Yes, i know...

But in those days i was really big into general Music, WX2 and SK880, i preferred the sound of the GEM over the Technics... Many fun moments and memmories from that time...

Tough i think General Music was a typical European thing.. Tough i think currently Ketron is brininging some of that innovation and warm sound back into arrangers...

Same guy, earlier board - kn6000 ... the only problem with this board was the VH was useless ...

Hi
Bigband, Jazz/Swing Broadway/Movie,,that's where it shone for me.
I think maybe they try and make the Bigband /swing styles too complex on today's keyboards. The sounds themselves I would have thought, should be better?
BUT?

Hopefully I can get just the odd kn style back by using Dan's software to create the midifile I need for my korg conversions. Worked with a couple of Ketron
swing styles I really wanted .

The sound of the Kn 7ooo was so clear that it was thin at times; unlike Yamaha and Korg. The built in EQ was not very helpful.

There was two button for the sound arranger on the Kn7 which aloud you to change every instrument the instruments in every factory style. One push and the instruments in the style changed. All changes made were saved. I created a user drum and some stronger basses which made the styles sound heaver.

The sound I got when I played the Kn7000 through my Bose was fantastic. The trumpet sound was my favorite.

Why did I move to Yamaha and then to Korg.

1- Have the latest Technology.
2-They were better for contemporary music.

I must be careful or I’ll end up like Roger with three Kn 7000 keyboards.

John C.

Rikki, I have the factory styles for the Kn2000 up to the Kn7000 (New styles) on a CD that came with the book “Getting the most from your Kn7000”. Would that help.

John C.

Hi All,

I've been working hard with Dan on implementing and testing Technics support in vArranger and he is doing a fantastic job!

Technics keyboards are very much alive in that there are hundreds of thousands of them still in use. My website has almost 5500 members (I only launched just over two years ago having planned it for decades) and is growing strongly. Neil Blake at Strawberry Music is also a strong supporter of Technics instruments.

Neil owns the copyright of the book and CDs mentioned (we're collaborating on a new version of the book) and I have just spent the last 12 hours programming styles for KN6000. So, support for these instruments is still going strong.

One thing I would be really disappointed to see would be the sharing of commercially available copyrighted styles, or the ones that I've spent hundreds of hours working on that are unique to my websites. This would in fact be the only thing that would cause me to stop supporting Technics instruments because it would change my websites from a position where costs are almost covered annually to a loss making situation that I couldn't personally sustain. I would hope that if you want my styles you'll join my website.

It is brilliant that vArranger will support Technics files and I know Dan will tell you himself how much I've helped with that because I've been sending him information that jd5live and I have spent years putting together and I'll also be sending him a keyboard later in the year so that he can enhance Technics support.

So, I'm absolutely up for sharing information and appropriate files. Just if you want to share Styles then please do the conversions yourself, or make new Technics Styles yourself, or find Styles that are freely available on sites that are explicitly making such Styles legally available for the purpose of sharing (such as Gunnar Jonny's which I now host or Willum's Website or here on Synthzone in the Technics area). Or share Styles that have been completely abandoned by their makers. Otherwise, it will become soul-destroying for those of us who spend all of our spare time working on such things or those such as Neil who make a living from it... or indeed Dan who sells vArranger.

This post expresses purely my opinion. Nothing personal here, I'm just saying. Quite frequently I buy a Technics keyboard just so that I can convert the Styles and make them available for other models. This takes many months per instrument. Whilst I realise that I don't 'own' those converted Styles, there would be little point in me putting the knowledge, skill, time and effort into all of that if I can't recover the cost of running my website too. Well, otherwise I would either not do it or I would just work on Styles that I personally enjoy and share them with a couple of friends.

Hopefully I haven't put a downer on this conversation, which is very close to my heart. I'll also add that I will be sharing some Styles on the vArranger website and adding a vArranger section to my website that will include many vArranger-Technics specific Styles along with other files, help and information.

Long live Technics

Best wishes,
Mike

Hi John,
I think I bought every single style disk tech note ever produced, up till about 2004,
including the Americana series. ( they were great) . A lot of the styles I never used, but it was fun collecting them. haha.
Most of those I know I still have because ,In a salvage effort a few years back, I transferred them from floppy to cd after I realised the floppy disks were becoming faulty and losing data.
I'm fairly certain I kept all my factory styles for all my keyboards from the kn2 up. Just have to go back thru my old cd roms.
If memory serves me correctly, didn't technics also have all their prior factory styles available for download on their website back then? I remember their website was very helpful?

Anyway, going to be great to try them all out again on varranger. There's only a half a dozen or so, that I really ,really , missed, and fortunately I still have those. They are the one's I can hopefully get back (for my korg) by using Dan's software and converting them.
The hours involved converting from a midifile, I really only do the odd special one that I want.

Are you looking thru kn7000 for sale ads , yet. Haha

Just a little tip, dont keep your important data only on CD, self created CD's dont have an eternal,lifespan either, after 10 years the glue between the layers starts to disolve...

Make sure you have importnat data saved in atleast 3 places...
1) your hard disk
2) a backup medium like a CD-rom or an external HD or professional tape..
3) in the cloud, outside of your physicall home, so your important data is safe from fire and burglary

Just a little sidestep, and well meant advise... But a goodback strategy is important for your precious data, not only irreplacable styles and midi files, but even more so precious pictures of fammily members or you tax and administration numbers...


I have met to many sad people that lost important data because after some time CDs stopped functioning, and there is no way to recover that data. Espescially in warm countries with high humidity like the tropics, this process speeds up.

Most people dont yer realise this

I must be dim Mike...but having looked at the vArranger web site I am utterly baffled by what it is offering.
It appears to be something to do with rhythms for linking (presumably) to keyboards in some way or perhaps not.
Might I suggest to whoever is in charge of vArranger that they have a complete rethink about communicating very simply what their offering is - and on the home page...particularly as whatever it is costs 349 euros.
And that's me a professional arranger keyboard player for the past 20 years. So if they're not getting through to me who are they getting through to...as they say - rant over.

Hi Roger , you have cheered me up !! I thought I was the only one who could not make much sense of it all