Let me start off by saying that about a year ago, when I first heard of a new product being developed by Ketron, designed for Midi file, Wave and MP3 playback, along with some styles and voices available, I was less than excited about this new product. I don't have DJ customers in my store and was not looking foward to this new entry from Ketron........

Foward to today, when I unpacked my first Midjay at my music store and upon removing it from it's box I got pretty excited. After playing around with this product and calling our friend AJ on the phone, I am now really excited about this powerful, LITTLE box. This thing has somthing for everyone interested in any kind of music.

Finally, Ketron has made a module only 12.5" x 8.7" x 4.5" and wighing just 7 lbs. All Ketron models up to the Midjay have been very large. There are not very many buttons to scare you away, but the power of this thing is awsome!

The key phrase to this product is "Direct Audio Streamlining". There is no need for simms or internal memory to record samples, loops, wavs, mp3's or to save midifiles, styles or anything else. Ketron has put a 20GB hard drive, upgradable to a 40 GB drive with the ability, even with the 20GB drive, to record live audio for up to 30 hours. AJ gave me this 30 hour number. Every file you have on the hard drive is available right when you select it just by pushing the play or enter button, and the ability to play all the different files at once with everything in sync is amazing.

I found on the hard drive 64 voices, which are actually programs for those of you who know what a program is on Ketron products. This can be up to 4 voices combined and split. You can freely change these 64 anyway you like and store them.

I next found 136 styles, each with 4 variations, intros and endings and also all the features from other ketron arrangers including sync start, sync stop, hold, etc. I then copied from both floppy disks and using the USB connector supplied with the Midjay all my custom and factory styles from the SD1, SD1plus, XD3 and Xd9 library I have. I organized these all into folders I created in the master style folder (just like the SD1) and called these up easily and so quickly to play from a connected midi keyboard or accordian. There is also a certain amount of editing that can be done with the styles.



The way the hard drive is arranged is just like a PC computer with a C Drive and Root directory. You must remember to back up all the factory files because there is no way to retrieve these if you erase them by mistake. This only takes a few minutes using the USB connection and a PC or MAC.

For all the middle eastern musicians who love to sample loops of live arabic percussion and sync them with your styles, this is a dream come true! Now, you don't have to carry a seperate sampler and worry about running out of memory. Ketron gives you about 12 sample loops of this type of music and these can be tempo sync'd to your styles without changing the pitch, etc.

I loaded every midi file I have in my store onto folders i organized in the midi file folder and I now have thousands of midi files available at an instant.

This thing is like having a big Apple IPOD! We downloaded hundreds of MP3's I have and they play back the soon as you select one. You can even crossfade between any two types of media you like.

If you want to record vocals or live instsruments to a midi file or WAV file, or even to a style you play, just plug in a mic, push record, and you've now created your own MP3 right on the midjay.

Another cool feature is the ability for the Miday to record every button push you make, so that even transpositions, mutes, volume changes, etc. are recorded in real time.

You can search for any file using the alphabetical search method either in a specific folder or in the entire hard drive.

You can create up to 999 playlists of your songs with 10 songs in each playlist.

When you play a midifile, wave and mp3 files can be recorded with the midi file and saved for later playback. With this, sound effects, etc. can be added to a midi file, somthing not able to be done previously.

The mic input and included effects work great and there is an option for a 3 part vocal harmonizer to be added. There is also a mute lead button which can remove any one of the 16 midi channels when playing standard midi files and when playing wave files this will eliminate the vocal track (the amount is dependent on the way the track itself).

Lyrics are seen on the display and there is a video output jack included to view on a big TV screen. AJ tells me that right now, 3 colors are available but a revision with come out soon with full color screen options.

I have just scratched the surface of this new little wonder box. For those only wanting a style arranger for your keyboard, guitar or accordian I would strongly recommend the Midjay. For those needing a playback machine for MP3's, Midifile's, Wave files, you would love this.

All in all, this is the next generation arranger workstation module with a little footprint and a big "bang for your buck".

George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566

Thanks for the critique George. Sounds like a nice little module. Price?
zuki

Do you suppose that Ketron will be offering all these functions in a new arranger keyboard soon?
DonM

Price should be between $1600.00 and $1700.00 depending on where you buy one.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

Ouch. I was pretty fired up till you said that.

http://www.ketronus.com/midjay.htm

[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 11-21-2004).]

Listen to the demos on their site! Especially the orchestra score, I could swear they are playing livein my room, incredible!

Phil

No offense George, but I saw one online for under $1200.
http://shop.synthplanet.com/product.lasso?c=US&-Session=shop:442B46CA1b64c07FD1hIO2E254CB&pr=32169&newlang=en

No offense taken! In the USA, our prices are based on what the US distributor is able to sell them to us for and what you see at these internet sites which originate from out of the USA might have lower prices but they also might not be quoting correct prices due to US dollar vs Euro fluctuations. Also, there is no warranty for US buyers here in the USA.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566

George... thanks for your review on what appears to be a very exciting new product. What would be your recommendation for a good, light-weight, 76 key controller board for the Midjay?

Don... it's inevitable that Ketron will eventually produce a keyboard with these features, but lord knows when or how $$. Ketron's pretty hush on such things.

Glenn

Well, remember, this thing plays mp3's and wavs. The orchestral demo you heard is one of these I'm certain, not onboard sounds that can be generated via midi controller. You were hearing an actual orchestra.

I've got an interesting idea/question. Can software be loaded on to the midjay? With it's 20 gig harddrive? Here's what I'm thinking.
Load gigastudio into this bad boy. Put some incredible samples in there, and trigger them via midi. A hardware unit that can play giga! Oh, please! Tell
me this is possible! that'd be KILLER!
and if not, create the midjay 2 immediately and I'll buy one. I'm a live gigging musician, to be able to play my tracks, my between set music, arranger
functions, and incredible lifelike instruments via giga, all in one machine, and with a 20 gig harddrive, you should be able to make this happen.

I visited the Ketron US website mentioned above. Their reviewer states that the MidJay only has 1 intro and 1 ending but I want to clarify that although there is only 1 button called intro and 1 button called ending, there are 3 intro's and endings by selecting one of the 3 variations before pressing the intro or ending buttons.

Another point mentioned in the review by KetronUS is that there is no pedal steel guitar. Actually, there is a pedal steel guitar in the 128 voices included in the Midjay. You just have to assign this to one of the 64 voice memories.

I also just checked with AJ and he says that the ability to store these 64 custom voices on the hard drive is not currently available in the operating system shipped but will be able to do this in the future.

I just got through playing a midifile, recording my vocal and created a wav file of the who thing. All done instantly with no waiting.

One more very interesting point about MidJay. If you make a registration which as I stated earlier can contain everything you do, including saving the midifile, the wave file, the mp3 recording and all the buttons you have selected in real time......and send this registration to a friend via email.......if he has a MidJay he can load this registration into his MidJay and everybit of your data is now on his MidJay, so if he wants to edit the midifile tracks with different program changes, effects or mute different things or add more live vocal or instrument tracks or wave files to it and send it back to you........it can be done. If you only send the wave file and not the Registration, he can still load it and play it but he will not be able to get into all the individual midi parts like he had the midi file loaded into his MidJay. A very cool feature.

I've also learned that I can record my every played and touched event.....save it as a wave file called whatever I want to call it. Start again with this wave file, name it something different and record more live vocals or add wave files.....and do this up to 16 times to create an entire production with just my MidJay.

There are so many more things this can do. AJ's express start manual will be replaced with a full manual very soon. He said he is just about done with it.

This little box does alot!

George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566

Also,

OMG only 7 LBS!!!!!

Has Ketron been listening to us ?


BTW the demos sound so natural...

[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 11-23-2004).]

A few days ago...Fran, Gary, & myself went on a road trip to see AJ Demo the MIDJAY for us at his studio.....here are my thoughts ..
I was impressed with all the MULTI functions & features of this little wonderbox for sure....
it can be used in so many kool ways its beyond belief if your creative....playing great LIVE SOUNDING styles like an arranger KB, awesome SD-1 sounds, mp3's, wav's, SFX, SMF, and sing thru it too w/efx all independently or at the same time by adjusting Sepreate sliders for each mode of operation ....Plus record them as well instantly creating a Cd is a snap ! No more need for a laptop
This is OMB Entertainers dream machine!
Connect this to a light weight controller KB and it becomes an awesome LIGHTWEIGHT RIG for live play.......
I will be ordering one very soon....
more to come.

Ciao

cassp, please make URL shorter, makes page too wide. THanks.

How is the harmonizer on the Midjay? I believe it's an option, but is it the same as on the SD1?

Glenn

One limitation to the MJ I mentioned months ago has yet NOT been addressed to my disappointment. Long textfiles synced to an mp3 file can not be handled. In my case it was Hotel California. The Midjay will freeze before you are through. I told AJ about this many months ago, but as far as I know, no updates have been released to take care of this annoying problem. This caused me to get rid of it and buy Onstage Performer instead for a fraction of the price.

[This message has been edited by royandreno (edited 10-06-2005).]

Roy... I've been looking for you. Please email me.

gtoth@zoominternet.net

Glenn

Glenn, you've got mail!

Longer text file association with Wave and MP3 has been corrected in 3.0.

AJ

When will 3.0 be released,AJ?