Hello all, I hope you are all doing well

I've ordered an Event and it is arriving on Monday.

I am so pleased that a few of the major dealers in the UK are stocking Ketron's as this (along with the many wonderful videos from AJ and Bartek) really tipped it in it's favour.

Can't wait to try it out

All the best,

Danny

Congratulations Danny, let us know when it arrives😀

Yes, I bet many of us will be very interested in your opinions.

congrats!

Be nice to have someone unconnected with the manufacturer that is willing to illustrate some of the potential issues.

I’d still VERY much like to hear some of the styles with only a few chord types in audio deal with other chords, and how jarring (or not) the transition is between audio loops and MIDI loops for bass and guitar Parts…

I agree....but why just the "potential issues". All keyboards have 'issues', I also want to hear how GOOD it can sound. Besides, what is a 'potential issue' for one person is a non-issue for another; depends on the nature of the 'issue' and how or whether it impacts your performance. In other words, I want to start an evaluation by looking for the GOOD and the BAD with equal fervor, otherwise It's like going into a bar looking for a fight instead of a good time. Maybe it' just me.

chas

not just you ... so do I ... and, I suppose, any reasonable reader...

I think AJ is already doing a great job demonstrating how ‘good’ the Event can sound.

I am more interested in hearing demos of the weaker aspects of an audio loop based arranger. AJ ain’t going to do that!

In truth, user demos rarely show how good an arranger CAN sound. That’s usually the province of the manufacturer or distributor, who can afford to hire top professional players.

I got my Event a few weeks ago and I really love it. The sounds (samplings), the styles, the overall handling, the keys, and so on...

But everything is not perfect though. I have mostly played it and not experimented very much, but so far this are the shortcomings I have noticed.
- not very much of orchestral sounds. A couple of cellos, contra basses, a bass clarinett, a few french horn variations, etc would have been nice.
- just a few church organ sounds/samples. I would like a lot more to simulate a real church organ.
- very un-imaginative and un-inspired preprogrammed ABCD sounds. And the "D"-sound is very often the same strings as Voice 2 which is a total waste.
- I really miss the "Voice list" from SD90. A list with all my favourite voices ready to use with any style.
- When I use an electric organ sound, the drawbar organ always doubles the sound. I can just turn it off, but I find it strange to always have to do this when I don´t want two different organs at the same time.
- the pre-programming of the three lower voices are very un-inspired.
- All of my purchased styles from Ketron (hundreds of euros) are now worthless. I can only use them on my old SD90 (which I am going to sell) and not on my Event.
- still a few bugs which hopefully will be fixed. The LEDs have been "hanging" a couple of times for example.

I guess that some of these shortcomings will be fixed in future updates. And some of them I will have to live with.

By the way - congrats Danny. Hope you will enjoy it as much as I do!

I got mine too

wow the overal sounds are fantastic ,better than my sd90
the sounds were improved and they are in the level of the Genos and sometimes better ,like the acoustics and electric pianos , strings and of course the drums ,though the arrangments of the styles in Genos that i had and sold are more moderen and more deverse.

still i love the Event better than the Genos because it sounds more lively and with more punch.

That’s not great news about legacy Ketron styles being incompatible. It already trails Yamaha and Korg hugely in the availability of extra styles (Korg’s bonusware is even free) but one thing you always got (with them at least) was the ability to take styles you paid for and use them in the next model you bought.

Hopefully, Ketron can find a way to in-house re-engineer those styles owners of previous products bought so they’ll play in the Event.

Are they audio styles, Micheal? For an SD90, that means just drums, or is it drums and bass too? Also, just curious, but will the Event play legacy Ketron styles if they have no audio content?

One of the issues I tend to have with audio based arrangers is, you can’t edit or change the audio parts radically (think brushes instead of sticks on the drums, or acoustic guitars instead of electrics) so you can’t really stretch a style for more variety very easily. So it becomes really important that every additional style you buy is an investment in the future. Having to pay hundreds of dollars additionally for styles you already bought once would be a tough pill to swallow.

Has you contacted AJ about the issue? Perhaps he’s hard at work converting them for the Event, and would either send you the converted ones, or at least offer you a substantial discount?

The styles (on pen drive) i bought from Ketron Italy and AJ for my SD90 doesn´t work on Event. I contacted Ketron and they said the problem was the copy protection. The styles I have bought from other manufacturers works fine (though they aren´t always that good from the beginning - as a matter of fact, some of the third party styles are crap).
Ketron said they intend to rework the styles from Audia and SD90/9/60 for Event. And when I suggested a nice price for old custumers, they replied that it would not be impossible.
To be continued...

If copy protection is the only issue, as a registered purchaser, they would be able to send you new versions with the copy protection at zero cost to themselves (other than the pen drive). I guess you would have to return the protected SD90 pen drive (or you would now have two copies of the style for the price of one!), so even that shouldn’t be a big deal.

I understand that Ketron would probably like to add some Real Guitar and Bass tracks to them, and that would definitely justify an additional charge, but if the customer simply wants to use the old SD90 style as is, I think he deserves to have the copy protection changed for next to nothing.

I sincerely hope Ketron do the right thing for their loyal customers.

Hi Michael,

This is the exact same issue I have. I also own an SD60 and I bought almost all of the additional pen drives which cost me a fortune and I wanted to know if I could use them on my Event. I did email Ketron but I have had no response back at all which is quite poor service really. However you have provided the answer that I suspected anyway that it was related to copy protection. It would have been nice to receive a reply from Ketron since I have spent I lot of money on Ketron products, both hardware and software so would have been nice of them to acknowledge my email.

I don't think I would ever let go of the SD60 because it is a very unique model, not sure if I would class it as rare (yet), but you don't see many of them mentioned to finding one to buy is nearly impossible (I was very lucky how I got mine) so I think it's a keeper especially with all the software that I've bought that's locked down to it.