Hi Folks
There are much commotion this days in the new KN7000. I had the pleasure to be on the Frankfurt Messe for three days and take some of my time to listen to the demos. (Sorry Alec, that I didn´t know your face, maybe we was standing behind each other?).

Alec Pagida has made an extensive report earlier on this site, however thou I´m an gigging musician, maybe someone of you have interest in my thoughts?

Let me first say that, to get out maximum from a demo, you have to be in same kind of music style, like the demoplayer. Not all he played, was for my ears, but he was a very good musician. Phil .... something, it was?

In those places, you have to use a monitor P.A., and so they did. This don´t bother me, because I always use P.A. for myself.

So what´s my opinion of the KN7000? Well, I´m sorry to say that not so much has happened from 1999, when I bought my two KN6000:s (I have one for gigging and one at home)

The sound was good yes, but not so different from the 6000. This fill up and tilt back operation board is filling me with some distrust. I can say for sure that this kind of design don´t speed up anything for us "livegiggers", more on the contrary. Don´t know how the stability is. Nothing more in the playing sector seems to have been changed. No more tracks and no more fills and such things.

I talk with the staff about some technical things. The polyphonic was still 64 notes and the inbuilt speakers was the same, but were moved. The sounds were over 1000 (vs KN6000 = 1008), but not so much new sounds exept organs. There were also a new accordion register memory, but maybe only one or two new sounds. A new jazzdrum kit insida too, but seldom I use those kind of drums.

There is a sub out and USB connection, but this features we already have in the HDSX6. But at long last we got that video out. KN7000 support the Pansasonic SD memory sticks, but in the same way the floppy diskdrive is gone! It is a pity that Technics give up this cheap and safe way for manege files.

There are now possibilities of recording a vocal or another electric musical instrument, directly into the SD stick. But I´m very hesitant in this kind of recording, and the result will still be in the demo kind. You can easily made MP3 files in the KN7000 too.

There were no possibility to examine the new EQ-system, but it looks like we could get different DSP in four parts, and that´s a good thing, however I never found out if there was more than one reverb channel, on board.

To sum up, I will say that the KN7000 don´t made me so impressed. I had more expectations on it after nearly 3 year of waiting. Of course this one in Germany was a prototype and many things could happen until the launch in August. But the big reason for me to buy, will be the sounds. Tehnics must come up with a lot of new soloist sounds, else I stay with my 6000:s and wait for the 8000.

Finally, we will see other brands on the market, come up with many new innovations. Within six months, we have new keyboards from Yamaha, Korg and Roland. I had a hope that Technics would keep the lead position with the KN7000, but I wonder...

Regards from Sweden

Lindoz


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Lindoz

Lindoz, my friend, good to hear from you. You seem to be on the go these days. I guess I'm going to have to wait, like most of us, until the new kn7k is in the dealer showroom so we can do a hands-on look-see thing. I can see where certain things are important to different users, and as a live performer, stability, ease-of-use, sounds, etc., are quite important. For myself, the composer would be my first concern, data storage second, and sounds third. But, it's like you and Alec say, there is still time for changes to be made, and we can only hope the Technics people will listen to the users that will be spending cold cash on their product, and maybe give us what we want. Thanks for the heads-up because any information is helpful. Hope all is well with you and your family, and I trust the tulips are blooming in Sweden.

[This message has been edited by Bud Whipple (edited 04-03-2002).]

Hey Lindoz.
Welcome back to the Technic's Forum and
thanks for getting back on this forum again. We need your expertise and experience here also. It is good to see you here finally. I was wondering if you would ever make it back.
Lindoz, that is an excellent report and thank you for posting it. I wonder about one thing. You say there is no floppy drive. Are you sure of that? That doesn't even seem reasonable.
Welcome to any other people that have logged in while I was on Easter Break. I see Aud Turner finally made it in and happy to see her here also.
Thanks to Win for all the programs he is sending our way. These are good utilities.
I am working on the next Technics Forum Newsletter so anyone that isn't getting it be sure to send me your email address if you want to receive it. I can also use some help on this as I requested in the last edition. I hope to mail on the 13th or 14th.


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BEBOP
Moderator SynthZone TECHNICS FORUM
http://www.synthzone.com/cgi-bin/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&number=25
Bill Forrest in SAN JOSE, CALIF. USA
bforrest@ix.netcom.com ICQ # 562519
Homepage http://members.fortunecity.com/bebop1

Thanks, Lindoz.

I am shocked to hear that the keyboard still has only 64 note polyphony. Almost every other competitor has gone to 128 (or 126) note. I hope the people you talked to were mistaken. I have 64 note on my old KN5000 and if I use complex voicing and try to use technichord as well as composer rhythms it is easy to run out of notes. I hate it when notes drop out. . .

If, and when I get a chance to review the 7000 up close, I hope I can remain objective and not be swept-away by cometics, flash, or minimal changes; but rather, try to determine if the sounds, styles, and editing features are major improvements on the 6500. In my present uses (which might change in time), I have no need for USB, video outs, etc. If major or radical improvements are made, it will be interesting to see which aspects of the new board have received the most attention.
Larry

Hello,

You say we already have usb with the hdsx6 but the usb port doesn't work or does it.
I only have a connection throug the parallel port.
Thanks,
Alain

Hej Lindoz
Godt og se deg igjen, det er allt for lenge
mellom hver gang du titter innom.

Thanks for your report, I'm just hoping that
the Technics people monitoring and see all the
comments already written.
GJ

Hi Lindoz, long time no see, good to see you back. How's the motif?
Were you there on the public days?

We shall see about the 7000 when we get our hands on it. However there are a few things you must have misunderstood, or you talked to the wrong people.

The 7000 is 128 note poly, and does retain the disk drive.

The sx6 gives you various combinations of bass, accomp and drums output for external mixing/dsp etc. The sub out on the 7000, as I understood it, is the output of the sub-woofer only. So on stage you can get away with smaller left and right speakers and only one bass box, for the same quality/loudness, or keep the existing setup and have the option of bass enhancement too.

As I understood it there is quite a difference in the usb. The sx6 usb is meant to only mimic the parallel functionality and transfer/edit data to the pc.

The 7000 usb, will obviously also do this but goes much further, as I understand it by transfering digital wave audio to the pc, among other things. Assuming that the 7000 has independant dsp for microphone and line in, that means you could balance a vocalist and electric guitar with the voices of the 7000, play the wave file directly into your laptop and pc, and make an audio cd straight away (or an MP3 or WMA with the technics software).

It seems to me that with no analogue stage needed in the process, the big advantage of this is that the quality of the audio cd is totally independant of the quality of the analogue to digital converters in your pc soundcard. It does not matter if you have a $10 soundcard or a $1000 soundcard since only wave audio data is being transfered.

Once in the pc you can equalise/compress/dsp the file easily with Sound Forge or Goldwave, again with no degradation in the audio. To me, this is a very useful step forward.

I agree about the soloists, naturally everyone will make their own mind up if a particular set of voices, styles or features justifies changing, as I said before, we shall have to see.

Hnmm, I feared this.

I really need better sounds, especially since I've recently added a hardware and software sampler to my little studio. The sound quality of those two instruments is astounding. A chello, a violin, or stacato trumpets really sound like the real thing, not at all like most crappy thin soloist sound found on the KN6500. I was hoping Technics would at least double the sample ram to increase quality, seems they didn't. And without the ability to add new samples yourself (which Yamaha and GEM have had for quite some time now) I'm not sure I'll be buying.

Yes, I agree with you JvG.

The use of my KN6000 is complete changed in the last few months. I now only use it to create midifiles to give myself an idea of a new song. After completing this midifile I edit the song in the studio of a friend of mine, where I use his samples, and not this (in comparison to his samples) thin sounds in the KN6000. After that, I only use the KN6000 again life on stage. The quality of the sounds is good enough for the stage, but not for studio-use. I was hoping that we at least could add new samples to the KN7000. Maybe my keyboard-favour will change after all, and will I use a Korg or something like it in a year from now..... At least I hope that Technics will monitor this Forum and others closely. Maybe a lot of changes can be made to the new KN7000, so we can really see this radical changes one could expect after three years development!

Hi Alec

I also asked Phil Leader specfik ablout the "sub" output on the back of the K7. I asked if the sub output ment that the K7 included some kind of active or passiv low pass filter. But as I understood him it have the same functionality ad with the HDSX6 where you can assign certain tracks to the obtional outputs. He also told me that the people from KeySoftservice had been involved in devoloping the SD drive functionality.

Max

Hi Max, that's what one of the Taiyo guys told me, maybe it is just another output then? We shall have to see when we get more detailed information, a lot is obviously still speculation for the moment.

Yes, I saw Roland Schmid, and he is involved in the software for the SD card, but he would not give me any details of what is in store.

I hope that a lot of the SX6 functionality is available in some form, custom lists, alpha sort etc would all be very useful.

LINDOZ !!! .... GREAT to hear from you again .... When I saw Audrey's post I was thinking of some of our friends from the "OLD" technote days and I was wondering what had become of you.... I had come into the forum to ask if anyone had heard from you, or if you were using an alias on this forum, and VOILA !!! there was your message ..... good to have you here, and hope to hear more from you in the future .....
t.

I Can't honestly say that sounds are the most important thing that I consider in a new keyboard,for me it is what is on offer in the whole package including new innovations & at the same time maintaining some of the features that I like & have become used to.
As does time Technology also marches on
& it looks like the KN7000 is going to possess some of this new technology & still maintain some of the features that have developed through from some of the earlier KN machines & not lose sight of the user friendliness that they have become known for.
Such is the competition between in particular Technics & Yamaha that I think it very unlikely that the KN7000 will hit the shops without boasting some new different sounds.I doubt that I will like them all but I am sure that I will like enough to be able to enjoy using them in my music.
Regards
Johnnie

Bud!
I belive we all take your advice with us and not hurry up with this. There will be time for examine the KN7k, and like we say here in Sweden, "we are not sitting in the lake", we have our 6000/6500 which I belive now working fine with the latest ROM update.

Yes thanks we are all keeping fine here, unfortunately without the tulips yet, just crocus, but soon they comes. I´ll be on your E-mail soon.

Bill!
Thanks for your kindly words. I´m sorry for the delay between my writing here on this forum, but I have had so much to do in this days, so you´ll never belive.

There were a lot of people in the Technics showcase (maybe Alec and his friends?) so I could only see parts of the machine, and it seems to me that the floppy was lost. But so much better if not.

Bob!
Well maybe I was wrong (for once), but so they told me and it sounded strange in my ears in this days. I also have had note loss problems in some songs. Very frustrating!

Larry!
Seems that we are roughly of the same opinion in what changes we need. But as we see, others has another priority in this things.

Alain!
I have never used the USB connection on the HDSX6. But you have maybe read Alecs contribution above?`

Gunnar!
Ska försöka hålla mig här i fortsättningen. Läser ofta dina inlägg och är lite avundsjuk på din engelska grammatik. Du skriver ofta bättre än de infödda.

Well Gunnar, I hope so too. Maybe the Japaneses cogwheel now began to spin!

Alec!
I´m reading quite a lot and take part of what you are writing in the topics. I´m very satisfied with my Motif, without any comparison with the KN6000, the appel vs pear comparing syndrome you know.

I was i Frankfurt the two last days with the dealers, and then the first day for the public.

Yes I maybe talk with the wrong people? I was there due to my interest in recording connections, and it was too much to look at in this few days. I only heard the KN7k for about 15 minutes, together with two guys from the Behringer company. I couldn´t see any floppy, but there was a lot of people in front, so I maybe missed it, or whas it maybe demounted on this prototype?

I interpreted the sub out as an output for some mixed tracks, so now we can have a clic for a drummer, for example.
I thought that the USB always had the same standard? But you are the computer expert, so you are presumably right. Anyway, the USB is a rather slow connection, I´ve been told. But so they said of the MIDI too...
I understand that the KN7k is familiar with WAV and WMA files and the split of the DSP. But is there any reverb in the DSP sector?

I will buy your thoughts around the soundcards, but are you sure that no more processing will became thru the card?

JvG!
I don´t know what kind of sampler you use, but I wouldn´t call the soloist sounds, crappy. On the contrary, some of them are really good. But in some ways the KN3000 had many good sounds. The Rocksaxophone was exellent, and the drum kits was better than those in the KN6000, in my opinion.

As I understand, has the memory in KN7k increased by over 30%, but as I said before, whats up from Yamaha and Roland?

Dutch Player!
Like you, I have complete my home studio with, in my case, a Yamaha Motif. But I have no doubt of using KN6000 in recording, depending on what kind of music you want, of course.

Max!
Your describe of the sub out functions was similar like I´ve been told.

Tony!
Well the rumor of my death is considerably exaggerated, anywayt hanks for your thoughtfullness, it´s warming.

Johnnie!
Well, we will wait and see what´s coming up!

Rgd
Lindoz




[This message has been edited by Lindoz (edited 04-04-2002).]

Lindoz,
Great to see you here at Synthzone. Really missed seeing your posts since the good ol Technics Canada days. Your knowledge and expertise will be greatly appreciated.

Scott http://scottyee.com

Oh don't get me wrong, some of the Soloist sounds are not bad at all. Some OTOH are not, for example I think the soloist violin is horrible.

And since I've gotten used to high quality sounds (e.g. Quantum Leap Brass series, to name just one) I feel that Technics should have made the attempt to upgrade most or all of the acoustic sounds to "soloist" quality. That's why I had hoped the KN7000 would have a built-in sampler, one could then always add higher quality sounds when and where you want.

How much sample rom memory does the KK6500 have anyway? 32 MB? The new Yamaha Tyros apparently has 96 megabytes of wave rom.

Hi Lindoz,
I was there on the first 2 days, so missed you

The floppy was there because I had a close up look. As I understood it most, if not all the sounds in the demo were new samples in the 7000.

However I think I was fed a line on the sub out, since Max talked to Phil Leader, and he is the man who should know, so the sub maybe is an assignable mono or stereo output loop for external processors and other uses.

Phil told me the 7000 was 128 poly.

It is possible the usb can process midi as well as audio - no more host socket?

I use an external usb soundcard. This takes the critical analogue to digital converters away from the laptop and gives superb quality. The 44 kHz digital wave file is output down the usb and appears as a virtual driver in Sound Forge etc. So instead of recording the analogue signal, you record the digital waveform direct. Then all editing is done digitally on the laptop with no analogue stage to be degraded in noise or distortion, the ideal scenario.

I understand that the 7000 will output the final audio signal as a wave file down the usb. Therefore the cd track can be transferred to the pc with no analogue signal processed in the pc at all. This will be a huge advantage to most owners with basic 'soundblaster clone' type soundcards in their pcs.

The present usb is easily fast enough for midi and cd quality audio. I like usb a lot, no IRQ conflicts, no driver conflicts, no rebooting, its got to be the way to go. The next usb version is considerably faster than firewire, and will easily do many multitrack 96 kHz audio.

Really good to hear from you again, Lindoz

The problem with incorporating samplers and wanting huge wave roms is that the price has to increase too. I used to say for years that technics should incorporate a sampler. After using the 9000 and 9000pro, now I'm not so sure.

The Kn6000 had 32 MB of wave rom, same as the psr9000. The 6500 has 48 MB of wave rom, same as the 9000pro. The 6500 with both cards has 80 MB of wave rom.

Is it really reasonable to try and compare the previous generation model of one manufacturer with the not yet finalised next generation model from another?

The Tyros was provisionally announced at 'around' 96 MB of wave rom at Frankfurt. If the 9000 is anything to go by, there must be some expansion available too, maybe ram, maybe flash, we don't know yet. The 7000 'may' be 64 MB but 'may' have space for 4 expansion cards, this 'may' be an additional 64MB, we don't know yet.

It is all academic since what matters is whether the sounds suit you personally, the numbers are of interest only to people who read brochures rather than play.

Memory is cheap, incorporating sampling functions is not that difficult. Though I wasn't too impressed with the 9000pro's functions when I borrowed one for a couple of days. Then again, I own the Yamaha A5000 sampler which isn't that user-friendly either.



Not really IMO, those who dabble in the world of samplers are bound to ask these kind of questions. I have no intention of buying a keyboard which overall sounds much like its predecessor.

That said, I'll definitely be visiting my dealer for some first-hand experience when the 7000 arrives.

[This message has been edited by JvG (edited 04-05-2002).]

all I mean is that each manufacturer has his own form of compression on preset sounds in the wave rom, and there are many tricks with multisamples and layering available making the wave rom used in a preset in no way comparable with the wave rom needed for uncompressed wave files in a sampler for example. So numbers only give a broad outline, and ears may give a totally different picture at the end of the day.

it is easy to say memory is cheap, ram may be cheap, but that is not enough on its own. If you want some kind of functionality better than an A5000, you end up with a board significantly more expensive, more Triton than KN maybe?

Actually, I find my A5000 too complicated.

You're right about them using compression techniques and such. Still, my ears are all I need to judge quality, and the KN6500 is way behind the quality you can get from a digital sampler.

Regarding functionality, I was thinking more in terms of what Steinberg has done with Halion which has a very easy user interface yet still remains a powerful software sampler. Technics could easily do something similar, where you can edit your samples over the USB interface on a PC.

GEM and both Yamaha seems both able to produce sampling-capable keyboards for about the same price as Technics, so I have to wonder if the main reason Technics doesn't want to introduce a feature like that is because they wouldn't be able to sell their expensive addon sound boards anymore. I'm reminded here of the cost of a new drive for my KN2000, which died some months ago. $250 is a ludicrous amount for something which should cost no more than $25.