Let me start off by saying that about a year ago, when I first heard of a new product being developed by Ketron, designed for Midi file, Wave and MP3 playback, along with some styles and voices available, I was less than excited about this new product. I don't have DJ customers in my store and was not looking foward to this new entry from Ketron........
Foward to today, when I unpacked my first Midjay at my music store and upon removing it from it's box I got pretty excited. After playing around with this product and calling our friend AJ on the phone, I am now really excited about this powerful, LITTLE box. This thing has somthing for everyone interested in any kind of music.
Finally, Ketron has made a module only 12.5" x 8.7" x 4.5" and wighing just 7 lbs. All Ketron models up to the Midjay have been very large. There are not very many buttons to scare you away, but the power of this thing is awsome!
The key phrase to this product is "Direct Audio Streamlining". There is no need for simms or internal memory to record samples, loops, wavs, mp3's or to save midifiles, styles or anything else. Ketron has put a 20GB hard drive, upgradable to a 40 GB drive with the ability, even with the 20GB drive, to record live audio for up to 30 hours. AJ gave me this 30 hour number. Every file you have on the hard drive is available right when you select it just by pushing the play or enter button, and the ability to play all the different files at once with everything in sync is amazing.
I found on the hard drive 64 voices, which are actually programs for those of you who know what a program is on Ketron products. This can be up to 4 voices combined and split. You can freely change these 64 anyway you like and store them.
I next found 136 styles, each with 4 variations, intros and endings and also all the features from other ketron arrangers including sync start, sync stop, hold, etc. I then copied from both floppy disks and using the USB connector supplied with the Midjay all my custom and factory styles from the SD1, SD1plus, XD3 and Xd9 library I have. I organized these all into folders I created in the master style folder (just like the SD1) and called these up easily and so quickly to play from a connected midi keyboard or accordian. There is also a certain amount of editing that can be done with the styles.
The way the hard drive is arranged is just like a PC computer with a C Drive and Root directory. You must remember to back up all the factory files because there is no way to retrieve these if you erase them by mistake. This only takes a few minutes using the USB connection and a PC or MAC.
For all the middle eastern musicians who love to sample loops of live arabic percussion and sync them with your styles, this is a dream come true! Now, you don't have to carry a seperate sampler and worry about running out of memory. Ketron gives you about 12 sample loops of this type of music and these can be tempo sync'd to your styles without changing the pitch, etc.
I loaded every midi file I have in my store onto folders i organized in the midi file folder and I now have thousands of midi files available at an instant.
This thing is like having a big Apple IPOD! We downloaded hundreds of MP3's I have and they play back the soon as you select one. You can even crossfade between any two types of media you like.
If you want to record vocals or live instsruments to a midi file or WAV file, or even to a style you play, just plug in a mic, push record, and you've now created your own MP3 right on the midjay.
Another cool feature is the ability for the Miday to record every button push you make, so that even transpositions, mutes, volume changes, etc. are recorded in real time.
You can search for any file using the alphabetical search method either in a specific folder or in the entire hard drive.
You can create up to 999 playlists of your songs with 10 songs in each playlist.
When you play a midifile, wave and mp3 files can be recorded with the midi file and saved for later playback. With this, sound effects, etc. can be added to a midi file, somthing not able to be done previously.
The mic input and included effects work great and there is an option for a 3 part vocal harmonizer to be added. There is also a mute lead button which can remove any one of the 16 midi channels when playing standard midi files and when playing wave files this will eliminate the vocal track (the amount is dependent on the way the track itself).
Lyrics are seen on the display and there is a video output jack included to view on a big TV screen. AJ tells me that right now, 3 colors are available but a revision with come out soon with full color screen options.
I have just scratched the surface of this new little wonder box. For those only wanting a style arranger for your keyboard, guitar or accordian I would strongly recommend the Midjay. For those needing a playback machine for MP3's, Midifile's, Wave files, you would love this.
All in all, this is the next generation arranger workstation module with a little footprint and a big "bang for your buck".
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566
_________________________
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene (Closed after 51 years)
West Hills, California
(Retired 2021)
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