I find this launch pads very interresting
the sd9

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8jfQbyYJRY

Kwtron is the only company innovating the actual styles engine

There is a lot of workstation players that undoubted would love launchpads as a backing... it suites them much more with the scenes then the intro/endings of the typical styles...

Actually for many it turns styles into a pro feature... if yamaha would add this to the montage 2, it would be a huge huge hit... and work very well for any backing system...

As of now after watching this demo using the Launch pad Feature and many others which is really innovative and gives the player countless combinations for style performances with amazing sound over anything on the market the Ketron SD9/SD60 hae moved into my #1 positions of arranger KB excitement and as it stands now with further research my "Next List" looks like this........
I see a road trip soon to AJ's lab to try a SD9.

1- Ketron SD9/SD60 Speakers a plus
2- Yamaha Genos
3- KORG PAx 5?
4- Roland TOTL ?

Both SD60 and SD90 have the full feature list of the SD( pro, incudling launchpad..

I think however, where ketron has the best most versatile and probably best sounding accompaniment tools (styles, players, launchpads). Yamaha leads the pack where it comes to lead voices, espescially due to their huge DSP power, but also trough things ensemble voices and SA2 sounds... And the PA4x, is the most versatile where it comes to creating your won sounds, so much accessible power in the PA4x sound engine..

But where it comes to innovating and updating the aranger part of the instruments.. Ketron is the only company really trying to make progress (altough the Casio MZ-X also made some real progression, but their sound engine still can't sattisfy us spoiled western arranger players, maybe the new Air engine works better)

Sadly it seems Roland left the building for now.

As a singer first lead voices don't concern me too much as they are all up to par for accompaniment and solos for a singer/player. It amazes me how little people use sounds anyway in their performance demos songs...mostly I hear lead piano, but not alot of changing instrument lead sounds thru-out the song which gets boring to the listener imo...
Everything out there in arranger category is fine to do almost anything these days....the silly nit picking gets less and less as technology progresses..............just pick one and enjoy playing and learning it's features and you will be more then happy at this point.

I agree it's funny that Yamaha has scores of great guitars but rarely puts one in their demos. I suppose the guys doing the demos are really piano players.
And most, but not all, of the demos I hear are playing music I don't like or want to do. But I'm old.

I've already seen all these. Not saying there aren't any, just that most seem to feature piano and "dance" music.
I haven't seen much I would prefer over Korg, other than it's new and great improvement over previous Yamahas.

Can't let one thing control all thoughts...
Have to really evaluate as a whole..

It is the new AiX sound engine. My privia has the AiR sound engine. About the sound engine, Some sounds are not that good out of the box but as soon you start editing the sounds you will be amazed what you can achieve. Same for the styles. Also the Mz x 500/300 have much improved after the updates.

You are right Frans, the AiX...
sorry for my typo...

I could not agree more and have already written about it in several of my reflections. Nearly all of those who actually sing and use their arranger as a backup band will use very few different sounds for their right hand than piano, guitars, sax, brass and the occasional accordeon or other sound.

The quest for more and more sounds is pretty absurd unless you want to become a 21st century Jean Michel Jarre or perhaps another New Age guru (haha !!) which brings me to re-iterate what I said before:
If you are a singer your first choice will be the PA4X or SD9 and if those are too expensive the PA1000 or SD7 will be a very worth while second choice imho.
If you only perform instrumentally , either at home or on stage, my first choice would be Genos or otherwise a used Tyros or the new PSR 975. Enough said.............

regards
JOhn

Great post John right on point for sure...

PS you left out the EA7 for live performing too....just sayin..

Spot on, John and Donny. As a singer myself, that pretty well sums up my backing requirements. When it comes to some instrumental only players, I've heard some people play a different lead voice on every flippin' verse. That just grates on me.

That's interesting ... if you were listening to a band play, wouldn't different instruments play on different verses? ... or is it that with each voice that's being used the melody is exactly the same ... that situation gets to ME ... I'm short on my music theory and chord structure/substitution and harmonies, but I can do a fairly competent job of taking an ad-lib solo around the basic chord structure of the song so it sounds somewhat different when using a different voice ...

Exactly, Tony. I guess what triggered me on this was that I listened to someone on another forum playing a 60's classic with, to me, totally inappropriate lead voices, i.e., harmonica, clarinet - one per verse. And yes, the melody was exactly the same throughout, as well:(. There were other single-voice instruments as well. I know it's individual choice, but this was so cringeworthy.

I think that if I played instrumentals, I hope I'd be more aware of context in which lead instruments I chose to use. I mean, I don't want to hear the solo from, say, Johnny B. Goode played on anything other than a guitar, or at least an expert keyboard emulation of same.

Isn’t the main reason for arrangers to have so many different sounds, for the styles, and not so much for the main voices?

When it comes to main voices, i guess i am one of the few here using a lot of synth voices, espescially when covering vocals with an instrument, the diversity of a modern days synth allows to come close to the timbre of the human voice...

Speaking about Launch Pads I’m confused. First, it seems that Ketron leaves an explanation part to enthusiasts, or did I just miss an official video?

Second, it’s not clear, how can wave files be suitable for accompaniment, there’re just too many possible chords to follow.

Forgive me for skepticism (ignorance), but is it really more than just taking advantage of the fact that memory is very cheap today and it doesn’t take much thinking to put a lot of wave samples into a keyboard? By the way, Dexibell is also about audio accompaniment, and I’m skeptical and ignorant about that as well.

Isn’t the main reason for arrangers to have so many different sounds, for the styles, and not so much for the main voices?

Bachus:

I think that is a good thought if you are emulating a vocal. I will remember that. However, if one is trying to be a OMB, other solo instruments would seem to be in order, as discussed, at least I do also.

Tthe launchpads can both work as an arranger type accompaniment as well as a sequencer, with preprogrammed chord progression.. so i guess you either need to play the right chords.. or preprogram your chords...

Could also work more like an arpegiator, where the audio file gets transposed up or down based on the mainchord... but then you would keep minor and major differences and it would require the keyboard to know the scale youre playing in...


So basically i guessed normal wav files work best with preprogramme dprogressions