Perhaps you might like to take a look closer at the Kronos..?

Perhaps ROM and RAM are slightly archaic terms, but basically, ROM tends to get used semantically as the Factory samples, and RAM as user stuff. But rapid streaming of samples from the HD rather than pre-loading them into user RAM kind of makes the two differences moot. I know all about ROM and RAM as computer terms, and am well aware of the differences they USED to have.

The Kronos makes that moot, though. You don't need RAM at all, as the SSD is fast enough to deliver content as fast as a ROM chip can. The difference between this and your Audya, for instance, is that the total ROM for the entire soundset in an Audya is probably less than the data used for JUST the grand piano (well over a GB!) in a Kronos. But it still resides on an SSD, not burned into a chip. There IS RAM on a Kronos, in addition to what the SSD streams, but, unlike your example of what has been happening since the early 80's, what the Kronos does is utterly different. Maybe it's not a trillium-carbonic alloy, but it IS reality...

Enjoy the semantics of the whole thing, and yes... consider that a bet. Personally, when the Kronos has shown that ROM size limits on burned chips has been removed as a barrier to sample sizes that keyboards can practically use, the limited benefits of audio loops has disappeared. An arranger, based on the Kronos engine will not need audio loops (although it will be able to use them). It will have MIDI kits completely indistinguishable from reality. And every benefit we gain on even the limited size ones we have now (that are pretty darn good despite the size limit) will then apply to utterly realistic kits.

Then, cost of production of styles will return to the sensible levels they are now for MIDI based arrangers, and the thought that styles used to cost up to $20K to produce EACH will be simply a joke told about redundant technology.

In the meantime, enjoy your Betamax. I'm off to turn some of my rock styles into acoustic ones!

Being an owner of the Roland G-70 and Audya 4 Module, I
just wanna say how much I love my Audya
I guess enough to buy another Audya, The Audya 5. Yes 2 Audyas

I'm not interested in PA3X or Tyros 4, as I've played them, and in my opinion, don't even come close.
Play the Audya live with a Real PA next to the others BIG 3 and see how SMALL they really are and, then come back here and post your opinion
But to each his own, This is my opinion...

Goto EBay and try to buy a used Audya , you can't . Why.?
Cuz whoever has Em keeps them
Now goto eBay and try to search and buy Pa3x or Tyros. Grab a cup of coffee.

Enough said

Disk streaming was first introduced in the late 90s with the advent of the Giga sampler software, and it solved the problem of having to load large samples into memory.

How did it work: let’s look at the storage systems?

RAM: Allows virtually instant access to samples but is expensive, therefore it was not practical to have enough Ram to have all the large sample instruments you needed.

HDD: Has massive storage and can easily store massive samples; however access is slow therefore totally impractical for playing live. (Latency is an understatement)

GIGA Technology:

Loads part of the large samples into Ram, and marks where the rest of the samples are on the HDD, then when you press the keys, the part in Ram plays first giving time for the rest of the sample to load into Ram from the HDD. (As this is happening constantly it is called streaming)

The technique has been refined by many manufactures since the original GIGA Sampler, and really is a great and cheap way to get high quality sounds.

NOTE: The streaming technology used in Audya is roughly equivalent to the streaming technology that was available about 10 years ago, so contrary to what Ketron say it is not anything special or ground breaking. (Any of the current hardware arrangers could do what the Audya does, and if the demand was there it would be added, and I suspect the S950 is just testing the water to see if it’s viable)

Also if Korg added the PA3x Arranger section to their Kronos, (Which is essentially a Pre-set VSTi Player (And what the Lionstracs Media station could have been) with a user friendly interface) Audya would become obsolete overnight, so keep your fingers crossed that it doesn’t catch on.

Bill

And Audya ONLY streams the audio loops for drum parts... It will not, for instance, allow you to put a GB sized piano sample set on the HD and stream it as if it were in ROM.

Look, don't get me wrong. At the current point in technology, yes, you can get an improvement in your drum parts, guitar parts and bass parts by using loops. BUT.... the price you pay is either like 'em, or lump 'em. Nothing you can do with them whatsoever. ROM, if ever I heard it!

However, this streaming technology is on the near horizon. A hardware WS already has it. Many will follow (the advantages are huge). And this will make every slight improvement that audio loops currently have a thing of the past. With none of the loops' disadvantages.

In the meantime, with new styles costing up to $20K a pop, you'd better LOVE what comes with your Audya, because you can't gussy your old styles up to match the audio ones (without using the same parts that the audio ROM styles already do, kind of defeating the point!) and you can't make your own very easily, what few 3rd party ones are out there are aimed squarely at those EU bar players (or Baltic entertainers!) and have little relevance over here, and no-one's going to roll out new styles at any decent rate at $20K a pop.

Audya is Betamax, and MIDI arrangers are VHS. Which turned into SuperVHS, which turned into 8mm, which turned into HD camcorders, which have turned into today's card-based camcorders.

Anyway, yes. This whole thing is getting silly.... Let's revisit this in 5 years' time, and see how many fully audio arrangers are in the market. And how many are still MIDI (or MIDI primarily, with some audio loop capability). I can't wait!

tonewheel.....thanks for posting all that information. It was a really interesting read. I've often wondered how they put styles together, etc.

But, I think instead of spending this time and money on forever creating new styles of basic rhythms, they should sell us the machine with basic styles for each dance (Fox Trot, Rhumba, Swing,Disco, etc) and a mega-tutorial on how to put our own styles together. Then we would each have what drives us, motivates us,individually in our playing.

I think, in the never-ending effort to create new styles for new machines, many of these "variations" of basic dance styles these last few years have become almost "bubble gum" like.....plain silly....like something out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

It's like taking Beethoven's Fifth and trying to make it sound better with each generation of interpretation. It can't be done, and shouldn't be done. To me the best Fox Trot or the best Latin, to the best Disco, etc is the basic one. What you add to it musically, with your playing, is what makes it sound attractive.

Maybe if the companies did that (showed us how to make our own styles), with the money saved in production, they could then cut the arranger prices in half. I wouldn't object to that. Do your own work, compose your own rhythms, make the styles YOU like, no time wasted in chasing down styles from here, there and everywhere, and......having money left over from your keyboard purchase to buy a full tank of gas!

Hi Mark, THANKYOU!!! yours is possibly one of the most sensible posts made on this subject for some time.

When there is a little more time i'll explain more about how the Audy'a "Audio Style Modeling" functions. That probably would be better in another thread though.

I'm happy for you both... but if I hire a real drummer, and he plays two song's identically, he's not getting hired back!

No two Rhumba's, bossa's, disco tunes, rock tunes, you name it... no two are EVER identical. Listen to CD's much? Find me two songs where the drummer plays an identical beat... let alone the guitarist and bassist, and horn players too. Subtle differences are what make the tune stand out. An 8 bar loop or 16 bar loop of basically the same rhythm doesn't make up for it being the same rhythm.

Plus, the fills... This isn't something we've really discussed. But, quite often, the fills are what sticks in the mind, maybe more than the groove itself. Play three or four songs with the same style (or another style with the drums from the first grafted on) and pretty soon, you can glom onto the fact that those fills are the same every time. EVERY TIME!

It's pretty easy with a MIDI style to get into the fills, and move a note here, a note there, and you have a different fill. Or to copy another fill from a similar style, and then match the kits (can't do that with audio styles unless recorded on the same kit).

If Ketron want to do something that would push arranger technology further, how about more fills..? You need 16 to go smoothly from every one of four variations to every other one of four (including Fill-to-Same). You already made a dramatic improvement by having four Break/Fills. How about upping the stakes on the fill count?

The one big advantage that MIDI gives you is variety. Not only is there a huge backlog of DIFFERENT styles written for your arranger in the same genre, to be tweaked to match your newest, but there are thousands of conversions, from OTHER manufacturers, that you can do the same with.

Instead of two reggae beats, I have dozens. Can't do that with audio...

I hope Yamaha is reading this before they send R&D on a new project to intensify Audio production in their new models after all this talk pro & con and it has opened their eyes....or is it on DEAF ears and probably T5, T6, S960 etc, is already in the works for release with reckless abandon? is this where we're headed for arrangers?

we get it Diki
MIDI is better than REAL AUDIO

you want more variety and editability with sound inferiority
i want less variety and editability with sound superiority
to each his own...

now back to drooling my new Audya 5

Sonically, it's close. Not there yet, but soon.

Editing wise, well, there IS no editing audio styles!

Don't get me wrong... I'd love an Audya. I wouldn't buy one, though! Sub-$1000 arrangers are giving it a run for it's money (guarantee the audience don't care!), and the additional $2000+ I'd save goes a long way!

Spare one of your for me to try for a while (I got 1000 miles to drive to hear an Audya in a store!)? LOL