Hi Dennis,

I hope your surgery went well...I had my own bouts with it last year, and hopefully you'll get along in recovery as well as I did.

I miss the KX8 already, although I have a Yamaha CP-300 arriving this afternoon, which also has a great weighted hammer action...but it weighs a lot more than the former having built in speakers probably contributes to a lot of it.

As I said earlier, the KX8's vast controller features were wasted on me as I generally don't even hook my keyboards up to my laptop.

Still, the action was exceptionally nice and the whole instrument has an air of quality about it, in spite of still being quite manageable weight wise...it's also not unwieldy in size, which will be a benefit if you plan on gigging with it.

If I can't get another KX8 in the next few weeks, I'll probably use the CP-300, as it has pitch/mod wheels and I won't have to be moving it alone...it weighs 71 lbs without the case.

I wish I could have tried the KX8 with a Sonic Cell...I couldn't locate one, but I will be looking forward to your assessment of the combination.

Ian

Hi Ian,
Yes surgery was okay. Just exploratory to check on a few anomalies, no results yet. Thanks for your kind thoughts .

Yes I will post how it goes as a combo when I get it going. I have a feeling it will work well. Might even to dig out the old OMB program and load it up too.

Cheers
Dennis

Best to you, Dennis... I hope it all goes well.

Thanks Diki.

We are not expecting anything too bad so it should all be well.

Dennis

Hold the phone...Just found out some last minute info on the KX series..and wait til you read this...

You CANNOT transpose incrementally!!! You can octave shift, but no transpose..WOW!! I just read this review by a user... http://www.zzounds.com/item--YAMKX8

And another big deal breaker, is the X Factor pack of all the free softsynths etc is only available for USA KX series controllers.

So I have now just cancelled my order.

I don't know what the Yamaha engineers were thinking, leaving out transpose on a controller!!

Dennis

It might seem strange, although if the KX8 is being used with software on a PC, won't that take care of transpose?
If it's being used as a controller for another keyboard, then provided the slave is midi-ed up to receive as "Keyboard" (not on simple channels)the transpose buttons on it can be used - as if you were playing it directly.

John

Yeah John I realise that, but EVERY other controller keyboard I know of, or have used has had transpose as a BASIC function. As does nearly every synth.

That Yamaha did not with this "Master Controller" is a real suprise.

Additionally, the KX8 also has NO after touch, only initial.

So for me, because of the combination of all three factors... a) no transpose b) no after touch c) no suite of the free VST instruments and effects that USA buyers get... it is not a keyboard I would be comfortable in buying.

I'm sure the weighted keybed would have been excellent, but the keybed is not the be all and end all.

Dennis

Put like that Dennis - can see where you're coming from

John

I must agree, Dennis that not having a transpose function would be a deal breaker for me too, even though I never use it when playing solo piano, preferring to master tunes in different keys as part of my practice regime.

For anything else, having incremental transpose is a must, and easy access to it is equally important.

I really appreciate you pointing it out, and my apologies for not discovering the omission sooner, but I was only using the KX8 to play/practice piano...I would have quickly discovered the lack of easy accessible transpose in the studio, much to my chagrin.

Worst of all, I would have felt terrible if you had bought the KX8 on my incomplete review of the instrument and, upon receiving it, found it did not have the features you needed.

Thankfully, you made the discovery and prevented the two of us (and perhaps more) from being disappointed.

Now we can both work on getting a controller that will fulfill our needs...I have a feeling I may go back to the P85.

Ian

[This message has been edited by ianmcnll (edited 01-06-2009).]

What are the odds of asking Yamaha to rectify this omission? It's all software, after all....