Yamaha pack too much information on the screen for it to be effective as a Touch Screen, Frans. You would need tiny little fingers!

TBH, I am having some problems with the Kronos, too (playing it at the local store). The fonts are VERY small compared to Korg and Roland arrangers' touch screens. It's pretty hard in a hurry to avoid hitting the wrong thing.

Thing is, here's an $1800 arranger (and its cheaper cousin) able to do the same audio to pads and sampler playback tricks that the $3500 PA3X can do. In fact, from the sound of it, it looks like adding audio drums to a style will be a lot more user-friendly than Korg make it. Of course it doesn't have ALL of the PA3's bells and whistles. But it just got a couple of the big ones! At nearly half the price!

You can get audio tracks in Band-in-a-box. I still think really good midi drums can come close to 'audio' drums, depending on the midi's sound source and they're a lot more editable for the average non-geek musician. For the type of amateur recording I do, I prefer Edrums, which combines the dynamics of live playing with the ease and flexibility of any other electronic sound source. Of course, you have to have access to a good drummer, though. Luckily for me, I do.

chas

BFD and Superior drums are not loop libraries, chas... they are MIDI drums, just like any module. Only FAR more detailed - dozens of samples per note, left and right hand articulations, round robin modes for making sure two identical MIDI notes don't play the same sample, top and bottom snare mikes, sympathetic ringing modes, you name it.

Check out their websites. The demos are amazing!

http://www.fxpansion.com/index.php?page=14&tab=37
http://www.fxpansion.com/index.php?page=53
http://www.toontrack.com/products.asp?item=30
http://www.toontrack.com/products.asp?item=44

They should make it so that you can attach the keyboard to a tablet or smartphone and then have the ability to add smart buttons, sliders, and smart menus that aren't immediately available on the keyboard.

Yeah, I'm aware of that. I'm just not enough of a 'geek' (said in the most loving way), nor do I have the patience, to exploit the full potential of these types of packages or this approach to making music. I just like to play, and the fewer things that don't involve actual playing, the better. That's why I play organ rather than things with a lot of buttons to push and screens to touch. Just personal preference, that's all. Don't get me wrong; I love the technology, I just don't want it to become more important to me than playing. In music, there is MIND and SOUL. I just want to keep them in the right proportion.

chas

Hi Chas,

No pun intended: I have exactly the same outlook. I'm nothing special, but I promise you'll love the Audya. `

Henni

In a way, they already have:

AKAI Synthstation

Now imagine an IPAD compatible software arranger like the one DAN2000 has created, integrating on the keyboard of your choice.

Larry,
The picture posted is correct. I just compared it to all the pictures I've received from Yamaha.

I don't know Donny- you may be right but I think this "audio drum" is pretty exciting and new new direction. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

I agree that Donny's assessment is pretty pessimistic.

It will have a lot of new voices. It will have over 100 more onboard styles - over 400 compared to 300. It will have the better speaker system. And it will have the audio drum feature, the more realistic guitars plus amp distortion.

I'll be happy if all of the T4 styles that I have sound good on this keyboard because some of them don't sound quite right on the PSR-S910.

There are probably some features we haven't heard about yet.

When I look at the button configuration, I see approximately 10 extra buttons on the right side. Maybe I'm wrong.

It would have been nice to get a larger touch screen or the ability to operate buttons and sliders with a tablet. Since I mostly want to make music instead of operating a fun gizmo, this isn't a deal breaker for me.