Some months ago I bought a Ketron SD 1000 B-ware from Thomann for a reduced price. I'm currently going through all of its sounds thoroughly for the first time, and I've also begun to use two great iPAD apps which can control this tiny 1 pound module, which has no buttons nor display.

First of all, the sounds I am really extremely happy with are as follows (in brackets: Voice Bank + Voice number):

Vibraphone (A 12)
Acoustic Bass (A 33) (nicer to me than the very pluggy Yamaha Motif/MoXF one)
Violin / Cello (A 41/43) - very real bow scratch and vibrato!
Chamber strings (C43) - using the upper, VERY lively, better than the MoXF quartet and the Integra SN-A solo strings.
Altosoft and Contralto sax (A 65/66)
Most pipe organ sounds (including soft stops!)
Various accordeons
Classic choir (B 52) - very, very realistic except the very high register
Swing trumpet (B 57) - great attack phase and vibrato
Lounge tenor and growl sax (B 67/68)
Guitars: Hawaian (B105), Rock&Roll (B110 - sounds exactly like the Beatles in 1965), Ac.Stereo (C29), Acoustic guitars from D34 to D38 (one of them is just like the Integra SuperNatural acoustic strumming guitar!)
Hackbrett (C108) and other world/ethnic sounds.

So, really quite a lot of excellent sounds.
Regarding the acoustic piano, I'm not yet determined. Sometimes it sounds a little too bright and pop-piano-like to me. The 'dark piano' is the most realistic one among them.

In some cases one could criticize that dynamics is a little missing: e.g. most trumpets have nice samples, but don't seem to have multiple samples depending on the velocity, and sometimes not even an automatic filter is applied, so that some of the trumpets keep a sharp timbre even if you play them softly.

I already uploaded a demo of 3 pipe organs (http://youtu.be/UTjO2M2iVtw). I'm going to quickly record more sounds soon and post them in this thread.
About the iPAD apps, I can strongly recommend iMidiPatchbay and Set List Maker to send bank/program change messages to control the SD1000 sounds.

Very nice!
Looking forward to more demo's & songs on the SD-1000.
Thanks,
Lee

Thanks Rosetree! What kind of hardware (cables, etc.) do you need to drive the SD 1000 from an iPad?

1) What generation iPad are you using?
2) None of the iPads have MIDI jacks. So I guess you must be using some kind of USB-to-MIDI patch cable. Which one, and is any additional hardware needed?

Thanks sincerely,
Ted

I first used these apps on an iPad 2, which worked perfectly. Meanwhile, I have an iPad Air, for which I just need a small apple lightning-to-30pin adapter to use the same equipment, and it works perfectly, too.

You need a compatible usb-midi interface. There are various ones you can use with the iPad, I use a better one called iconnectMidi2+.
http://www.thomann.de/gb/iconnect_midi_2.htm
It comes with an iPad(30pin)-to-USB cable, which you plug into the interface. On the other side of the interface there are 2 DIN midi-ins and two midi-outs. This way you connect your keyboard (midi in) and the SD1000 (midi-out). You just have to pay attention which one of the two outs/ins you use so that a double midi signal (directly from keyboard to SD1000 plus indirectly via iPad) is avoided. That's all. Very portable and quite easy.

Short demo of C43 Chamber (Strings) plus Flugelhorn (part of Bach's 'Jesu bleibe meine Freude'/ 'Jésus que ma joie demeure').
https://soundcloud.com/rorosetree/ketron-sd-1000-sound-demo-chamber-strings-flugelhorn

rosetree,
Nice demo....
Also have you auditioned all these (a series) of demo's by Dan) ??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNJyKyR-8v4
Looking forward to more demos.
Lee

Yes, I listened to them before buying the SD 1000.

I'd like to explain a bit about this demo: As I wrote in my Soundcloud description, the Flugelhorn is not ideal here. However, I think the SD1000 has no better trumpet for this baroque music. All trumpets I tried were too sharp (even the mellow one) and/or had a jazz-like strong sampled vibrato, which doesn't fit to classical music. This Flugelhorn however lacks any sampled vibrato and thus sounds sterile. So, in this case versatility is a bit missing in comparison with the vast choices you have with a MoXF with flash libraries, or an Integra. Which doesn't mean the SD1000 isn't a great add-on to other instruments.

Next SD-1000 sound demo: again on the classical side: Symphonic orchestra - some bars of Strauss' Kaiser-Walzer.
I am surprised about the really good strings (big section and Chamber strings combined). French Horn and woodwinds are only satisfactory in contrast.
The only clarinet of the SD-1000 was NOT USABLE for this tune! It has a strong sampled vibrato typical for a swing bigband. Again, too little variety for a stand-alone instrument, but very valuable as an additional instrument.

https://soundcloud.com/rorosetree/ketron...h-h-french-horn

So, regardless of this slow rendition of a Strauss waltz, which most people probably don't like, what is your opinion of the sounds themselves?
I haven't had the time to do a demo with rhythm yet, but some swing/pop demos will follow.