I saw a Roland A30: 76 note controller keyboard on sale for $395 cdn in the local Bur & Sell mag. That would be approx. $295. in U.S. dollars. The add said it has semi-weighted keys. Does anyone have any experience with this board?
Starkeeper

Starkeeper, I use the Roland A-37 controller keyboard. The things I like are as follows:

* It is a 76 note keyboard. You need this much if you are going to use the lower octave to switch/change arranger functions, e.g., fills, endings, etc. Also good for splitting the keyboard for playing organ, etc.

* The keys have a good feel - similar to the G1000, 9000 Pro and so on.

* Has all the usual midi controls which can be saved in flash ROM to 128 locations. It has velocity switching and aftertouch.

* Has two midi out ports which facilitates sending the the keyboard splits to separate software samplers, e.g., Live - Styler and Kontakt (lead voices).

* The keys and buttons are of sturdy construction. The keyboard is light weight. I have used it for one year with no problems of any kind. It works as advertised!!!

I hope this helps.


[This message has been edited by Frank L. Rosenthal (edited 06-16-2003).]

Thanks Frank. Sounds like a real nice keyboard.
Starkeeper

Thanks for the help Bryan and Frank.

BTW, it's very nice to hear from you Frank.
Could you please fill us in on the current status of the FLR2003?

You mentioned that Sonar/DXi/Windows have
high latency when compared to standalone
and VSTi instruments. I believe the newest
version of SonarXL 2.2 has ASIO driver
compatibility, so maybe there is some
improvement there. Also, is it correct
to assume that the FXpansion "DXi wrapper for VSTs" would not reduce any latency, but may actually increase it?

I just tried the "CONSOLE" demo VST/DXi standalone wrapper with LiveSynthPro, and it didn't work at all (I, of course, may not
be doing it right). Have any of you tried CONSOLE with any VSTi or DXi plug-in players such as Bismark BS-1/16, Jeskola XS-1,
or LiveSynthPro?
I have WinXP-home and noticed that SurReal
and Reality are not XP compatible yet.
I had tried both on a Win98 computer
and they looked promising.
Has Kontakt, Vsampler, or SeerSystems corrected the bank select issue yet?
Is it true that the upcoming Vsampler3 may not even need MidiYoke?
Sorry for all the questions.
Thanks.

You might consider the best of both worlds.
http://www.openlabs.com http://www.openlabs.com/products.php http://www.openlabs.com/ekochart.php

Although the eKo is not considered an Arranger at the moment, there is possibly the ability to do that in the future with OS updates, plugins, Hardware upgrades, expansion capabilities, and when other manufacturers start developing add ons and upgrades for the eKo.

Check out that feature list! Quite impressive to say the least.

Also notice that the eKo will be in retail stores as of June 23rd, 2003. This month!!! The big question is: "How does it sound?" The truth is nobody that I know of knows WHAT it sounds like or how good the quality of the voices are. There are no demos on their web site.

I guess we'll soon find out though. I think loop based sounds will be a big part of the eKo but there's no telling for sure until we musicians go in and demo it and find out the facts from fiction. Very interesting concept to say the least this eKo is! Time will tell if it's all it's made up to be and what the makers of it intended it to be.

Best regards,
Mike

Vquestor, yes using the ASIO drivers helps. I have been able to operate at around 10 to 20 ms latency with it in Sonar. If you do not use ASIO the latency is up around 50ms (not good). In contrast, I have no trouble operating at 5 to 10ms latency in Cubase SX. At this point I do not know what is doing what (wrappers, Sonar, drivers, etc.).

I too have tried to use Console and did not get most things to work. In addition, Bismark BS-1/16 and Jeskola XS-1 do not do a very good job with program change numbers including the drums. LiveSynthPro is many times better at this including picking up the correct XG Drums in sYnerGiGS. The FXpansion VST to DX wrapper seems to work ok in that I have not noticed any increase in latency. I have tried to use it with Harmonizers (VoiceMachine, DeccaBuddy, etc.) and could not get proper Midi activation to work with it - in Sonar 2.2 XL.

There are only rumours that Kontakt may implement midi Program change numbers. So far nothing. Vsampler 3.0 works except it does not call up the drums properly. You would not need Midi Yoke for it given that it installs its own drivers. And you are right SeerSystems Reality is still not Windows Xp compatible - they say by Xmas of this year.

With respect to my flr2003 system I have spent considerable time (and money) to get Harmonizers to work and finding ways to get rid of my Audigy Soundcard (LiveSynthPro, etc.). I currently have 3 harmonizers - Clone Ensemble, VoiceMachine and Akai's DeccaBuddy. The best of the bunch is VoiceMachine - but it does not work. It works in older versions of Cubase but not in Cubase SX. There is a heavy duty delay when responding to your voice. I have phoned Steinberg and they admit a problem and will update VoiceMachine - When? - Who knows. The other 2 harmonizers work as addvertised. DeccaBuddy requires midi notes to be sent via separate channels for each harmony (up to 4). You can use a mix of midi notes and setting the harmonies manually to a 3rd or 5th, etc. The trouble with this is you also need to set the key of your songs. The good news is that you can save these in 4 presets - enough for any one song. I purchased DeccaBuddy from AkaiPro a few weeks ago but can no longer find them on the Internet - are they out of business? Clone Ensemble works as advertised. You can make up to 32 clones of yourself. These clones (harmony) are determined by the software not by midi notes. But then it only costs something like $25 US.

Idatrod, the eko should sound better than any keyboard available on the market. It will work the same as my system except everything is contained in the keyboard (processor, hard drives, sound cards and so on). It is a PC with a keyboard attached and has a good control surface. But it is expensive - very expensive!!!

Frank, one of Open Labs touts is that the price "starts" at under 2 grand. But I noticed on their 'Store' link that the lowest price is actually $2,245. To go to there price list go to this page: http://store.openlabs.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/ECommStoreFront.woa then click on "eKo Systems" at the top left if anybody is interested. You may have to scroll down a bit to see the prices.

Your right Frank. If a person wants all the bells and whistles he or she will have to pay a dear price for it. They don't even list a price for the 88 Key Hammer Action model. From looking they haven't even made the 88 Key model yet. It looks like 76 Keys is as high as they go for now.

eKo 61 Key model, basic: $2,245.
eKo 76 Key model, fully loaded: $7,412.

And I agree Frank that eKo "should" be the best sounding Keyboard ever. The reason being is because of all the extremely high quality sampled sound banks that can be loaded into it. Example: 1 Gigabyte Triple Layered Sampled Stereo Grand Piano patch. No problemo!!! Or an 80 Mb Sampled Live! Nylon Guitar patch. Mere pittance!!! Talk about going hog wild in sound possibilities and capabilities. Just talking about it gets me excited. I can't wait to demo the thing.

Best regards,
Mike




[This message has been edited by Idatrod (edited 06-17-2003).]

Idatrod, I agree with your assessment of the eko. For it to do well in the marketplace it will need to be priced competitively with other alternatives, e.g., standalone PCs, midi controller keyboards, etc.

I should have indicated in my previous response that I also spent some time with Roland's HQ Hyper Canvas. It works very well as a VST instrument in Cubase SX. If I could easily convert my Yamaha Styles XG Drums to GM/GM2 compatible drums, I would be away to the races. I could ditch my Audigy Soundcard and use one very high quality soundcard (e.g., RME) for everything instead of the 2 I now use. In general, I could then use Cubase SX and run the following all at the same time:

LiveStyler on HQ Hyper Canvas
VoiceMachine - Vocal Harmonizer (once it works)
Kontakt - Lead/Melody voices

It would have been nice to use VStack but it does not bring in Audio (voice). I would not have been able to use a vocal harmonizer which depends on midi notes.

I think I am very close to a completely software based arranger system - my original goal.


[This message has been edited by Frank L. Rosenthal (edited 06-17-2003).]

Hi Frank,

Why not Halion instead of Kontakt....