I didn’t sleep well last light (thanks to neighbors above me) so I was rather skeptical about everything in the morning; but my mood is usually better late in the evening and now while I’m playing the SX900 I must admit that it’s indeed quite an excitement. With new drums some serious songs became more emotional and vocals (choir) are quite a joy to play. I notice that know why I need this keyboard when I play it and when I’m away from it I can think anything, good or bad, that why sometimes it’s useful to think less and just to sit down and play.

I was never much a fan of the PSR’s prior to the SX900, primarily because of the drums. I do feel the new Revo drums have upped the game quite a bit, but there’s still work to do. The primary issue seems to be that no tools seem to exist to easily add the new hihat and other articulations to legacy styles.

That’s kind of the double edged sword of changing something in ROM to be very audibly better, things like articulated guitars, new articulations in drum kits, performance sounds in saxes etc.. Few arranger buyers are brand new to the ecosystem, most come to it with considerable legacy data. But make new styles use the new stuff fully, and suddenly your legacy stuff starts to sound dated and stick out badly from the new.

There’s really only two ways around this… either you laboriously hand convert all your legacy data to use the new stuff, something few of us might be up for, particularly as hard as some manufacturers have made it to easily edit style and sequence header information, or the manufacturer to include some sub-routines in the arranger or external software to auto convert the legacy styles.

Especially with drum kits, I think the goal should have been to include wider snare and hihat articulations without spreading out over additional notes, with velocity or round robin routines to bring them in musically. This way, legacy data could still use the new sounds without a complete rewrite.

There’s also an onus on the manufacturer to try and retain sonic levels between kits that is being adhered to as carefully as it was back in the GS/XG days. I noticed when going from my G70 to the BK series I found myself needing to tame hi hat levels a bit on nearly all my data. Sloppy sound design, Roland! There were also a ton of new and much better percussion sounds, better shakers, congas, cowbells, agogos, timbales etc., but there wasn’t a single drum kit that used them! They stuck with the standard kit percussion sounds they’ve been using since the GS days. So you are forced to use two style Parts, one just for the percussion. Lazy!

As WS’s increasingly dominate the young keyboard player market, arranger manufacturers need to face the fact that the vast majority of their customers come from older arrangers, not brand new customers. And we all come with extensive legacy data. Making an arranger with a huge leap forward in sound is all well and good, but making it EASY to use those new sounds with legacy styles is critical, otherwise we end up with a keyboard that, for maybe 75% of what we play, doesn’t sound one iota better than our previous keyboard..!

That’s not how you encourage people to upgrade regularly… 🤔

I actually am quite happy with the 950 but I feel like a chord looper could be a huge game changer for me. Still considering other options.

Thanks for all the thoughtful replies.

This is about me.

I have always believed in buying the new model as soon as It comes out.

1-I get the most dollars for the one I have.
2-I get to enjoy the new model for a longer period.

The loss between what I get for my old keyboard, against what I have to pay for the new one It is what I am willing to spend to have the latest. It is the price for my enjoyment. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke. (smile)
John C.
PS, I buy unseen, (same brand) and I waste no time trying to whatever.

Must be nice... I would assume you have some deep pockets and an understanding wife!

I come from the opposite direction. I like to wring as much as humanly possible from what I have, until a model that comes out is not just a slight improvement, but such an incredible leap forward that it utterly destroys what I’m playing!

That’s pretty rare between adjacent models, it’s more of a 10-15 years thing, IMHO…

My journey so far in arrangers went G1000-G70-BK9. About 10-13 years in between each. Now Roland is out of the game, it might be even longer before something new!