I have tried playing with midi files in the past and found them to be too confining. I don't want to be limited to a specific way to play a song. I like the freedom to add a phrase or loop back as the whim strikes me. I doubt that I will ever play with MP3's. I seldom play a song the same way twice.

I never play with midi files either for the same reason, prefering to convert them to styles that mirror each individual song arrangement so I can play left hand and control everything.

But mp3s are in a completely different ball park altogether. In exchange for giving up left hand control you get the real orchestral backing, for instance you play along with the true Nelson Riddle arrangement with real strings and real brass stabs. It is surprising how good the soloist voices are in combination with a real orchestral backing. So if you never try it you won't know what your missing. There is no keyboard on earth now or in the foreseeable future that can produce a sound like this. Not for every song maybe, but a very interesting and promising alternative.

No secret, Bud, try the free downloads at http://www.singingstation.com/

Dano,

It usually takes me a while to catch up with what everyone else is doing, but so far this is how I'm using the SD card: I like to prepare my songs in advance and save all my settings in panel memories. These I save to the SD card using the Performance settings. On the KN6000 I had these stored on floppies, and the first thing I did on the KN7000 was to copy each floppy to the SD card. As I have gone through my songs I have renamed files to more meaningful long file names.

As my computer is in a different room I have not yet tried linking the KN7000 to the computer, but I did purchase an SD card reader (not lucky enough to get one included like our UK friends!). I regularly backup my SD card to the computer using the SD card reader. Last week I purchased a 128MB SD card (Sandisk) and copied the backup of my 8MB card to the 128MB card. Piece of cake.

I do not use midi files on the KN7000 except to listen to what they sound like, and I do that just with by copying the midi file to a floppy. Now I have a 128MB card I'm going to try Alec's suggestion of playing along to an MP3 - that should be awesome, and should raise even more eyebrows in the audience. Maybe a piece with some good singing, provided the singing doesn't detract too much from my playing.

Mike

Thanks Mike . Good info .


MP3's may replace midi sequences . dano

I did have the same thought myself because as storage space and bandwidth get cheaper and bigger mp3 has one advantage - the sound is less dependant on the listeners equipment. If the listener does not have your keyboard, or if the listener just has a very basic gm sound chip, your performance is either unplayable or out of your control in terms of the gm sounds. Whereas with mp3, even within its limits of sound compression, your performance is preserved much better than a midi file.

Qoute
MP3's may replace midi sequences.

I don't hope so. I always learned something form the (demo)sequences. e.g. sound edit, composer and so on. And throug easy edit the played notes.

rgds.
Wim

Wim, Midi sequences are not the same as the sequences you create using Easy Record or Real time Record on the KN....

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Willum