REVIEW SO FAR:
I've used it two weeks on the job, and had the past four days to work on it at home. Now come three nights of playing it for other people.
I've made a tremendous amount of progress with it, having set up around 200 Registrations, a number of which can be used for several different songs.
I've tweaked quite a few styles to my preferences, using the Modeling tool or just changing style part sounds and levels. I've loaded some Korg PA3X styles and a few Yamaha and Roland conversions as well. Some sound just as good or better on the SD7. The Korg Unplugged styles that used their guitar strum feature, I forget what they call it, did not convert well, but could be edited.
All the Ketron legacy styles are available and are necessary because the number of factory styles, while they are excellent, are limited. I have around 7,000 styles on a USB stick, 6,900 of which I'll never use. Many are repeats and/or close variations, and I will never be able to work through them all, but it is nice to have a library for occasions when I need to find a more suitable style for a certain song. If you look long enough it is most likely there.
AJ's new country styles are also very good, and I've begun to use several of those as well. My main gripe with them is that some of them have handclaps, which are easy enough to take out. Handclaps in arranger styles sound hokey and contrived to me. Three button pushes and they are GONE for good though.
I've got the vocal harmonizer set to one voice, a third above, which is where I normally use it. I set the overall DSP e.q. to Powerful, which seems to work pretty well.
I have the FS6 pedals set to: 1-Vocal Harmony on/off, 2,3,4 - Break fills (there are four to each style), 5-6-text file up and down.
In addition, I have a sustain pedal plugged in. If I could generate another foot or two I might use volume pedal as well.
I have set up five voices for each Registration. Most are Guitars, Pianos, Organs, Saxes and instruments that fit the Reg, like Fiddle or Harmonica or Accordion or vocal sounds. Other lead voices are easily called up as well, if ever needed.
The volume sliders and the ability to mute voices in the style parts by touching the screen are all quite useful in varying the sounds of the styles.
I've done a lot more work on the SD7 this time than my previous two tries combined, and it is paying off. It is an extremely deep and versatile arranger, and you can make it do just about anything you like and sound any way you like it. The operating system is quite logical once you learn it, and it is great how you can plug it into the PC and see and maneuver everything, even including external USB sticks you may have left plugged in. There are three USB ports, in addition to the dedicated PC input. I back up everything daily to the internal drive and at least one USB stick.
Mostly, I'm writing this in case it helps one of the few other users, and for my own future reference. It has been helpful and insightful to search and find my posts when I previously owned this same arranger.
I'll be going in an hour early to re-adjust my new Standtastic keyboard stand. I will raise the lower tier another inch and separate the legs another few inches so that my legs and feet have plenty of room to access the pedals. So far the stand is working out well, except for now I'm using a stand-alone mike stand instead of the one that attaches to the stand. It had to be ordered.
I wish the SD7 had phantom power for the few times I'd like to use my wired headset mic.
The SD7 has been very stable, EXCEPT for a couple of occasions when I've been experimenting with CDG songs, and trying to do several other things at the same time. It seems to overload the system and need to be restarted, which takes a couple of minutes. I would never get into this situation on the job, so it isn't an important factor.
So far the SD7 has surpassed my expectations, and I truly believe it is because I've taken the time and effort to WORK at it.
Soon, I'll make a short list of things I DON'T like, and what I'm doing to overcome them, if anything.

Wish I could be there tonight...... Just a little too far from Canada !!!!

Stay Safe !

Very informative, thanks Don

Good luck Don...give 'em hell baby!!

Go to it, Don ... your fans can't wait ...

Sounds like you allready had a lot of fun setting things up..

“Hals und beinbruch” at the job.

Is that the same as "break a leg"?

Hi Don,
All the best for your gig.

I would imagine those Korg guitar mode styles might not convert well.

From memory, I think the only time the notes would have been correct, is when they were recorded as a song, .mid.

I think when they were exported as a .mid for style editing they may have been in guitar mode format.

Those hand claps you mentioned, are they definitely supposed to be hand claps , or is the drum mapping causing the hand claps.

I used to get hand claps on my pa800 / psr conversions. The mapping was slightly different. Might have been on brush kits. It was no longer an issue on pa3x etc , because Korgs ended up including xg drum kits and I used those for my converted styles instead of Korg kits.

Yes

Rikki, the hand claps are programmed. It's just a matter of muting them, or changing them to something like a tambourine perhaps. I remember the mapping problems with Yamaha conversions though.