It was very interesting to note that Ketrons' new Audya is still in prototype stage at NAMM and the only demos were Wav files, according to the NAMM news thread.
This keyboard has been on the release calendar for a year and it would seem Ketron are no closer to a final product.
It was probably the same prototype board they had at Frankfurt, and I was suspicious even then because of NO video of what the guy was actually playing on the keyboard. The video was ALL front on.
Perhaps Ketron are having more difficulty than they first thought in bringing an arranger, "powered" by wav samples instead of the usual midi note sequences, to a final working product.
It will be interesting to see if the final product DOES make it to Frankfurt in March.
I think if it doesn't make it then, it could still be some time off.
What do others think?
Dennis

Miden,

Time can only tell. When I was at the Namm show, I was not able to play with the keyboard because it is just a prototype. Ketron did not allow any visitor to mess around with their new keyboard. What I can tell you is that it sounds very good from the demo file. The keyboard sounds very realistic and natural sound. I always love the live drum and bass sound of Ketron keyboard.

coca

P.s. Did you able to sell your SD1 keyboard? Still interesting in my Midjay

Depends what they are trying to do.
They promote audio drums (A real recording of a drummer and a drum kit) as the next generation, linked to the style by Midi synchronisation. Well Wersi have had these in their instruments since they were launched 8 years or more ago, so I would hardly call it Next Generation. (Unless they mean for a hardware based board)
The most exciting part however (Providing I am reading the details correctly) is the Audio backings, which are also real live recordings (Including all the required chords) and should really be something to look forward too. (Think of the Yamaha Mega voices, but with audio loops instead of Midi loops as Yamaha use)
I suspect that they are having problems getting the audio loops to synchronise with the rest of the style, (Requires a lot of calculations) which being a hardware based system is difficult to correct without redesigning the hardware for faster processing.
Hopefully they will manage to get things sorted, and really give the Big Boys some sleepless nights.
Fingers crossed

Bill

Perhaps they are starting to realize that loops of audio instruments playing, rather than drums (that only need ONE recording), don't have anywhere NEAR the flexibility of chord choices and inversions that MIDI instruments can provide...

The complete lack of ANY editing (you can't change the RECORDING of a major chord into a maj7th, nor an electric guitar into an acoustic, all easy on a MIDI arranger) is going to make these loops get stale pretty quickly, and the cost of making new sets of loops is going to make constant new styles pretty much a thing of the past.

I'm sorry, but apart from drums (and I STILL think the lack of easy editing and the ability to change drumkits make these suspect), I think this is a waste of R&D budget. It's not that the technology is too difficult, several software programs do it now, to varying degrees of success, but they all are Gigabyte sized libraries, beyond the capabilities of a non-streaming hardware keyboard. I don't think many who are clamoring for this technology have thought out the details...

And, even if it can be made to work, one thing that all of us take for granted is the ability to change the Tone that plays a part - want a brighter guitar instead of the one programmed into your style? Piece of cake on a MIDI arranger. Impossible on a recording. Want a brush kit instead of a rock kit? Impossible with a recording. Want a chord extension that the style maker didn't record (not enough memory to record them ALL)? Impossible with a recording.

Before too many manufacturers chuck themselves down this black hole of technology, perhaps they should just concentrate on making better multi-sample instruments, and chord lookup tables that behave appropriately for the instrument. Technologies like SA voices and guitar modes are the way of the future, not everybody playing back the same identical, limited set of audio loops.

Want to sound like EVERYBODY else? This audio loop arranger is the way to go...

Well, for sure with the midi we can manage much better the al chords, BUT the final Audio OUT quality is always based in the soundbank ROM of the keyboard.

Simply midi styles and drums patterns can never follow the Audio loops..agree?

I admire the Audya because if they can resolve the audio sync problems with the Dream DSP, they really are so smart and can compete with the other brands, full of my compliments!

But is hard.. i know this well because we have fight too for manage the all 36 possible chords in realtime, with the 32 patterns..the HD SATA is streaming like crazy.

But also believe me, I have buy some Loopmasters library, like this: http://www.loopmasters.com/sampleshop/10Expand.asp?ProductCode=LMOS_21

and under Qranger we have made some styles demos for testing the system, audio loops and just 2-3 midi tracks under giga sounds..., loading the style ( 360Mb ) in less 1 second and sounds like the original library: http://www.loopmasters.com/sampleshop/products/wav-mp3/Disco%20House%20Sessions%20De mo.mp3

with your midi keyboard and soundfonts you can NEVER reroduce styles that will sounds like this, believe me.
Just with one of this style, under 32 patterns and chords combination mode, you can play for hours like a real DJ too.

for your know, we are in contact with Loopmaster company and they are really interested to produce the all audio styles with all this library.

2008 is the year of the Mediastation too...
cheers

[This message has been edited by LIONSTRACS (edited 01-21-2008).]

I am a former demo guy for Ketron & produced a video owners manual, so I am familiar & a little partial to Ketron. One of the reasons is that navigation is easier than the big 3 or 4 manufacturers in my opinion.

Let's also keep in mind that if you compare all arranger products over the last 10 years, General Music has always been out in front with innovation. Big Screens, Notation, Sampling & Wav Sync were features back in 1996 .

That being said, I think many people have this impression that Ketron has poor navigation and editing is lacking . But it's not. Editing of styles or midi sequences is extremely easy and how Ketron utilizes the hard drive is different than most companies.

When you buy any Ketron product and take it out of the box & you listen to a style play , press 1 button and the screen changes so that you can view the sounds & volumne levels with the press of one button . You can change sounds & levels in real time. If your happy with the changes, you press save enter and one more button (F2) and the keyboard will save your changes ,without saving to a registration. Kind of an instant snap shot of your style preferences.

Editing sound & volume levels is easy with Midi Sequence playback as well.If you copy a midi file to the hard drive, you can play that midi directly from the hard drive and change sound and volume levels and save your changes, without losing the original midi sequence and save on the hard drive.

In regards to audio loops with Ketron products. It was easy to sync drums (SD1) , because drums do not respond to chord progressions. The thinking is audio produces the best playback of real instruments.
With Audya, they are using midi as the map to change multiple audio loops in real time , which is not currently done on any arranger keyboard.

Midi is numbers vs. audio is realistic. Sampling a guy or girl playing guitar is better than using numbers to create that strum....It's getting the multiple samples at the same time, change in real time. That is the trick. Answer ? Use midi to manipulate audio. Hence, Audya !

I hope what I'm saying makes sense.

See Ya... Dan O

Interesting, Dom... I was just under the impression that everyone doing DJ style production was primarily using either Live, or workstation products like MotifXS.

Sadly, you won't find many here that are much into this loop-based electronica. Primarily, arranger players tend towards the older styles, with more complexity in the chord choices and instrument authenticity, than in this DJ-like production. Perhaps there IS a new generation of musicians willing to try DJ-ing on an arranger rather than a laptop or WS, but I doubt you will find them here...

As you said in your first sentence, Dom, MIDI will always (at least for the foreseeable future) have the edge when it comes to the choices in different chord types it is capable of playing back. However, I am not so sure that audio quality is of such a high priority. Witness how important mp3 playback is becoming. Hardly the sign of a concern for audio quality. In fact, I can't remember the last post (other than yours) that made any mention whatsoever about the quality of D/A converters in our arrangers, or what sample rate and depth the final output is.

But we ARE concerned with how authentic the sounds are, and how well they respond to OUR chord input. You know, the whole 'arranger' thing... I often feel there is a chasm between what the arranger makers THINK is important, and what the PLAYERS do. We want to sit down, pick any style, play ANY chord, and have the arranger play back an accompaniment that sounds like real players are playing what WE want them to play (not what someone else recorded), and we want the ability to change what we DON'T LIKE. You can't change the internal elements of a loop. You can't add chord types to a pre-recorded set of loops. You can't take a drum groove recorded on a Gretsch kit, and play it on a Pearl.

You can do ALL of these things with MIDI, and it only takes higher quality sample sets to make them virtually as realistic as un-editable loops. Add in more realistic lookup tables for each kind of instrument, and legato/staccato triggering systems like SA voices, voice-leading technology like Roland's Adaptive Chording, that avoids chord 'jumps' and just changes inversions with minimal 'jumping', and you have something that is FAR more realistic than simple, static, take it or leave it audio loops.

Perhaps there IS a market for an arranger DJ product, although a laptop and Live is FAR less expensive (and more controllable), but I also think this is the wrong place to look...

Personally, I know I don't need this in an arranger, at least, nowhere NEAR as much as I need better sounds, and better, more authentic behavior of the sounds in a style.
And, of course, just like 99% of all arranger players, I don't want to have to think about any of this stuff. I don't want to program it myself, I don't want to do anything more than call up the style, and everything just WORK...

Perhaps dismaying to an engineer, but I believe that the 99% figure is about right... At most, only 1% of the market wants to deal with Linux wrappers, streaming issues, and tailoring large loop libraries for DJ-ing. The rest of us want an ARRANGER... Just like we've got, only better.

Not something more akin to a laptop and Live.

[This message has been edited by Diki (edited 01-21-2008).]

@ Diki..+1 and +1 (thats for both posts )
Succinctly put argument, little more to be said.
I reckon Ketron will have to end up releasing a hybrid as they find it is more and more difficult (without a couple of terabyte hard-drives) to do what they need.
Dennis

Team,
There were a few styles within the Audya (which I will put up in a few) that clearly demonstrated the LIVE STYLE features. Again, since this was a prototype, not all features, functions, sounds and styles are complete, but the demos will give you a taste of what's to come.
Thanks,
AJ

Thanks AJ, that would be great. Where will you post them? Ketron US?
Cheers
Dennis

You can get excellent Midi loops and sequences (Witness the Yamaha Mega voices) but if you compare them to an audio recording, even the best just don’t have that natural feel.
On the other hand, unless you are making direct comparisons, it’s debatable as to whether you can hear the difference. (Particularly in a mix)(Drums are the exception)
The SA voices are also an excellent way to get around the lack of processing power of Hardware based keyboards being able to change the sound of an instrument in real time. (You’ve got to take your hats off to Yamaha for that)
Technology however moves on, and sound modelling (Basic sound generation stored in samples and then manipulated in real time, just like the real instrument) is now starting to become a reality. (And will eventually make all the big sample sets and disc streaming an irrelevance)(Just look at the many VSTs that have been produced recently)
As far as I am aware, Wersi OAS 7 is the only Arranger/Organ system, that comes as standard with this technology, and while difficult to program at first, (A new way of developing sounds has to be learnt) once sound designers get into the swing of things then all the old technologies will pale. (The current sounds (The Sound Packs in particular) already leave most other keyboards behind, particularly when you compare them to Real Instruments and not just other keyboards)
Point to note: if you look at most (But not all) of the technological advances in music keyboards, they have mainly come from the smaller manufactures.
Whichever way it goes the future looks bright, but just remember, that top performers on keyboards (And that stand the test of time) got there by playing the instruments, not by allowing some sophisticated backing or feature to do the work for them.
Enjoy Life, Play a Wersi

Bill


[This message has been edited by abacus (edited 01-22-2008).]

Hi Dan01,
it took a while to get used to the navigation system, it is different,
but I don't quite agree that style editing is not lacking.

There is no way of event list editing a style track, which when it comes to converted styles is almost a neccesity.
EMC doesn't always get it right.
Can't understand why Ketron don't put out some sort of software editing package.

As for the Audya loops, is it some sort of a time slice function or something? Sounds fascinating either way.

I've never come across slicing function till I got my PA800. It slices drum loops & then I can use midi to alter the rhythm. To what extent naturally depends on the complexity of loop in the first place.


best wishes
Rikki
[QUOTE]Originally posted by DanO1:
[B]
That being said, I think many people have this impression that Ketron has poor navigation and editing is lacking .


With Audya, they are using midi as the map to change multiple audio loops in real time , which is not currently done on any arranger keyboard.

Midi is numbers vs. audio is realistic. Sampling a guy or girl playing guitar is better than using numbers to create that strum....It's getting the multiple samples at the same time, change in real time. That is the trick. Answer ? Use midi to manipulate audio. Hence, Audya !

Rikki wrote "There is no way of event list editing a style track, which when it comes to converted styles is almost a neccesity.
EMC doesn't always get it right.


If your judging Ketron's on board ability to slice parts or individual notation etc..than I can see Ketron's limitations.

I use a computer to communicate on the web.
I have never used a computer to record a sequence (hard disk recorder) or edit styles.


If I listen to a style on my SD1 and not happy with the way it sounds, all I do is change sounds/voices, volumne levels, effects & that's it and save it. What's nice with Ketron is that you don't need to save your style edits with registrations. Ketron products take a snap shot, so that the next time you boot up, you don't have to call up registrations, you just select the style.

I'm not sure what Audya does, but getting audio loops to change with chord progressions in real time is a challenge.

I think Ketron let the "cat out of the bag" a little early with introducing Audya last year.






[This message has been edited by DanO1 (edited 01-23-2008).]

Ya think??!!! LOL

Yeah, it's sure been a looooong hype about Audya already,
but finally it looks like they are making the webpage
ready for the "new baby"...... so who knows, maybe it
will be ready fior the public during this year? http://www.ketron.it/prodotti/index.asp?idTipo=2

Happy Playing
GJ

I wonder about the Audya, they are pushing it at the last two shows, but its still a prototype. I worry about them rushing it in to production then once its released it has many problems. The SD1 had so many bugs, then it was updates after updates. The xd9 & Sd5 also has bugs. I've owned all of the Ketrons starting w/MS50 and I just recently sold my SD5 for a yamaha s900. I would take a lot of convincing for me to go back to ketron. They have best sounds but fell behind on compared to yamaha tyros 2, korg PA800, etc.

"The SD1 had so many bugs, then it was updates after updates. The xd9 & Sd5 also has bugs"

The XD9 came out after the SD1. However,the XD9 had one feature that the SD1 didn't and that feature was the "remix" feature. The Remix feature allowed the drum tracks from a style to be used in real time vs. the drum track that came with a standard midi file.

So here is the XD9 with a feature that the flagship keyboard (SD1) did not have. They thought they needed to add "remix" to the SD1 and came out with OS 4.0 .

This move was the start of many problems for Ketron.Owners had problems changing to OS 4.0 and many customer service issue's arrived ! and they would call their store or say
" Help Help I just try to upgrade to 4.0 and it didn't work " . MAJOR HEADACHE ...

(almost)all arranger keyboards need some more stability once they are released. i think all of our arrangers has been updated to a newer OS version since the purchase time. that wouldn t be outrages.

but i think this would be the major issue... to make enough audio loops to cover everything that midi can trigger. it is titanic work to do. the result we can only hope will be great.

i think would have been enough if ketron, or anyone else, introduced audio loops in the styles, but only for drums/percution and maybe guitar. i feel that pretty much everything else (piano, strings, brass, etc) is ok as a midi triggered samples. but yes, for guitars - i'd like to have them more realistic sounding and playing. doesnt matter what technology they use...

anyway, good luck ketron! audya is a very challenging project and it's for everyones best to see it done and running!

[This message has been edited by adimatis (edited 01-23-2008).]

Audya demos are now up ... again these were taken LIVE at Winter NAMM 2008 via a video camera. The AUDYA used was a prototype .... just to give you a taste of what's to come.
Enjoy.
AJ

Where are the demos?

... ops!! Forgot the location ... it's on Youtube!!

Audya demos can be found at ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xy92wEdaZSo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aShWA2muHu8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckhG9weg1Ls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIC8NOqUu4w

That's it for now folks....

AJ

I not sure if this audio wav sounds vs. midi triggered sounds will be the next big thing. I listened to the demos (and I know that its a prototype) but I can't really tell the difference. I'm sure once the keyboard is ready to be released that there will more demos and the sounds will be great. I can only imagine the price tag on this puppy.

As I stated in my other post I had many ketrons and I do enjoy their sounds, but the reason I sold the SD5 was because the weight(very heavy), The guitar sounds and the drums were slightly better but no much difference between the XD9 and SD1. The same OS got to be boring.

I eneded up purchasing the Yamaha s900, 1. the price, a mini tyros for $1599. The sounds are great, guitars, brass, drums etc. and the weight, light as a feather.

I did look at the Korg PA800, but i owned a PA-80 and a lot of the smae styles are repeated and it was 1000 bucks more then the s900.

I guess time will tell, but I don't see the auyda being the next biggest thing that everyone will want to run out and buy. Ketron had that moment with the MS series and they were never able to repeat it.

Aj.....


Thanx for the demo....looks like your having fun ......good luck with the new Audya......maybe we can stop by the Lab again & check it out sometime, lunch is on me ok?

Donny

Count me in on that visit...I'll pick up the drinks!

Al