I drove up to Franks shop at Audioworks, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Frank and his Audya for about 4 hours. He showed me the entire board and we also had a Yamaha s910 and the Korg Pa2x to compare.

Layout: Good layout, everything seems to be in it right location, easy to find everything, fills, sounds, styles, mic, menu, etc. The 5 buttons on left and right of the screen are placed a little odd, but one can get use to it. Pages are easy to navigate, but pressing the each voice catg. it will scroll through each page, as the same with the styles. The left and right arrows also controls scrolling.

Voices: The voices are very good, but there are similar to what Ketron voicing style in the past. The guitars are a big improvement from the SD1/X1. Saxes, brass, strings, etc are also good. If you’re a past ketron user these are great bread and butter sounds. The pianos and electric pianos are great. If you’re a accordion player you won’t find better accordion/mussette than ketron.

Styles: The styles are just simply amazing! Hands down, KO punch! The realism is unbelievable. The lain, ballads, folk, country, ballroom & dance sound fantastic. Funk, R& B, Disco, Club are ok. The drums with the audio guitars and bass, etc just give it a raw band feel. Like to have 5 piece stage band just jamming away. Latin is the best I heard to date, super high quality, like a professional salsa or merengue band. Hard to describe unless you sit down and play it. It has that intelligent arranger feature, that the style does not become repetitive and it changes up every so often.

Additional features: Midjay package is a huge plus, mix midi, wav, mp3 with mp3. It’s a great feature. I did not try the Voicetron, but Ketron’s vocalizer was never bad to begin with.

Stability: First in foremost, to think that the Audya 3.0 is unstable is a crock of sh*t. Audya is just as stable as any other keyboard. I pressed every button to see if would lock up and nothing! Not once did it lock up! (sorry Frank for all the button pushing). For it to crash/LOCK UP as some state/say its because 9 times out of 10 it is user error. Frank also explained that all of time that he used it on gigs there was also no lock ups or crashes. As far as bugs, there are some, it does NOT make the keyboard unplayable. From what I understand, creating styles on the audya, it is not available yet, coming in 4.0. But I doubt I would be able to create anything was well programmed as they do, so it does not matter to me. But you have editing capabilities on user and factory styles.

Comparisons: Like I said above, we had the PA2x and S910 on hand. Korg & Yamaha are very polished sounding keyboards, but jumping back in forth, between the three of them. Korg & Yamaha started to sound boring. I found that the club, dance, funk, R&B styles have more of an edge than the Audya. The ballads in Korg & Yamaha sound great but very similar, very CD like. I have to say that Yamaha single SA guitars are still a winner.

Size: The audya looked about 2 inches more on each side sitting below the Yamaha, the PA2X just about the same but not as deep. Audya is a little heavy, 38-39lbs +/-.

Conclusion: If I had the choice and if my wife would have let me purchase a keyboard before Christmas, I would have been the Audya. The overall live sounding styles just outshine the other two. As far as cost comparisons it is a fairly expensive board but when you add vocalizer, mp3 and wav DJ player/mixer. The cost are not that far off if you were to purchase each piece separately.

Additions: If read in the past, that some do not like voices of Ketron understandably. If your looking for different voices I would suggest a synth of your choice along with the audya. It will be a great combo.

Once Again, thank you Frank for your time.

PS. Leezone if your waiting for Audya 2 there won't be for a long while, Ketron has big plans for the this Audya and I don't see it becoming obsolete anytime soon. So give it up, start saving some Euros and meet me at Franks!

edited: darn spelling errors, I'm sure I missed a few!

There, I corrected the left out words (in CAPS)since I was typing too fast.

[This message has been edited by mc (edited 12-05-2009).]



[This message has been edited by mc (edited 12-05-2009).]

I can only add that the Vocal processing and harmonizer are very good as well. No gadget voices in the harmonizer, but various harmonies ranging from 2 to 4 parts.
Both vocal and harmony voice can be fully e.q.'d, and have compressor, limiter, reverb and delay available.
There are two XLR inputs for mics, and the volumes of both main and harmony voice have dedicated sliders.
The Audya also easily reads USB drives and all media, including songs, styles, mp3s, midi files and text files can be directly accessed.
An interesting feature is that if you set up a registration using, say, a user style and and/or a text file from the USB drive, the keyboard stores both the style and the text in the registration, so that it will be recalled even though the drive has been removed. Haven't tried that with a midi file.
DonM

The Latin styles are most impressive! Is there a mid priced version of this keyboard? I don't need all the extras (mp3, vocal harmony,DJ mixer ....) I just want those Latin styles!

One Subject I've haven't seen broached is:

Does the Audya have good modern Techno sounds?

Specifically -

808 drumkit and the like.
Good sounding "Dance Sampled" Drums.
Good Modern Synth/Rave-like sounds?

I realise not a lot of us here on the boards need this, but all I hear about the Audya is how great the live sounding drums are (which is good - I'll sure use 'em!) but I need more.

Let's face it, for better or for worse, all of us at some point (unless you are doing ONLY Jazz/Acoustic/Traditional songs) will need at least SOME sort of modern Drum/Synth sounds.

How does the Audya fare with these kind of Genres (styles or sounds - specifically sounds)??

I also has listen to the Audya in the music store and can tell you that this keyboard isn't for dance, trance and techno music. If you like that kind of music just as I do buy a Korg PA500, 800 or PA2x. You really need good editing possibilities to create good techno or trance music.

Really ?
Lets see what else you say then so.



It's not a Car your driving, it's a keyboard. You cannot crash a keyboard by user error. If it crashes which we know it does, then it bugs that cause the crash, not the operator.

Still you saved the best for last....



Bugs that make the keyboard unplayable you say. So I guess that crock of sh*t you referred to is in fact the truth then.

As for everything else you said, I enjoyed reading your thought, feelings and comments. It's all your personal opinion and I totally respect that. I have no beef with how it sounds, but you can't start your post saying that what people say is a crock of sh*t and in the same post you confirm that it contains bugs that make it unplayable.

Regards
James

mc

It was nice to read about the Audya...I wish that more people would do this....

------------------
createsongstyles.com
fakesheets.com

I prefer reading about Korg or something new from Roland.

What I meant to say that the bugs does NOT make the keyboard unplayable. I did a lot of button pressing going from one menu to another, you can be playing a style and call up a mp3 or wav or midi at the same time. IT DID NOT LOCK UP!

BTW, you know exactly what I meant to say. I missed typed.



[This message has been edited by mc (edited 12-05-2009).]

Well look, which or whether I don't mind, I'm just happy somebody found the time to Review (and just as importantly compare with other similar keyboards).

I would've liked more impressions, and yes, a little less self contradiction (maybe a typo or two in the post?) but I'm curious about the Audya, like everyone is.

My main problem with the Audya is Price.
In Australia it's listed as $10,000!

I could get a PA-2x for around $7000.00 I believe - maybe better...?

Even if I talk the shop down from RRP (something I could no doubt do) the RRP for the Korg is Thousands cheaper.

This is not a shot at the Audya's capabilities as a machine, or whether it's good for live or studio work, or if it crashes or...whatever!

It's just so DAMN EXPENSIVE! - Honestly.