Hi guys!
just came back from my Saturday night gig .nice party we had
Here is some comments for some of the current models i had the chance to put my hands on:
What i did not like mainly on the VA7 was the absence of some crucial (IMHO) real time controls:volume sliders and sound selectors and the absence of hard disk.also the menu system seems a little too complicated to navigate especially when playing live.
The Korg i30 alltough older I think is more suitable for live perfomance than the PA80 -which by the way may seem nice if you only play with SMFs.
The Y9k seems to be closer to the Abacus but then again lacks the touch screen the sampled sounds,the sliders,the mixer,the PC etc.Maybe the Genesys will be along the same lines(DSP based etc).
But the best thing of the Wersi is the future of it.The whole system is updated automatically by loading a CD (approx.time 5 mins) and all the upgrades up to the current version 3.30 have been sent to customers free of charge.
There are some things that the Abacus does not do yet(like user porgrammable drumsets as the Pegasus had),but its shure that an update will always be in the way.Let me tell you something:in 1985 i bought ny first Wersi,a double manual 'organ' with features that looked like sci fi at that time.I could have all the new stuff Wersi Germany was producing as add-ons even the TouchScreen/20bitDAC/Hard Disk system of the Pegasus that came out in 1994.I bought the later because it was easier to carry arround and I was working with it until three months ago.Even if the Abacus lasts for 'only'ten years then the initial investment is more than justified.Can you imagine how many Japanese 'new models' has someone to purchase in 10 years to be up to date?