Hammer, as was stated, they are very much alike. I like the row of assignable buttons on the SD5. It has a great Strat sound that the SD1 doesn't have, and some better saxes.
A primary consideration is whether you want 76 keys.
Talk to you soon,
DonM

1.Out of the box, the sd1plus has more styles than Sd5.
2.Sd1plus has a balance mic input
3.SDplus has the "unplugged" feature, which means that you can choose a style, view the parts in the style and instantly isolate that part, making it unplugged. An example would be a style that has a good acoustic guitar strum, you can isolate that guitar part at the beginning of a song, than when you press the fill in buttons, all parts come in ...
4. The SDplus stores it's styles on the harddrive where as the SD5 uses internal "ram" ..up to 198 styles (with expantion chip) vs. hundreds of styles being accessed off the harddrive.

Just a few differences ... Dan O'

Thanks Dan,
I am trying to reach a decision over the weekend and place an order on Tuesday for one of the two keyboards so all the info I can get from folks who actually own one is very helpful.

Hammer

the extra strat sounds, etc. that might not already be on the SD1 are on the internal hard drive.


------------------
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566
www.kayesmusicscene.com

Hi Hammer,
which ever you choose, just make sure you are happy with the onboard styles.
I couldn't find much available in the way of 3rd party free styles for my SD1+. The converted ones I came across weren't too good.
After a year or so,I gave up trying to convert & edit my own also.

I decided to settle for what's onboard, & leave my converting/ creating for the PA800 instead..


best wishes
Rikki

[QUOTE]Originally posted by hammer:
[B]

Hi Hammer
-Have a look at this site for extra styles.
http://www.carillonstudios.me.uk/ketron_styles.htm

Hammer,

I gigged with the SD1, SD1+, SD5, and the Midjay.

I'll have to say if it wasn't for the 16 registration tabs on the SD5, I would say the SD1+ was my favorite keyboard.

It covered every genre of music, all of sounds where great except for the acoustic guitars. Registration call-up was a slight hassle but worked.
I never loaded any additional sounds, or added additional styles. The vocalizer and effects are good, imho better than yamahas.

I do like have the speakers on the SD5 for monitoring if needed. Riff feature is a personal take it or leave it.

I do find I look for a few styles with the SD5 that I think are missing.

I love the Midjay series, the reg midjay has about 100+ of the SD1 styles , and the midjay plus has about 140+ of the SD5 styles.

It can be played using another keyboard, can play wav and mp3 files, it can use long character naming of files.

Any of the Ketrons that you pick have that sound and you will be very pleased once you get familiar with the operating system.

Thanks Frank,
I will try to make a decision by Tuesday - hope to get more input here from actual ketron gigging pros.

Thanks,
hammer

Hammer, I've been giging with original SD1 since when it first came out, about6 or 7 years now......I did also have Tyros, G70 and still have PA1X Pro, but I keep coming back to SD1.....it works for me.

And dont forgeth teh MIDJAY can do something all of the others cannnot do.....PLAY ALL MODES SIMULTANEOUSLY!!!!.....controlled by SEPERATE SLIDERS!!! THis was the most awesome feature by far on stage....

Mp3/Smf/Styles/SFX/VH & more

I miss all that on my MJ.....with al the new cool controllers out there Id take a serious look atthe new MJ+