Ketron SD40 when? & How much?

Its been available in shops in europe for a few weeks now, but most are sold out, and you can get on a back order list..

It was €1850 with both Dutch ketron dealers.

The unit was remarkably small and light (under 2 kg), tough i need to admit there where very very few physical buttons..

It's holiday in Ketron land,september 5th they are back in business.And let's hope there is more news about the SD9.

Pricelevel here in Norway:
NKr 21.950,- = € 2368
and a bit lower (offer) price at one dealer is NKr 20.900,- = € 2255

And the Audia 76 : NKr 46.900,- = € 5060

Anybody asking why we
(And fluid is not at low cost in our country .... )

Pricelevel here in Norway:
NKr 21.950,- = € 2368
and a bit lower (offer) price at one dealer is NKr 20.900,- = € 2255

And the Audia 76 : NKr 46.900,- = € 5060

Anybody asking why we
(And fluid is not at low cost in our country .... )

[/quote]


The answer is a simply one really Gunnar. Norway is the ONLY European country that has no national debt but billions of surplus thanks to your oil reserves. Holland just to name a small insignificant country has a total debt of 450 billion euros,many other countries including Italy, Spain and even the UK have an even greater national debt. I won't get into the deficit of the USA cause there is not enough space here to fill in all the zeros, but it is staggering. I have been told that Norway's reserve amounts to approx. 600 billion dollars.
Not bad with a population of just over FIVE million people....
So the Italians are getting the money where there is plenty

Still, I agree totally absurd prices...........

regards
John

Well, the goverment here is placing most of the money abroad, buy stocks, streets and buildings in UK, USA and elsewhere, while the roads here is a total mess and catasthrope...

I.e. Yamaha, Roland and Korg don't climb into that price level, so I guess you're right, the Italians think they know where the money grows.
But does it help if they don't sell much cause you can almost get two other top level kb's for the cost of one Audya ??
OK, OK, I'll be fair.
The pricetag at Audya has been lowered about 20% since it first was to see in shop... some years ago.

When i look at the average income in Norway, and the prices of food and beer compared to Holland... Those prices are actually rather cheep.. You guys in Norway make twice as much money as we overhere in Holland... and the SD40 is only 10% more expensive..

The average income here in Holland for the working folks is under 2000 euro... so how much would that be in Norway? How much does a carpenter in Norway make a month? (after taxes)

Guess we're far out of the topic now, but this page will maybe show why we need a bit higher income than needed to live in the Netherlands.


Anyway, back to topic, prices for Ketron SD 40.....
At Thomann.de it's € 1.504,20 (back in stock on 16.09.2016)
https://www.thomann.de/intl/ketron_sd_40.htm

Edit: WAT is not included in the thomann price.

Price at thomann is 1799, maybe because you are looking from Norway, Tax is not included.

The difference in price is about 20% which confirms your first table... I dont really think there is much wrong with the Norwegian price... And you can allways order abroad...

I do appreciate those of you who will order this early. Be sure and give it a thorough field test and encourage them to fix all the bugs. I'll look at it in about a year if I have any interest at all.
Please review Ketron's history of releases. As far as I can recall no model has EVER been finished when released. Maybe this will be the first; I sure hope so!

Good honest advice, agreed Don as always ..whats the rush anyway?...plus Yamaha is on the way with the New GENOS I dont even know what that will bring but I want one asap!!!

In this case... Since it is a module version of the SD7 with only some minor differences... I think Ketron might actually succeed at releasing a fullfledged working near to bugfree instrument..

But only time will tell...

Bachus have you ever owned a ketron Product?

Yes, an audya 4, which worked for about 3 days and then traveled between my home and the repair center for 9 months, about 3 times i had to send it to Italy.. When it finally got repaired, i sold it for good money...

Just loved the styles, never got to figure out anything else...

Yet still i wish i hadnt sold it, found out recently that it got finally repaired and is still working... We now have some good support for Ketron at 2 fantastic dealers overhere in Holland...

I am very much interested in this module but I will have to wait and see myself. I still have a Ketron SD4. I love the sounds, but the USB port connection is buggy and to avoid the bugs, I have to use a midi cable. I don't think Ketron will ever fix it.

Has any musical instrument electronic manufacturer released a 100% "bug free" electronic product on it's initial release?

If yes, what's the name of this product?

If no, have they tried to perfect it via updates?

What would it take to release a perfect product into the market on the first try?

The SD40 will be well priced and packaged in the USA. Check here:- http://www.synthzone.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/425251#Post425251

"Has any musical instrument electronic manufacturer released a 100% "bug free" electronic product on it's initial release?"


Probably not. But we're not talking about 100%. The SD7 was unusable for me for nearly six months until I gave up on it, as much as I wanted it to work. If you can't rely on it and can't get it addressed, what possible use is it?
I really WANT you to do well. I spent many, many hours working with it and I influenced more than a few people to buy an SD7. As far as I know only ONE of them still has it because it was not ready for the market when released and was not ready several months after it was released. I suppose it is by now.
The Audya was exactly the same when it was released. It is well documented on this forum if anyone cares to research it.
Also, I was supposedly given a special price and I paid for it a month before receiving it. Later it was obvious than anyone and everyone could get that price.
The AJAM software included was merely a collection of MP3s that could ONLY be used on the SD7, a bunch of legacy styles that are freely available and a handful of edited sounds. The styles were obviously hastily put together. Many were in the wrong folders. One folder did not even show up unless you accessed it by computer! A number of the styles didn't work and there a large number of duplicates. Nothing like the software from your previous releases. I hope that has been addressed by now.
I didn't say don't buy an SD40. I said wait until it is proven that it works. It should work every time you turn it on. It should STAY turned on until you turn it off. It should have every feature that is advertised and those features should work as advertised.
As far as standing behind it, you would not return my money when it proved worthless to me and as hard as you tried, you couldn't get it to work correctly until it was too late for me to worry about.
Maybe you should have let this sleeping dog lie, but I would not want anyone to go through the grief that I did with the SD7.
AJ, I think you are a good person and you are a genius when it comes to Ketron arrangers, but now that you brought it up, my feeling is that it was rushed to market way too early and that I was not given any sort of satisfaction when it became apparent that I could not rely on it onstage, despite making compromises to work around the features that were advertised and didn't work. I was able to sell it on my own and only lost a few hundred dollars. Lesson learned.

I fully concur with Don here. The overall Ketron reputation is a feeble one and that is putting it mildly. When the SD7 came out I gave it a trial run and concluded that it was not for me, though in itself its potential was good. Several folks here were spurred on by the heat of the moment to purchase the SD7 and to the best of my knowledge only Deane has still got his one and is very satisfied with it. ( also in view of the audiences that he performs to).
What I fail to understand in the entire discussion on the SD40 module is the fact that there is nothing new under the sun as it is basically the SD7 in a box. And as far as trustworthiness is concerned ( and bugs of course) only time will tell.
Incidentally, I have had an old SD1plus arranger keyboard now for a couple of months and , touch wood, it is still running....

regards
John

The fact that probably no electronic musical instrument has been bug free should no be any excuse for continue release "unfinished" products.
Instead of let the common byer be betatesters and have problems send back to seller or factory to get it fixed etc, the instrumens should be out to some of the most in depth users of the brand to sort out unknown faults. As soon as things was stable, put it on the market.

For some reason or another, we're more patient regarding our keyboard issues than if it was the car or household equipment etc. etc.

Just to put my 2 cents in, I make the least amount of money selling Ketron products, so selling one of them really isn't my top priority.

But I know allot of loyal Ketron users, and unfortunately to me, they are still using their MS40, SD1s, X1, from 20 years ago, they sound amazing and are still going strong, I usually get a Yamaha or Korg guy, coming in and saying it's time for me to update and get a new board, great, I might be able to make some $$ and feed my kids.

But I hardly ever get a Ketron guy to part with his equipment, they still sound good and where always slightly ahead of their time.

Their reliability to me is very impressive. you have to think about it, does anyone ever start a thread with, " Damn it, another day and my instrument is working fine "

I do admit, Ketron needs to get those OS updates out to some beta testers before releasing, but being such a small company, they already are understaffed, and take forever to release a product, so I believe they feel the product is ready but sometimes the power users will find bugs where they don't

I have had X1, SD1, SD5, Midjay, Audya and SD7. I love the way they sound and once they've been out a year or so they seem to last forever. I'm not really a power user; I play styles, want the text display to work and want the keyboard to not freeze up and/or crash several times during the night.
I will edit some voices and adjust levels or sounds on some styles, but that's about it. I play about one or two midi files a week, maybe.
My PA4X is not perfect, but so far it has never crashed, it sounds terrific and has wonderful operating system and features. I'm happy as a tick. I wish I could have felt that way about the SD7, but it was not a finished product, so now I'll never know!
As stated earlier, I wish Ketron and AJ the best of luck!

Special pricing in most cases is usually offered to individuals who in turn assist with promotion, marketing or development (e.g Style Programming etc) of some sort. If a customer should offer these services even today (and they are needed), we in turn would offer them the special price too - even through their dealer or sales person.

The SD7 has come a long way from when it was released and the issues referred to above have since been resolved. As we move into the SD40, these lessons learned will definitely follow suit.