Hi Arrangerneers,

It a New Year, and Last night I took my new Technics Kn6000 out for her first night of work. Remembering my KN5000 that I gigged with for two years made this a pretty easy task versus a totaly different keyboard.I was pretty familiar with the navagational aspects of the keyboard. I had set up many panel registrations at home the day before and playing it in my home to save time on stage.
The sound is fantastic and the arrangements definitly compliment the voices. There are SOLO pads that can be used while your playing real time that follow the chords and compliment the style (very effective), I needed to adjust volumes and parimeters on stage at full volume thru my Mackie SRM450 system the sound was crystal clear. The soloist voices, Trumpet, Saxes, flutes are incredibly liflike. I didn't use any pedals this time so I could get used to playing with the on board buttons. The large full color screen is superb navagation and editing is simple and common to most Technic units. The new DSp sound is stunning, it also adheres to NX, and GM2 technology. The Trackball feature lets you give that personal feeling to the instument in realtime boosting its charaterists and resonance. Accordians, Strings,Organs, Pianos are great also. The K6 has an oustside Mic Volume control (the K5 did not)although very convenient the Mic effects processor is less then perfect. The vocalizer is poor and would suggest a digitec or external SFX unit unit if you use one to sing.Although the K6 has a great effects section onboard I have not as yet begun to exploer what I can do with setting up the mic to sing thru the K6.Does any owners have a suggestion on settings? Reverb/delay mix? There is no hard drive in my unit yet. But I will be getting the SX6 Hard drive asap that should be enough to handle my files. They also make a SX3 I'm told which has a smaller memory. There will be more to follow as I go along performing I'm sure.

try this link to hear the KN6000 Demo mp3's.
http://www.kn-6000.de/Sound-Demos/sound-demos.html


L8tr

Donny NJ

Hi donny!

Glad to see you got off to a good start. I suppose the transition from 5000 to 6000 helped a lot, and i had a kn5000 for about 3 months, but found a huge difference when i got the kn6000 - not just a re-hash of sounds etc - but totally fresh ones. Super.!

Keep us informed as to how you get on with it donny, and happy gigging!.

Jupiter

Donny,

Welcome back home to Technic's "wonderful" easy to use navigational operating system and features (color screen, easy sound/style selection-editing, panel memory registrations, Solo MSP Pads, etc). Many of the KN6000's solo instruments sound incredible. Though the KN5000 remains a great sounding keyboard, the KN6000's sounds are even MUCH MORE improved. I agree that the KN6000's external MIC volume control slider (physical slider) is a BIG improvement over the KN5000's awkward placement in the Entertainer screen's "sub-menu".

Donny, I was not aware of a new smaller SX3 hard drive available for the KN6000. Is this from Keysoft Service? I did not see this mentioned on Keysoft Service's website: http://www.keysoftservice.ch
Can you possibly provide more details about the SX3? Specs (storage size), features, price?

I have the Keysoft Service model HD-AE5000 hard drive installed in my Technics KN5000 and find it as essential as the keyboard itself. I also have the "HD-TechManager5000" software program by Keysoft Service, which allows you to name (& edit), organize, manage, transfer, and backup the keyboard's hard drive song data to your PC. I "HIGHLY RECOMMEND" you purchase the "HD TechManager6000" as well. I admit that all these 'add on' features get a bit expensive, but as a professional entertainer, it will make your performances that much easier to do, allowing you to concentrate on performing (playing/singing) and relating to your audience. I found both the hard drive and HD-TechManager software well worth the expense. I realize that Technics keyboards and 'add on' features (optional hard drive and related software) can be a bit more expensive than Roland,Korg, Yamaha, GEM, etc, but I do think it is worth the price for the "superior" Technics styles/sounds and most of all, the EASY to Navigate OS design of Technics brand keyboards.

Please keep us posted on both your KN6000 experiences as well as how the SX6 (or SX3) and "TechManager6000" software work out for you. I still love my KN5000, but also hope to eventually upgrade to the KN6000 but I also realize that if I do upgrade, that I'll need to purchase the hard drive, TechManager6000 software, and the new EW01 board as well; so with all these add on items, it will end up costing a bit of $. Time to review my music equipment budget. EEK!: Time to raise my performance fee rates.

- Scott

Donny,

Its great when you "click" on stage with your keyboard. Sounds like you had a great time and played up a storm. Looks like we're finally getting to understand some of these keyboards. Each keyboard seems to lend itself better to a certain style player than the others. Sure, a good keyboardist can play anything on any keyboard but it just seems that each keyboard leans more in a certain stylistic direction than others.

So, just to make sure I've got this straight, the KN6000 is more for a big band, jazz, and latin style player, right? The Yamaha PSR9000 is more for 70s & 80s rock with some disco and techno thrown in, and the X1 is for latin, and what, rock? I'm getting confused, anyone help out here?

Regards,
Stevizard

donny,
very nice from you to share with us your opinion on the Kn6000 and in fact theIr is new things I knew now about the KN6000 from your posting .

------------------
vic

Hi Stevizard,

I concur that the KN6000 is great (the best) for jazz, standards, big band, ballroom and latin, but I do think the KN6000 also covers 70s & 80s rock, pop, country, disco and techno/rave/dance/trance very well too. With the new EW01 board, the KN6000's sounds now cover an even wider range of music genres.

From my 'limited' audition of the Solton X1, I found it best geared for rock because of its' 'live' sounding in your face drums. I would not personally recommend the X1 for more subtle styles such as cocktail jazz.

I'm still anxious to check out the Yamaha PSR9000 pro because currently only the Yamaha PSR9000 and Technics KN6000 and KN5000 support "rootless chord voicing" recognition which is essential for playing authentic sounding contemporary jazz-blues comping styles. Because of this, I would assume that the Yamaha PSR9000 would be well suited for playing jazz as well. I'd be interested in hearing comments from PSR9000 players on this.

- Scott

Steve I will agree with Scotts statement below,

<<<<< but I do think the KN6000 also covers 70s & 80s rock, pop, country, disco and
techno/rave/dance/trance very well too. With the new EW01 board, the KN6000's sounds now
cover an even wider range of music genres.>>>>


check out the link and hear it for yourelf.
http://www.kn-6000.de/Sound-Demos/sound-demos.html

donny

http://www.technote.com/rw/kn6000/index.asp

Scott, scroll down to the SX3 vs SX6 posts, this is where I heard of it on the tecnics 6000 forum,

donny

[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 01-05-2001).]

Donny,

Thanks for referring me to the Technote message board. I do somehow remember reading about the SX3 here now that you jogged my memory. Here's is the direct link to Keysoft Services's HD-SX6 vs. HD-SX3 comparison page for anyone else who is interested:
http://www.keysoftservice.ch/HD-SX6-3_comparison.htm

I think the HD-SX6 is the "much better" choice (though it does cost more), because only the HD-SX6 allows you to connect & backup the SX6 hard drive data to your PC (This is an essential feature to me!). Also, only the HD-SX6 contains the very useful "File Load Script" feature which allows you to create custom song sets which will load specified styles/songs in succession. Great for specific show sets and medleys.

- Scott