Did you get robbed?

not quite sure Frank,

perhaps it's all one big nightmare of some sort
or perhaps all a great fantasy

where did everyone go?

where are all my synthbuddies?

where's Diki, Tony Hughes, Ian, Dnj, and gang?

are they all @ Spencers for the group photo?

Nobody knows what you're getting at! Did you spend the money on an Audya? I hope so!
DonM

Diki knows, he is a smart man

sorry if i forgot to mention any other non-believers

Don,

who was it that needs to post a pic with his pants down?
i can't recall

Spare us that! But congratulations!
DonM

thanks Don,

i hope it wasn't you.

anyone remember who was to pull down his pants at Spencers?

Nedim, you owe me pizza, i think a years worth if i recall correctly...

well done Leezone. Can you send a picture of your new acquisition ?

Then Tony can you tell me which M&S i need to attend for the unveiling .....i have some friends in the newspaper business and this would be a fun article :-)

i just want to say THANK YOU to Frank, AudiWorks
for letting me stay on the AUDYA saturday from morning till he closed,
for answering my questions,
for his advise,
and for staying late on my behalf,

i know who i can turn to for quick answers, tech support, cust. service

if anyone is looking to buy, talk to Frank,
my 4hr roundtrip journey was well worth it,

thanks again Frank

it was Tony wasn't it?
or was it you Spalding?

No, I never doubted you, or questioned your intentions. Which model did you get? Give us a report!
DonM

Did you get the Audya4 or 5?
Congratulations.
Eric

got the AUDYA4,

since i have the XD3, i decided to stay module,

of course theres pros and cons to both

thanks for your congrats,

now all i have to do is get some good portuguese, brasilian and african styles...
which the AUDYA and EVERY other arranger lacks OOTB

Well done Leezone, it's a jump of faith, but well rewarded, I was sceptical as you know for a very long time, but the upgrade and wow the sound and OS are fantastic!! good news..

Well, Lee, you might have looked a little silly if'n you hadn't bought something, after all the crowing (and the equal amount of Tyros bashing) you did the past few months.

In any case, I do hope that it works out for you, and doesn't become a disappointment as it did for a few other owners (who are apparently fine with it now).

Congratulations!

Ian

thanks,

i'm sure i will find many bugs,

as a matter of fact i found a bug 2 hours into testing it at Frank's
which i think is huge,
and nobody has ever complained or noticed

Thanks for coming up, and it was a pleasure to hear you play,

You should be the Portuguese demo boy for Ketron

------------------
www.AudioworksCT.com

Congrats, you did it!

I went with DonM to his gig on Saturday, outdoors. He had the Audya, using two Bose Compacts. I messed around on guitar just to have something to do, plus, I wanted to hear what guitar/vocal sounded like out of two Compacts. I commented several times as we were playing that wow, this Audya sounds awesome. It really does. Of course, I like my s900, too, but geez, I just love the Audya live sound. I'm gonna get my s900 out and play it some more. It's lonely.

I also noted how good the Audya piano sound is.

Frank,

i would have played Portuguese music all day,
but unfortunately the AUDYA has 0 Audya Styles OOTB

Leezone,

Nice to see you beat Diki to it , but he never said he would get one, great all the banter leading up to it, know you will need to wait the same amoutn of time for me to show my dangly bits in M&S, wish they would go bust like Wersi! Leezone I hope you enjoy your Audya, it's been a long and hard road to this point but I think they got there in the end. Don't you agree.

Come to think of it, it was Spalding, is there a M&S near him.


All the best

Tony

Leezone,

Bloody good copy, have you found a way of printing the number different on each one!

Hi Lee, congrats on your new purchase I hope it's everything you dreamed of and more! I remember when I bought my first Solton product the SoltonX1 I really enjoyed it even though it broke down so many times which is in the end why I traded it in for the PA80 back then, I still miss the quality of the Latin styles although there are some decent ones on the T3 but not anywhere near as many.

I thought maybe you would have waited a few more weeks just to see what the T4 will be all about as it's so close to release? We don't know nearly enough about the T4 and it may turn out to be something that you'd really like unless it was always going to be the Audya no matter what!

Good luck.
Danny

Danny all good points, especially the waiting part on the T4...!
Leezone good luck with your new module, I'm sure we'll hear much more in the weeks to come

i was thinking about waiting to hear the T4

but i have a feeling the drums will still be disappointing for me

and besides i need the ability to import my own audio drum grooves to create my portuguese, brasilian, etc
and i may buy some as well

the first thing i noticed when i opened the AUDYA4 is the power is on the side
and Ketron decides to give you a straight power plug, so it can stick out, straight out the side,

now wouldn't it make sense for Ketron to include a right-angle plug so that the power cord goes along the side of the unit?

Frank was nice enough to throw ina n extra right angle power plug
thanks Frank

"now wouldn't it make sense for Ketron to include a right-angle plug so that the power cord goes along the side of the unit?"

I sure hope that's your biggest disappointment!!
DonM

Let the whining commence...

Just don't sell that G70 for a while, Lee

My take on all this is, it doesn't matter what you have JUST bought. It matters if you are still playing the same thing five, ten years from now. Somehow, I doubt it. Well, not unless Ketron change radically from what they did with the SD-1, and release GOBS of new styles for the Audya on a continuing basis.

But best of luck with it, Lee. Instead of whining about what it hasn't got (although no other keyboard had it either!), now you'll be able to whine about what it actually DOES (noticed your first so-called 'bug' report already!)!

You know what I'd REALLY like to hear? I'd like to hear some styles from it that DON'T use the live loops, either for drums or guitar. Down the line, this may be all the new stuff you can get it to do (trust me, putting a whole coherent style together with Intros, Endings, fills, etc., from commercial audio loops is not easy!). How good the onboard MIDI drum kits and guitars are might start to matter a LOT more once the new car smell has worn off...

Here's a good indicator of things... On your G70, how many of the styles you use now are ones you've added to it, vs. the original ROM styles? If the answer is more than a few, you'd better hope that Ketron get busy..!

Best of luck, again. Just don't go screaming 'BUG!' every time you can't figure something out

“it doesn't matter what you have JUST bought. It matters if you are still playing the same thing five, ten years from now.”

And that is what manufacturers are saying.
Ketron is probably like Yamaha in that they want you to buy a now keyboard every 2-3 years. So whether you can get styles for the keyboard 2-3 years later is not the manufacturer’s concern. In fact, they want you to not have styles for your 2-3 year old keyboard so that you can buy the next hardware board with new styles.


Yamaha and Ketron do not want persons to do like what some owners of the Roland G70 and Gem Genesys do. They don’t want customers to use the keyboard to its full potential and not buy another keyboard until 10 years later. Why? It doesn’t allow them to get a lot of sales on a now keyboard and it forces them to put resources on a 2-3 year old keyboard rather than put resources on their new keyboard.
And if all of this sounds like hogwash, just ask yourself why is Roland not making TOTL arrangers and why Gem is no longer in business.

You had better hope Ketron is following Yamaha’s business practices. Just look for the past 6 years at lease Ketron’s attentions has been on the Augya.

Hmmmmmmm? I love my 1996 Chevy Tahoe 4x4..

The G-70 was discontinued, as were all Roland's high-end and mid-range arrangers...now, a new Roland is not only not needed (according to Roland), but it ain't available either...what a neat idea.

Somehow, I'm betting the GEM Genesys is discontinued as well...what new GEM arrangers are available?

Yes, Yamaha wants to keep making and selling new arrangers...it's called "staying in the arranger business".

There are probably more styles available for Yamaha arranger owners than for anyone else.

Ian

It's called HAPPY CUSTOMERS........
& YES more styles then anyones else !

I am glad you saw where I was coming from.
Roland and Gem are not making arrangers any more because they did not have the business practices like Yamaha.
Allowing persons to be satisfied with their arrangers and keeping their arrangers for 10 years is not going to keep you in business. Like Yamaha, you must make sure they buy a new arranger every 2-3 years.

I am glad you understand where I was coming from.

Not everyone who has a Roland or GEM arranger wants to keep it for 10 years...it would be nice to have a choice whether to buy a new one or not.

Their instruments aren't classics like Hammond B-3's and Rhodes pianos, and never will be. Hammond and Rhodes are still made, but I just can't see Roland or GEM come out with a "new generation" G-70 or Genesys....they couldn't sell the old ones.

There are plenty of PSR-8000 owners and PSR-3000 users, just for two examples, Gary D being one of the latter, who are totally content with their arrangers...but, at least Yamaha's clients have a choice to stay with the great instruments they have, or move on to a newer and more technologically advanced instrument that will still use the styles from the previous generations.

You may or may not agree with Yamaha's business practises, but there is no denying the company still flourishes, and still continues to satisfy present, past and future users.

Ian

Dnj,

What matters is QUALITY not QUANTITY

Actually, I agree with Yamaha business practices. They are doing what is good for the business.
Whether it is good musically and good for the customer’s pocket is of secondary concern.
That is what Roland and Gem did wrong they were looking out for the best interest of customers’ pockets and for music development. Giving free OS upgrades that significantly changes the instrument was not in their best interest. They should have done like Yamaha and induce their customers in to buying a new hardware instrument.
Ketron seems to be going down that wrong path.

Yes, Roland and Gem should have followed Yamaha's path...if they had, you'd be playing a new Gem instrument today.

Free OS upgrades are nice, but why wasn't the instrument introduced with them in the first place, rather than playing catch up, and sowing the seeds of doubt in their client's minds?

Yamaha's method seems to have proved better for both musicality, and their customers pockets...clients could choose to keep the fine instrument they already had, or, buy a new more advanced model.

Ian

I simply don't see the need, in ANY area of keyboard production, to keep constantly current with whatever the latest model is. Same with cars. You don't buy the NEXT model of whatever you are driving the minute it comes out, do you? The car you bought still gets you from A to B the same way it did last year... This year's model is going to change in only a few minor details...

Same with arrangers. To be honest, I don't imagine that Yamaha or anybody EXPECTS their entire customer base to upgrade EVERY model change. I am pretty sure they never have. Every new model that comes out is more likely to be picked up by someone that is a couple or three models behind it, as changes are usually so incremental, it hardly makes it worth anyone's while to simply go from one to the next.

And, whether Roland are in the arranger business or not (personally, as dwindling as the high end market for arrangers is becoming, I can't fault anyone for getting out of the segment), I never found the need to incrementally upgrade even when they WERE bringing a new model out every three years or so. I did an incremental upgrade just the once, from G800 to G1000, because of the incredible superiority of loading instantaneously from Zip rather than glacially from floppy, and I actually MADE money on the swap (worked in a music store at the time), but after I got the G1000, that was IT until the G70... well over ten years later.

To be honest, if anyone even now looks long and hard at what they are getting for their upgrade cost, waiting at least TWO (or better, three!) models down the line will get you something REALLY noticeably superior to what they currently have, not something you have to strain to hear a difference.

And, I believe that for all but the diehard few (like some here), manufacturers don't EXPECT us to upgrade constantly. They make their money from customers of a few generations ago. And new customers, and migrants from other manufacturers. Roland's business model was no different to anyone else's. I have said, many times, I truly believe that the G70 was an underselling performer because they moved the selling of it from MI stores to CK Mom and Pop stores that had no interest in it, no established customer base for it, and few salesmen capable of demo-ing it. But the fact that, sonically, it STILL holds water compared to models at least one product cycle newer shows that there was nothing intrinsically wrong with it. Bad marketing can kill a product as effectively as bad design... But prior to this model, Roland were pumping them out every three years or so, with incremental upgrades no differently than Yamaha were.

I simply think that Roland are ahead of the curve... The writing has been on the wall for ages, few players younger than fifty, especially in the US, are using arrangers at all, WS's with loop capabilities are the dominant form of live keyboard and studio keyboard, nobody even MAKES an arranger capable of sounding remotely contemporary (unless you count the über-expensive, über-complicated VSTi based arrangers), and how can a market segment grow when its' users are aging and dying off, slowly? I simply find too many parallels to what happened to the 'home organ' market in the seventies. They stopped being the dominant form of keyboard, got more and more expensive as fewer and fewer got sold, and eventually turned into a niche product you virtually can't find in most music stores. Sound familiar?

Yamaha are consolidating the market, almost monopolizing it, and with HUGE low end sales, still able to produce MOTL and TOTL models that don't NEED to be huge hits just to carry the division. Roland have gone low-end almost completely, and perhaps their strategy is to see if they can compete at the high volume, low end before they gamble a fortune on another high-end product that might be rejected by all but a few connoisseurs of great sound unconcerned about 'me too' features or light weight.

If Roland go quietly into that long dark night, at least they left on a high note, at least IMO. At this point, even five years after its' release, I see nothing on the market that clearly and across the board dominates the G70, especially sonically. And no-one is pursuing a course I think reflects MY needs in an arranger (I always prefer sonic and MUSICAL upgrades rather than mp3 fluff and features for the amateur player), so I can't honestly see anyone bringing out anything I think to myself 'I GOT to have one of these!' in the foreseeable future.

In the meantime, WS's like the MoXF slowly (but too slowly for me!) add more and more arranger-like functionality, while few if any of their good features migrate to arrangers, so it is pretty obvious where we are heading.

Goodbye, arranger...

Yep, that sums it up quite well Diki...very few of my clients upgrade from one new model to the next one in sequence...very few.

In fact, that why the strategy of incremental (and some not so incremental) changes in the high and mid-range arrangers work so well.

A company has to sell arrangers to make money.

Casio does the same thing with their keyboards/arrangers...they are very successful as well.

Ian

PS...Yes, Roland did go out on a high note with the G-70, and are pursuing the home market with arranger-like products, because that's where the big bucks are right now.

About this business of buying the latest and greatest. I've been playing for thirty years this month, and just bought an S710. In this time frame I've owned 5 Yammies, 5 Rolands, 2 Casios (utterly despised both of them) and 3 Kawais.

I didn't buy any of them simply to keep up with the Jones's, but because of the need of the moment. I got some of them simply because I outgrew their capabilities. I bought others because the previous keyboard was not reliable or rugged enough (the Kawais for example). Frankly, with this last purchase,the finish on my old keyboard was aging poorly, it was out of warrantee, I no longer needed an 88, and I wanted the features on the Yamaha PSR S710, which were more like the last Roland I had had.

So far as what I know, all of my Rolands and Yammies (except for one) are still working. In fact, I recently saw a video of my last Roland still going strong in a church in Mexico. By the way, the reasons why I got rid of my last Roland and got a Yammie were because it used a floppy which was being phased out. It took too long to load from the floppy. I could play it, but no one else could and I needed an 88 to replace my Mom's piano which I couldn't play, and was sitting alone and abandonned in a corner (I gave it to my Sister). Honestly, the DGX I bought was a big step down but I needed a keyboard that others could play easily. It was a big step down. Well, I'm very busy playing semi pro now. It was a struggle dragging around the YPG 525. I could not see the display when I played outdoors, It was way too slow loading from the USB stick and I had had some problems with the sound. So, you can see, I don't buy keyboards because they're the latest and greatest, but because I am satisfying the needs of the moment. At the momeant the S710 fits me perfectly. I'm not feeling my Wheaties so much as I am 70 years old now. I only have a small car to transport my keyboard and equipment in. The S710 has all the ports I need, has access to thousands of styles instantaneously, has wonderful sound and exquisite capabilities. I intend to use this keyboard for a long time and I really do love it. Yes, Tyros, Audya, and Korg are marvelous, but none of them meet my needs. I probably should have bought the S910 as the S710 cannot use SA2 voices, but in all other respects is the equal of these other machines and meets my need perfectly.

Kingsman good luck with your
Yamaha S710 ...
you made a VERY good choice ...enjoy!!