Absolutely.
Your existing keyboard is the same today as it was yesterday. Just because a new model appears, nothing has changed for something you are entirely happy with. The 6000/6500 is a great product and if I change I will be sorry to see it go because it has enabled me to produce better results than I have been able to in the past. I will probably be more sorry to lose the 65 with both cards than any previous machine.

I have said for a long time that these machines are better than my ability to play them.

But many of the technological advances are designed to cut down 'hassle' time eg waiting for loads to appear, finding the right floppy etc which get in the way of making music.

Some days are a struggle to get things right. Other days everything just flies and the sequence or edit almost makes itself. During these times I get frustated with saving, loading, finding that edit done before, quickly tweaking this and that until it is just right. When the creative 'swing' is in full flight you just want to get on and do it. So I look for the facilities that will minimise this 'down time' and maximise the creation process by getting rid of button pushing hassle.

The 7000 is looking good on this front to me so far, but as I said I am waiting to see what the samples and sound are like in front of me...

Hi Alain,
nothing was mentioned about previous formats. However since Technics have always enabled the previous generation of keyboard format to be loaded, I do not anticipate any problems in this area. After all the machines now load the previous 3 generations of formats!

Since the 6000Techmanager can load a 5000 backup, it would seem logical to assume that a 6000 / 6500 backup on laptop or pc will be able to be transferred to the 7000.

Obviously you will need to select files to fit in the capacilty of the SD memory card that you possess. You can't transfer 300 MB of backup into a 64 MB card...

But the advantage of the USB is that you can continually update the keyboard contents on your single card through the cable, or buy a bigger card, or have several cards if you don't want to carry the laptop. It should be a pretty flexible system in that respect.

I would hope that the TTX and TLX formats will be supported by the pc software. Then since your backups are archived in Load By Number format, you can see the full 26 character filenames to recognise what is what on the laptop or pc. The Technics lyrics would also then be preserved.

I should add that all the above is purely my supposition so we will have to see what turns up. But I see no need to be pessimistic at this stage.

Alec -- Many thanks for the excellent and quick report. I play a PR603 and agree with Chuck Piper that the changes are of little interest to me. I was wondering if the next versions of the PR-series pianos were mentioned at the show? I would hope that something more "interesting" would be incorporated into the home pianos.

I'm not sure when any pianos are due to be launched. If I hear anything I'll let you know.

Adding my name to the non-tech members :

Will the 7000 have floppy disk drive for all my style disks, and be able to convert styles from other makes, as does the 6000?

The APC has always been to me the one weak point on the 6000, not up to the standard of the SMAC1200 or KN3000. I read somewhere that this was due to a different type of processor- whatever that is....
Has this improved on the 7000?

These would be key points for me before splurging out the loot for the 7000.

Peter

Adding my name to the non-tech members :

Will the 7000 have floppy disk drive for all my style disks, and be able to convert styles from other makes, as does the 6000?

The APC has always been to me the one weak point on the 6000, not up to the standard of the SMAC1200 or KN3000. I read somewhere that this was due to a different type of processor- whatever that is....
Has this improved on the 7000?

These would be key points for me before splurging out the loot for the 7000.

Peter

Thanks Alec. Good one. If you are ever in The Scottish Borders, I'll buy you a drink.

Regards Walter.

Yes a floppy drive is there.

Think about it, the floppy drive is necessary only if you have no laptop or pc available to use the USB link.

And then only if you need to update a flash card with some floppy contents. If your flash cards have all your sets on them you never need to touch a floppy disk again.

If you copy all of your floppies to folders in an archive on your laptop or pc hard disk the USB can update the keyboard memory contents at any time.

You don't even need floppies for files downloaded from the internet - these can be saved on your laptop or pc or even better saved directly inside the KN7000 while you are online.

As far as I am concerned, as long as you have a laptop or pc with a floppy drive available, they could have left the floppy drive off this machine altogether.

Not everyone has a pc so a disk drive is there for the next few years, I guess.

If I do decide to get a 7000 I think I will end up throwing all my floppies away... Hurray! Glad to see the back of them.

Thanks for the great and detailed review!
Don't know if you can (or are allowed to) answer these questions.

What have they done with Panel Memories, do you still load them in groups of 104 (1-10 plus A,B,C)? Or larger groups? I know that load time will be quicker with SD cards!

Also, when I play w/my band, I use the "count intro" (click) to get the band started. It's too quiet, wondering if they have improved this in the 7000? What I had sent to Technics as a suggestion (~2 years ago) was the ability to modify the volume of this click, and/or allow you to select a different
sound from a drum kit, to use as the click.

Lastly, did they demo the Vocalizer/Harmonizer? Wondering if it's improved over that in the KN6x00?

Thanks again!
Jim

One more question - wondering if they have improved "layering" capabilities. On the Technics organs, for several years now, you could layer 4 sounds on the right (upper) and 4 on the lower. On the KN-6x00 you can have 2 "RIGHT" and 1 "LEFT". Wondering if they have added one more so that you could have
RIGHT1, RIGHT2, RIGHT3 and LEFT1+LEFT2. I know that others, such as WERSI, allow much more layering than Technics. [This does not include, of course, the idea that you can pre-program more layers by making your own sounds with multiple Tones [which I have done alot of]. But I like how on a Technics organ you can QUICKLY add up 2, 3 or 4 layers to get a think orchestral sound if you like.

Or maybe the new "Organ" stuff on the 7000 can be layered on top of/ in addition to
RIGHT1 and RIGHT2???

Jim