Hello dear friends.
It's been a long time since I have published anything here.
However I follow the discussions daily.
So.. I found some time to explore the really cool Launch Pad of Ketron SD9/60/90 and really when one discovers how deep it is then one can have really great musical combinations for live or studio performances
I have made here a short demo with a new music performance that I am working and here I have create and put on SD9, three stereo wav stems with Synth arpeggio, Synth Bass, and Synth Pads and I have also added a factory audio guitar, audio drums, and some percussions.
The performance is ablolutely live direct from SD9 and Audya.
The solo synth is from Audya and it's of my custom sounds.

P.S The Audio drums is little loud sorry..
Tnank you!!

https://app.box.com/s/g5c77kh4rm0hzhe44tkylc01t4wmtcnv

Hello Sokratis

Excellent work for this Style which allows this well known piece to be played.

Best regards.

Really cool!

Definitely for modern music, the answer certainly seems to be neither arranger nor arp/loop player keyboards, but a combination of both. They are two utterly different ways of generating stuff from simple note input, with utterly different end results…

I am so happy to be seeing arranger manufacturers finally embrace the merging of both forms of auto-accompaniment rather than jealousy keeping them away from each other, which they have been doing for thirty years or so. Remember, arpeggiators have been in some synths in one form or another since the 60’s! And an almost universal feature since the 80’s…

That’s how long we’ve had to wait… 🤔🎹😎

Nice synth sounds. Thanks for sharing!

Thank you very much dear friends!!
Diki I agree with you. Ketron is the first company who made this revolution initially with Audya and now with SD9 (Launch Pad) but he failed to impose it.
I'm really curious to see what the next step (in the next model) of this company will be.. Who knows..

It would be enough for me if LAUNCH PADS could be used for LIVE GUITARS, for example - a guitar player would record played "patterns" for me as WAV and I would then use them in the style ...

This would be ideal for new and better live styles! Does anyone know how to do this?

I need this for many country/rock styles, just use NEW live guitar riffs in my own style ...

Is it necessary to record riffs in each scale? Or can the LAUNCH PAD automatically play them according to the accompaniment played?

Thanx friends for answer.

YAMAHA can already do it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zQaOUsZHW0 That's brilliant! What about Ketron?

Hello.
To create new Live Audio Guitars on Ketron is a very difficult method and we have not the exclusive software tools to make this. This possibility he has only the Ketron Factory and engineers of Ketron.
However I have a personal patent (only for personal use) to and I did tranfer some of my favorite Audio Guitars in my Yamaha Genos.
It was very difficult but I did it. Maybe in the future in the new models its easy for the users.. who knows?
Here is a demo.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5iwu9iexuogv2x5/01-Yamaha%20Genos%20My%20Audio%20Styles.mp3?dl=0

Hi Sokratis 1974!

You and HENNI are the two best arrangers for Ketron ever! Thanks for your work!

I still use (have to) Audya for gigs precisely because of the great Audio guitars.

It's sad that Ketron won't release it, and in fact the last series of Yahama (SX700 / 900 and Genos) caught up with Ketron! They already have Audio drums and Live audio tracks and a sampler (stereo)! And access to clients! An incredible number of styles and for free!

I don't need to buy overpriced styles, I want to fully create my own !!!!!

So goodbye Ketron, sleep sweetly! What I can use from Ketron is max. Module SD1000 ...

I'm terribly sorry, but with such an approach, he doesn't deserve anything else ...

Dear Country_man..
You never know what the future may hold. I just hope..
Best Regards

What's the difference between Ketron's "Launch Pads," Korg's KAOSS pads, and the multipads that have been on Yamaha's for more than a decade? I'm quite familiar with Yamaha's multipads; the others not so much.

I have a very vague idea and would love hear from someone more knowledgeable regarding Ted’s question.

1) Ketron Launch Pad: Powerful sequencer with 6 scenes (variations) that we can to have for each scene: 12 pads per scene with 3 stereo or mono wave with real Time stretching and Midi synchronization, midi file for each pad that we want, part or all style that we want (with chord changes), live guitars (with chord changes), audio drums, audio sliced groove percussions, and more.
Total: 72 Pad,s for just one Launch Pad song and of course completely different each scene with different elements, volume, fx etc. Really powerful!!

2) Korg KAOSS pad: Real-time complex effects processor with real time filtering, radical note-crunching effects of DJ heritage, delay, arpeggios etc.. Completely different than Ketron Launch Pad.

The KAOSS in Korg arrangers are very difficult to understand and use for live play, IMO. I have to google to see how some use this feature. I know it must be there for a reason!

KAOSS is nothing like multipads or clip launching. It’s more of a sort of Karma derivative for note and controller data.

My main issue with real-time tempo and pitch manipulation in hardware arrangers at this time is that they lack the CPU horsepower to do it at the highest level that computers can do it at. It’s pretty easy to make a recording of an arranger transposing a riff down a couple of steps and slowing it down slightly (the hardest thing it can do!), then compare that to a computer using say Melodyne or other high quality pitch and tempo tools. Night and day.

Maybe when arranger CPU’s get a significant boost it’ll be a more useful tool for high quality results. But until then, I still think (as I did during the Audya’s launch) that audio guitar loops aren’t the answer. If you listen to any really high quality VST Guitar Mode, the results are close to indistinguishable from live guitar playing, but with none of a loop collection’s shortcomings… limited chord selection, uneditable patterns, extreme difficulty in making your own custom patterns.

Both virtual acoustic guitars and electrics are now so good in computer form, surely this is the answer rather than limited live loops? The idea that you are supposed to be satisfied with loops only in maj, min and 7th completely misses the point that music uses dims, augs, open 9ths, 7#9’s, sus’s, etc. etc.. Sure, stick to ultra simple songs, that’ll suffice, and impress greatly. But the jarring switch from the loop to a MIDI pattern and samples for anything more than those basic chords defeats the whole concept, IMHO.

Yeah, an SSD and an absolutely huge collection of loops for every possible chord could be done, but it’s a gargantuan endeavor, and that’s just for ONE style. Now, do it for hundreds more!

Let’s take our cues from modern computer production. Drum libraries like BFD are indistinguishable from a real drummer if programmed well, as are guitar mode VSTi’s. And the core behind their patterns is still the MIDI data that arrangers already can play even with this generation of CPU’s. So any chord, any inversion. We are already quite close. Yamaha and Korg both have fairly decent Guitar Modes, not up to computer levels, but close. What they lack is the depth of samples and modeling of the sounds, whether drums or guitars.

Personally, I think this is the way to a real future, not the shortcut of using audio loops with their huge shortcomings when you want to use them for anything other than their limited designed use.

As to clip launching, audio loops, that sort of thing, I really feel hardware arranger design will always trail computers by decades. But the hardware of an arranger can always, even now, be used to control a computer. Yet strangely, arranger manufacturers have almost gone out of their way to deny allowing an arranger’s knobs, sliders, buttons and touchscreen to be fully user defined to control external gear, like a computer.

You put an arranger fully in charge of something like a Mac Mini, wow! I don’t think it’s realistic, quite honestly, that the arranger industry will actually develop computer level drum and guitar VSTi’s, they’ll probably go for the cheapest solution, no matter the shortcomings. But the simplest, cheapest solution is somehow always ignored… Allow an arranger the flexibility to control external gear any way the external gear NEEDS controlling, and the future is already here.

Why are we waiting? 🤔😎🎹

Diki, not to be argumentative but the problem I see with your whole approach/scenario is not with the potential use and utilization of the arranger but with the average arranger user. I think the profile of the average arranger user is of a 70+ yr old male with modest technical skills and little desire to delve deeply into even the simplest of operating systems. Self training and study rarely goes beyond scanning the user manual to find where the power button is. Exploring the sonic possibilities of the instrument beyond what is factory pre-programmed, is rare to non-existant. "I just wanna' play" is the most common theme among this population. One thing and one thing only drives and excites most arranger players (and triggers the infamous 'GAS' attack) and that is 'FACTORY STYLES'. It is the quickest way to satisfy the one thing that Americans treasure most...INSTANT GRATIFICATION (I'm basing this mostly on my own profile ).

Sadly, I've reached a stage where 1.) all arranger styles sound the same to me. 2.) age has made me too impatient to learn anything technical in depth (I know about 5 functions on my $1200 cell phone) 3.) anything I learn and don't consistantly use, I forget in about a week (and am reluctant to re-learn it).

Forgive me if I sound negagive. It's just that I've come to favor naps over studying tech manuals. I still use my BK7m but only as a drum machine (the world's best) for rehearsing (I usually use live drum samples/tracks for recording if live drummer is not available). I have not used anything on it other than the original factory patterns.
I only play organ and Rhodes (SEVEN) these days but I get enough pleasure out of them to keep me involved in music and they're sufficient for the kind of music I enjoy playing the most. Yep, old age has taken it's toll.

chas

Well fortunately for both of us, chas, arranger manufacturers don’t include ONLY what your definition of the ‘average’ arranger user uses, or 90% of what they even currently do would be missing!

Most people don’t drive much over 80mph. Maybe car manufacturers should go back to cars that can’t exceed it? LOL

The definition of the ‘average’ user of just about anything has never driven the market. The goal is to make something that will CREATE more ‘average users’, and churning out the same old, same old guarantees stagnation and contraction of your market, not growth.

Once upon a time, arrangers didn’t have bass inversion recognition. Or Pianist chord recognition. Or auto fills to new Variations. Or storable registrations. Or style expansion. Or multi-velocity drum samples. Or more than two patterns!

The ‘average user’ didn’t use them. Until they were added.

Now they are the barebones feature set of just about any arranger. Just imagine what the ‘average’ arranger user will be doing in ten years time, as long as arranger manufacturers continue to not make them for the ‘average user’!

Just as I'm sure there are some that agree with me. Agreeing with someone doesn't necessarily verify a position. Aren't alternative points of view allowed anymore? If only one view is always right, what's the point of having a discussion? Sounds more like a lecture to me. But hey, probably just my old age talking.

chas

Guess who supports Chas' view?


R.

I think my point was, chas’s position could have been taken at any time in the past. ‘Average users’ have always existed, from the very first arranger onwards. And every daydream about what could be useful or musical, or just plain fun but didn’t yet exist could have been dismissed with the same apathy.

But each one of us now owns an amazing arranger that exists because no manufacturer said ‘Let’s not bother getting better…. The ‘average user’ won’t use it!’

Chas uses his as a drum machine. Once upon a time, the ‘average user’ didn’t use drum machines. Once upon a time, arrangers had drum pattern that would make Chas throw up!

Personally, though I have no expectation that anything I’d find useful will definitely get added to arrangers, I think I’d rather be on the side of progress than stagnation. Apparently, I won’t get much thanks for it, but make no mistake, you are all playing amazing machines (even if not using 10% of what they can do!) that are the result of people like myself that look to improving the breed.

You’re welcome! 😂🎹😎

WOW!!! your greatness is only exceeded by your humility . Diki, you've got me all wrong. I'm not opposed to any type of technological progress (okay, I'll pass on sex robots), I'm just saying that the 'average' arranger player (as I've come to know them over the years) is NOT going use his arranger to control a computer to produce his music, no matter how many assignable switches and buttons you put on it or how compatible you make it to Windows 13 Super Pro. Now if that fabulous sound that's embedded in that fabulous style can be accessed with one button push (thanks to YOUR relentless 'dogging' of the manufacturers), then yes, the average user will use it (even upgrade his 3-month old model to get it).

My point is, the "average arranger player' will use new technology BUT ONLY IF IT'S EASY TO USE. Arranger to 'average arranger-player brain to computer to audio interface to external sound system --- I don't think so. But just my opinion. I love discussions....where all opinions are valued.

chas

Completely agree, Chas… it’s amazing how the ’average user’ has got used to using advanced features like articulated sounds (SA2 & SN sounds) bass inversion recognition and multipads because the manufacturers did a good job of making them completely transparent to the user. You just play..!

I could foresee, if manufacturers ever decide to give us definable sliders, controls etc, or USB control of computers, that control templates for different software and hardware could be provided or downloadable from users. For instance, a Genos template for a PA4X with full integration of the two wouldn’t scare off the casual user, as long as it just WORKS.

Likewise a template to control Garage Band or Mainstage VSTI’s from an SX900 might not intimidate our ‘average user’ if integrated well. But don’t get me wrong, I would be as happy with a nice spoon fed system as the next average user! I don’t mind rolling up my sleeves and getting under the hood when I HAVE to, but when complex tasks are made easy by good OS design, I am a happy man!

But usually, there’s a period when new feature introduction involves a fair bit of head scratching (Korg’s KAOSS stuff comes to mind!) but usually the next gen keyboard gives the design team a chance to simplify and refine it so it isn’t scary for our average user. Like I said, compared to early arrangers, our average user is doing all kinds of things that would have seemed daunting initially. Good design can help with almost anything!

Agreed. Actually I never disagreed with your MAIN premise...except for my perception of most (but not all) arranger players as a bunch of lazy ol' farts who would give up their first-born before giving up their car's GPS/navigation system (I'm standing in front of a mirror as I say this ) and would NEVER buy a manual shift car even if it had 50% better performance than it's automatic counterpart.

Seriously though, I think this gap between arranger technology and computer technology is deliberate on the part of the manufacturers. It's always been that way and will always be that way as long as that approach can produce some kind of marketing edge. I don't know how that works but obviously THEY do. Of course this only works because we are willing to accept such scant and meager improvements before plopping down a wad of cash for the next 'latest/greatest'. Truth is, I've heard performances on the T5 that were as good or better than anything I've heard on the Genos. Same with the PA3x vs PA4x. So as usual, Paul is right; "It ain't the keyboard, it's the keyboardist" (of course a great keyboard helps ).

chas

I don't really blame the arranger manufacturers. It's a tiny, tiny niche market, you can't expect them to innovate as fast as the trillion dollar computer industry. That things have even got this far is quite an achievement!

But progress has always crept along. I just think it's our job to push them in the right direction, and that often takes having a good realistic look between what CAN be done, and what can be done AFFORDABLY.

No, I don't honestly expect a VSTi level guitar mode plug-in. But allowing user definable MIDI output for each and every slider, button and knob on an arranger's front panel is the most basic, simplest thing the laziest manufacturer in the world could add!

It's a simple look-up table. No hardware, no new ports, no new buttons, no new styles, no new sounds, no new audio capabilities, no new effects. Just 'When button B is pressed, send xyz MIDI code on this Channel' or 'When slider A is moved, send this sysex'. Then a lookup table for what needs to be sent.

That's eight year old level programming!

I dunno 'bout you, but if I were an arranger manufacturer and half my customers wanted a MUCH better Guitar Mode, and the other half didn't mind hooking up a laptop with one cable, running a VSTi of a top level guitar mode program and all I had to do was make sure my sliders sent any damn MIDI the VSTi wanted to see, I know which would be more cost effective!

But it's never been about 'cost-effectiveness. Why would a manufacturer care about that when he can get you to pay $2 for $1 worth of technology. Also, as far as the computer industry being light years ahead of the tiny niche market of the arranger keyboard, we have to remember that the computer industry, or more specifically, the 'chip' and OS development industry, is there mainly to serve OTHER industries. So, I don't believe there is a functional technology lag between the 'computer industry' and the industries they serve. I think the latest computer technology is almost immediately available to the R&D dept's of most major manufacturers. I still think that the technology lag of which you speak is deliberate and driven by market considerations (and to a lesser degree, R&D time).

The scenario you present of multiple assignments to all the basic buttons, sliders, and switches to enable them to send specific midi messages would still require the arranger player to try and remember the secondary function of these controllers, and to still have to go arranger to computer....for the infamous 'average arranger player', that ain't happening....AND THE MANUFACTURERS KNOW THAT. Which, with all the wisdom gained from @ 50yrs of making and selling arrangers, they won't do it.

But, that's just my take on it and I make no claim to being right.

chas

Sadly, the CPU’s in arrangers have virtually zero to do with the CPU’s in computers. They are custom designed RISC chips optimized for a specific purpose, which goes a long way to explaining why arranger manufacturers lag so very, very far behind computer tech. It costs so much to develop these RISC CPU’s that it’s often nearly two decades before there’s any complete redesign.

The same goes for the motherboards and I/O technology. Open up any arranger, you’ll see next to nothing that looks anything like the inside of your computer or laptop…