Hello,

now you can listen to the 10 internal demos of the sx-KN7000 at www.taiyo.de. The audio-files are in real-audio format.

Best regards

Crysyl

Well done.......
It's every time looking better and better....
I can't wait....
I think I will take a holiday for one month so I can think off something else....it's driving me mad.
My wives knows am a bit crazy....but who isn't...
Hahaha
Alain

Hmm, I was not impressed by those audio demos.

Doesn't sound much better than the 6000, and sounds a lot worse than what I'm used to with my sampler setup.

I trust you are not judging the sound by what you hear through your PC sound system that is most certainly not a fair comparison, in more ways than one. I have heard the KN7000 live, as have a few other members of the forum and can definitely say that it sounds superb to me. I respectfully suggest that you reserve judgement, until you hear the 'Real Thing'


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Willum

remember that real audio is pretty useless too, like listening to a symphony orchestra through laptop speakers.

...exactly - hence my remark "in more ways than one" ....

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Willum

Wether it "sounds superb" is relative.
The audio recordings were high enough quality to leave me disappointed. The sampled sounds just sounded, well, dull and lifeless. There's no other way to put it. The guitars still sound fake, the vocals were annoyingly sterile (you can obviously tell the samples are short and stretched pretty far across the keyboard). Oh well, not that I expected chromaticly sampled instruments but still.

Seriously, having gotten used to sound libraries where a single instrument can be as large as 600 megs or even bigger it's no surprise I'm disappointed. I just expect too much from a consumer keyboard.

E.g. I have some amazing sounding acoustic guitars here, but these are ~30 megs a piece. Meaning one instrument alone would take up about half the available sample rom of the KN7000. Oh well, guess that means my PR703 will be my last technics instrument.

Just for clarification, my PC sound system is not crap or anything:

Terratec EWX 24/96 soundcard
2x Yamaha MSP5 studio monitor speakers

Have it hooked up like that these days as I use mainly software samplers which means the sounds come straight out of the pc.

I realise that RealAudio is not too good for most purposes, but the recordings were not that bad.

I don't think you are being particularly realistic here. There is no machine on the planet at this price level with those levels of wave rom, and the other features thrown in.

Each manufacturer has their ways of compressing the rom, so direct comparison with samplers using uncompressed formats is not really comparable.

It sounds like you want something like a Triton with huge hard drive and cd library. Or gigasampler with a low latency drive controller keyboard. Look at the respective prices, and then try a one touch play with accompaniment on those. This isn't apples and pears comparison, this is apples and cheese.

Well, as I said I wasn't expecting full chromatically sampled sounds.

However, let's *be* realistic, the hardware powering stuff like Gigasampler or Halion (which I use) is NOT expensive whatsoever. It's basically hard drive streaming technology which could easily be introduced into the consumer keyboard market with a little will.

For the money the KN7000 sells for I can easily buy myself a nice controller keyboard, a fat PC, Cubase and Halion, and several high quality sample libraries.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is that the sounds in today's keyboard could be better with little effort, even if they stick to regular wave rom (I mean c'mon, 64 megs even if compressed is just not enough for so many sounds). Increase that size to 512 megs and you can do a hell of a lot more and I doubt it would add significantly to the overall cost. Will they ever do so? Probably not, the keyboard consumer market does not demand the high quality sounds you can get from samplers.

We are still talking about different things. Cart your pc with cubase, halion, controller keyboard, and equivalent sound system on stage, press one button and play a cha cha with no prior programming... That's what I mean about apples and cheese. There's much more in a KN then just voices, people buy them because everything they need is in one box.

I'm all for wave rom, the more the better. I've often said they can sell a keyboard with just flash inside and let me decide what to put in it downloaded from the internet. But what you are talking about is a totally different animal to an arranger keyboard. You need a Wersi Abacus, a rather more realistic price point for what you talking about maybe?

Come on Alec, you ought to know good musicians are the result of practice. Much practice. Even student lawyers need to practice. Disagreement. Practice confusion. Learn how to twist and I don’t mean the dance. Truth today needs to be twisted to make money. Somebody has to do it. Just look at corp. america and the stock market to see what truth twisting does. Apple and pears is easy. Making cheese taste like apples or apples look like cheese takes practice and lots of it. Life is too serious. We need more lawyer jokes. No lawyers = no lawyer jokes. Let em practice. When it comes down to apples and oranges, I like the KN’s and how they sound. Other than I need more practice Ruthie likes the way they sound also. I learned a long time ago if I learn to like what Ruthie likes everything runs more smoothly. Learning to like my KN was not necessary. Love at first hearing you might say. One of the few things in life Ruthie and me agreed on from the start. Can’t sing so the harmonizer would be useless. I’m strong so weight doesn't matter. It’s so good considering it’s below a thousand bucks doesn't impress me one little bit. But when I play the people sure like the sound. When they come up to stage and comment on the realistic sound and danceability of the rhythms I grin. When I see the green stuff flutter into the jar when they ask for more I break out into a big smile. Fault finding turns some people on but that’s part of learning how to live with your brothers. I like what I like. Others like what they like. I like my choices and my way of life, besides I’m too old to change.

Grandpa Doug

To read 'MORE' opinions on the KN7000 audio demos (posted on the General Arranger forum), click here:
http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/Forum37/HTML/003990.html

Actually, you'd be surprised that some do carry their Giga systems on stage. I wouldn't risk it, far too volatile (don't use GIGAStudio anyhow) In fact, I remember one of Techics excellent performers (Danny Dayn) carrying his Atari along with him during the KN1000 era.



Oh, very true. It's really the "band in a box" capability due to the arranger.

But to me the arranger is boring and unflexible, I prefer to play every instrument myself.



Never heard of the Wersi Abacus. Besides, with the advent of software samplers I've not looked back at hardware gear. I have a Yamaha A5000 sampler collecting dust here. Even my PR703 gets less use now, though it's still very useful to me.

I still wish Technics would have allowed the user to at least load a bunch of their own samples. With 128 megs of wave memory one could do a lot!

Oh and sorry for the somewhat late response. Been on holliday.

[This message has been edited by JvG (edited 07-28-2002).]

I resent that. Dutch lawyers are not at all comparable to the lawyer scum of the US.



Well, I don't anymore, because I want to be able to do this:
http://members.chello.nl/j.vangemert/newbeginningfinal.mp3

The mp3 is 1 Meg in size. This is a short segment from John William's score for Spielberg's latest film Minority Report (I'm a film music buff), which I put together today in Cubase + Halion.

I used an expensive string library though for the track, but the result is there. If the KN7000 can't come close to that sound, I'm not buying.

[This message has been edited by JvG (edited 07-29-2002).]

Wersi Abacus is an arranger with windows 98se and cubase built in, and costs twice as much as the 7000.

I can't see JvG's problem - if he hates Technics equipment so much, then nobody is forcing him to buy or use it.

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Willum

Please, what kind of nonsense is this? I've bought Technics stuff for YEARS, starting with the KN1000. I bought a PR703 some months ago for its piano sound. I don't "hate" anything, you should trash that crystal ball you're using to gauge my psychological profle.

Let's keep cool guys... (difficult for us the weather the past few days)
I think the point being made is that in the interests of fairness maybe we should post on Yamaha, Roland, Korg, Ketron, Gem, Casio etc etc forums to the effect that their £2000 keyboards don't have 200 Meg string samples...

(ps this is meant as a joke )

I apologise if I have caused any offence to you JvG but from your generally negative remarks about the KN keyboards, it would seem natural to draw the conclusion that you dislike them and arranger keyboards in general.

What other conclusion can anyone come to, after reading remarks like the following?

1. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Quote from Douglas Dean)
...comes down to apples and oranges, I like the KN’s and how they sound.
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Well, I don't anymore, because I want to be able to do this: (Reference to Web Site)
I used an expensive string library though for the track, but the result is there. If the KN7000 can't come close to that sound, I'm not buying.

2. I have some amazing sounding acoustic guitars here, but these are ~30 megs a piece. Meaning one instrument alone would take up about half the available sample rom of the KN7000. Oh well, guess that means my PR703 will be my last technics instrument.

3. The sampled sounds just sounded, well, dull and lifeless. There's no other way to put it. The guitars still sound fake, the vocals were annoyingly sterile.

4. But to me the arranger is boring and unflexible, I prefer to play every instrument myself.

I still stand by my original comment - "I respectfully suggest that you reserve judgement on the KN7000, until you hear the 'Real Thing'" I have listened to the samples on Taiyo site, through good quality sound equipment attached to my PC, which is fitted with a Creative Audigy sound card. In my opinion, the recordings do not give a true representation of the sounds which I heard, during the KN7000 demonstration I attended.


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Willum

You're drawing the wrong conclusions. I wrote I practically don't use the arranger anymore because I find it to be unflexible. I also wrote some of the sounds felt flat, and apparently I'm not the only one thinking so judging from another thread.

In short, how you get from my "boring" and "unflexible" comments to labels such as how I would "dislike" and "hate" the keyboard is beyond me.

I'd love to get one for free!



Certainly not the conclusion you have drawn. Your emotional attachment and justification of spending money on the thing is clouding your judgement. You are confusing reasonable criticism with bashing.

If I wanted to bash the KN7000 I'd have written that it looks like sh*t and it sounds like sh*t. Since I don't think either is true, your point has no validity whatsoever.

Some people here seriously need to take a step back and get a breather. Your keyboard is a machine. You don't make love to it, nor does it talk back to you.

Hey Bill,

JvG said and I quote "Certainly not the conclusion you have drawn".

Bill, do you realize the reason we have a jury system of justice? Have you never asked yourself why the judge needs help to understand what was just said after listening to a couple of lawyers stating their views on the subject at hand. After presenting their ideas to the court It takes a dozen or so people chosen from a cross-section of the population to determine what the heck they just said. Even so, the time spent, days and even weeks, not to mention the money involved goes to show how hard it is to understand lawyers. As laborious as this process is, even then the jury gets hung up sometimes on what the lawyers said, is or aint is. Could be aint what said is is, or aint is what said is aint what is ----------Oh nuts, cant think what is what I was trying to say is or aint is, or aint getting through to you what is.

So Bill don't feel bad because the jury is still out considering if JvG's conclusion of your conclusion is, certainly not the conclusion you have drawn. Whew, that was a tough one. Had to consult Ruthie about all that mental work. She thinks the thinking is OK. That kind of worries me though. Most of the time she don't like the way I think. Maybe she wants me to stick my own foot in it. Oh well, if I go back and rewrite what I just wrote I'll more than likely get a bad headache. Among other things, I don’t like headaches, they make my head ache. A bad headache can make you sick. Being sick is bad for your health. Getting old makes some of your parts get sluggish. Sluggish parts I can live with, but ha, unhealthy parts, no way! Like a frog, when I croak I want to croak healthy. All in the way you look at things. So I think I’ll stick with my croaking about this subject until the time comes when I finally croak. After that, who cares? Some will and some will be happy. In any event, let them carry on.

Thinking about things and letting you in on it.

Grandpa Doug

.... and some of the jury will be able to draw their own conclusions, later this month

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Willum