Hi All,

I have read with great interest your comments on the new styles available on the KN7 site and note that it isn't complete yet. My question is - does anyone have any idea when it will be complete? Will it be before Christmas?

Personally, I can't wait as any new styles etc., are welcome modern or otherwise. I have to say I have my preferences but then I take my favourite songs and play them using modern backings i.e: rock, heavy metal and the like and believe me you can transform the oldies bringing them bang up to date (A 'makeover' I think is the modern word for it) Of course, some of my oldies sound really rubbishy with the modern styles, but who cares? It's great fun trying them all out isn't it?

Keep em coming lads, is what I say!

Aud

It's obvious the 2600/2400 were aimed at a younger market, with styles suitable for more contemporary songs. Personally I won't be using the garage, hip hop styles etc much either. Nevertheless if you can't appreciate playing American Pie, Tears in Heaven, Everything I Do I Do It For You, Hotel California, How Deep is Your Love, All By Myself, etc you're missing some of the best ballad styles available, period. Likwise more up tempo numbers such as Rosanna, Believe, Waterloo, YMCA, It's a Sin etc. They are all in these new styles, which even the most cursory examination will reveal.

As one of the younger (ish - I'm in my mid 30s) members I think it's good that Technics are taking steps to appeal to the younger market. For example, I was pleased to see some of the more modern styles on the KN7000 such as the House and Europop styles. I play a couple of songs by Sash that I use these for. I like the strong on the beat vs. off the beat sound you get on some of the Europop styles.

I also play Rock, Metal, Blues, 60s, 70s, 80s stuff as well, so it's good to have a broad range of styles.

To me, it sometimes seems like the Technics keyboards are not addressing the more modern musical tastes as comprehensively as some of the other manufacturers' keyboards do. I think it's good that Technics have presumably realised that this is an area of the market for them that they would like to address better than they have done up until now.

Cheers,
Mark.

Originally posted by MarkW:

To me, it sometimes seems like the Technics keyboards are not addressing the more modern musical tastes as comprehensively as some of the other manufacturers' keyboards do.

I feel Mark has a good point. Technics styles are good, they're for my kind of music, Jazz, 2step, Big Band. But the Latins and Rock are only fair IMHO. I feel having GOOD styles in these two areas would make my KN7000 complete.

Does any one know where I can get GREAT LATINS, and some GOOD Rock styles?

Thanks, John C.

Thanks People for your re-actions.
For Johnnie C - On getting facts right. As I said I downloaded Vols 1, 2 and 3 but when I went back to the site a couple of days later these had disappeared,and today I still can't see them?
I think Rikki has a great idea in having more Latin, Jazz etc presets and putting a large choice of the modern styles in custom/memory/sd cards. As Walt in effect says, these generally have a pretty short shelf life.......
Sorry Alec, but your sample list of music just doesn't appeal - guess it's a case of one man's meat...... To me they just don't compare with the "standards" many of which go back nigh on 70 years and are still appealing.
Finally, I echo John C's appeal for GREAT LATINS. Just been listening to Dudley Moore's recordings in these styles and wishing that these could be transcribed as styles for my kn.

Ogre

I don't know about others, but I declined on the 7000 in favor of the 2600. The reason: the freshness of the styles. The 7000 brought to mind the 6000/6500, since I had owned both. With the interest in and diversity of preferences for styles expressed here, I'm still intrigued by how decisions are made by programmers, or their employers, on which styles will be available or included in a new board; how simple or complex; the instrument selection within styles; traditional vs contemporary; responding to requests and interest from consumers; comparisons to the competition; and a host of other issues. Guess we'll always be in the dark until each new upgrade appears.

you're wrong about the web site, things have been incrementally added, nothing has been pulled, and if you downloaded the 3 floppy disk versions they are still there as they have always been, and I shall repeat yet again the site is not finished yet.

Naturally everyone has their own taste in music. However saying that styles don't appeal for your type of music is quite different to a judgement of the intrinsic quality of styles.

Hi All,

What's that they say about a gift horse! I recall just a week or so ago people were talking about having to buy styles. Here we have a bunch of free ones and people are complaining! If you don't like them don't use them but why knock them.

I seldom play a real song using a Techno Style for example but I will push the button, pull up a great sounding set synth sounds and just start playing.

What comes out may not be something I'd want any of you to hear but it sure feels good to play it at the time.

And since I'm not blessed with an SD card what would really be great is if we could load the styles we like into memory as built ins in the first place. With the addition of a USB port we should be able to connect any SD reader to the keyboard. Download the styles we want and disgard the ones we don't. Of course we can't.

Finally, of course the "old standards" sound better to someone who grew up with them. I like them because my father played them on the piano in the bars.

But to me many of the songs Alec mentioned are standards or will be 30 years from now.

Having been a mobile DJ the reason I quit is because people have developed such narrow listen habbits. If we played 2 country songs in a row the big band people would grown. Play 2 rock songs and the country people would grown. Play two Rap songs in a row and everyone growned except the kids.

Remember back in the old days when they only made two keyboards the piano and the pump organ. If you've been to the Steven Foster Museum you know that even that is not true. They had a piano with 5 sets of keys.

We all have diferent tastes so let's cut eachother some slack and appreaciate the hard work that's gone into the new FREE site.

Thanks Alec and Chris!

"And pay the man behind the curtain no mind!"

Heather

Hi John,
sometimes I really miss the old days going back to the kn2,3,5's. Technote used do some great styles for those keyboards, I especially loved the Americana series of style disks. The disks weren't cheap ( at the time. I had to order them from the UK as they weren't available locally) but I didn't mind paying for them, it was like xmas when they'd finally arrive, and I'd eagerly go through all the new styles. I really enjoyed the " Strictly" series also titles like strictly ballroom, strictly latin. At least you were getting the type of styles you liked instead of having to buy a disk with a mix of styles ranging in anything from techno to a vienesse waltz.

Don't quite know what happened in the years between my kn5 & kn7 ( I dropped the music for about 4 years) but it's a bit dissapointing that styles don't appear to be being written anymore.

Admittedly the old styles do load into the kn7, but they don't seem to sound as good as they did on the old keyboards at the time.

Maybe nowadays with the internet, people expect to be able to get styles for free, whereas a proffessional style writer would have to make a living. Maybe that's the reason for the lack of new proffesional styles.

best wishes
Rikki

[QUOTE]Originally posted by bruno123:

Does any one know where I can get GREAT LATINS, and some GOOD Rock styles?

Thanks, John C.

Hi Alec,
apologies, in my enthusiasm over the new styles on the kn7 site, I appear to have caused you a few headaches ( sorry, it was not my intention) with you having to repeat the following message

"the site is not finished yet"

best wishes
Rikki

[QUOTE]Originally posted by technicsplayer:
[B]the site is not finished yet