Well, this might Piss off a few readers but here is my take on the Ketron products. First, I own 2 of the Ketron SD7 keyboards and have used them on gigs for over 2 years now. I have read just about all the gripes and complaints from users on the forum and I have come to several conclusions.

My first one is most Arranger players have become really lazy in that they want the keyboard to do everything for them with little effort on there part. I guess that is not a bad thing but what ever happened to putting some effort into what you want to accomplish? Just my opinion.

Second, without a doubt the Ketron products are not meant for the home player or players with limited ability. Chord recognition is an example - play sloppy left hand chords and you get very strange results.

Third, if a Ketron owner has limited knowledge with technology they will not enjoy or like the Ketron Product they own. It helps if an owner understands how an OS works and how resources work together.

Fourth, if an owner truly does not know how or does not have the time or desire to learn how to work with the sounds and styles on his keyboard he will also not enjoy the keyboard. It does take some work and time to get what you want.

Fifth, as one of the above posts mentioned, some unhappy users complained of OS bugs with the SD7. I find this very interesting because with both of my SD7 keyboards I have not run into any of the issues some of these owners have reported. It really makes me wonder what they were trying to do when a problem happened. Perhaps I just have not used some of the SD7 features that these players were using.

All this is what I have learned in my two years of gigging with my SD7s and I truly believe it to be true.

I completely agree with the problems all of us have mentioned about the level of support we get from Ketron. God forbid anything ever happens to AJ because we all would be SOL. I also agree with those who say Ketron is behind the other manufactures in a lot of areas - including OS updates and system improvements. Italy seems not to listen to it's customers at all.

Well, this is my 2 cents worth.

Deane

Good example Don.

This issue was resolved in the first SD7 OS release ... unfortunately, it came a tad late - after you had sold your SD7, but this is a good example indeed - and one we will prevent from happening in the future.

Thanks for contributing to this.

AJ that's all well and good but these major things should all be worked out "Before" release when people are spending mega bucks on a keyboard...with so much stiff competition customers will drift away very quickly...that said you have always been good to me and my needs I'm glad I was close to the "lab" during my ketron days just in case I needed you..

You cant work out all these things before release... its just not possible with software, that runs on dedicated hardware...

If you want software to run flawlesslly it requires thousands of testers.. that report back.. with inhouse testing, you are fully dependant on testing procedures.. and they just cant test it all..

What matters for a product like this is that the company has a fast way to report and to react based on problems reported by users..

But everyone working in the software buiseness knows that internal testing can do only so much.. they will tell you what you wish for is near impossible and incredible expensive and time consuming..



Where Ketron goes wrong is in the way how they where handling this.

Donny,
are you referring to the SD7 when you mention chord recognition? Again, after two years I have not had that issue either of my two SD7 and I play just about every chord you can think of with 3 or 4 fingers as needed.

Deane