONLY 64 NOTE POLYPHONY!

Most of the other keyboard manufacturers are moving toward 128 note polyphony or greater. I'm sure that it's a great board but I'd really have to think twice about investing in a keyboard with what I consider "old" 64-note technology. Perhaps, this isn't a drawback to others but for me it definitely is a shortcoming.

Glad you had a good time in Italy and a safe journey home.

Regards,
Steve

Steve,
When I spent some time last week, although only a few minutes with a Genesys, I quickly noticed the similarities between this new product and the previous WK8 keyboard. Many similarities in the two were noticable. This is not a bad thing at all, because the WK8 series is one of the easiest to use, and although it's sounds were not considered as good as some other keyboards, it's sequencer, style contruction for user styles, and editing capabilities are some of the finest found in all the different arrangers.
The Genesys is built around the previous WK8 technology. It has new packaging, new sounds and styles, new features and a more user friendly interface,yet I think it is using the WK8's processor as it's engine. So this is why there is only 64 voice polyphony.
The Korg PA80, the Ketron keyboards (SD1, X1 and all the new models) all feature 64 voice polyphony. For most musicians it is enough, however Generalmusic didn't choose to up the polyphony on this model.
Generalmusic has a new chip technology which is called "Drake" which is being used in their new Pro Mega 3 digital keyboard. This keyboard features over 300 notes of polyphony and I would think that with this new chip, the possibility of having an arranger keyboard with over 300 note polyphony is over the next horizon. I don't know how long this might be, but with this proprietary chip technology used by Generalmusic, we should see next generation products using this. I am very optomistic about how much Genesys will help many musicians create great music and with the help of the unboard CD burner, allow musicians to do their entire music production in one, easy to use product. For those needing 128 note polyphony, you must choose from those arranger products featuring this greater polyphony limit, but where 64 voices in enough, the Genesys represents the beginning of a new breed of arranger keyboards.
Mike,
to answer you questions about the sounds, you have to understand that I have always like the way the WK series sounded. I would say the only sounds that disappointed me had been the acoustic piano sounds, and in this catagory I would go from a 5 (scale of 1 - 10) to an 8 from what I remember from last week. This number is subject to change when I finally get my keyboards because I only had a few minutes with the keyboard and thought the grand piano sounded very good, but again I was rushed and didn't have a long enough time to experiment. I did listen to the strings and was quite impressed and also the brass sounded great. I hate to give a strong opinion until I really have a board in front of me and then I will be happy to share my impressions.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene

George welcome back

I just want to say that you deserve a thanks for simply the time you spent typing all the above...not too many people would say so much.

Thanks

George,

Thanks for responding. I do agree that GEM makes a fine keyboard (I really wanted an SK760 until I saw the 9000PRO) and I did try a WK8 before buying the Yamaha. Perhaps the 64-note polyphony would be fine in the Genesys but I have noticed drop-outs on other boards with only 64-note polyphony. Maybe I just play too many things at once but I like how it sounds. I'm anxious to read what you think after you get one in your store and have had time to play with it.

There are 3 music stores and one Baldwin piano store within a 1/2 mile of the mall but none of them have a good reputation and none carry top of the line arrangers, guitars, or amps. Their sales staffs are amateurs and rarely know much about the products they sell.

I doubt that any store in my area will carry one. There's not a single VA-7, Yamaha 9000, SD-1, KN6500, or SK760 in Canton (except for mine). The Technics store in town is still trying to sell KN4000's as the "top of the line" (no kidding). There's not one decent keyboard store within 50 miles. George, I keep telling you that a George Kaye Music Store in Belden Village Mall in Canton Ohio would make a fortune but alas it's just a dream . . .

Steve