Ilija, as always, you have a fresh perspective. Your comments about Europeans generally absorbing arranger instruments into their homes and lifestyles with greater ease than we Americans are most interesting.

Juxtaposed with the comments about Los Angeles' musical "stodgy-ness" and performers' concerns about over-using fancy styles during a gig or in a a town with more than one X-1 in it, your comments indicate the rich differences among cultures. I'm not going anywhere philosophical with this observation; it's just neat to read about how sincere and right and different we all are.


And, Tom, the X-1, as many arranger units, has the ability to defeat its styles' backing instruments one layer at a time, thus leaving you with what I (and many) think of as not only very useable drums/bass, but incredibly real ones. In fact, Bill Cone, owner of Synthony Music in Phoenix, just commented yesterday on how some of the patterns have such a live drum feel, with all the "push & pull" nuances of a live drummer, that he was wondering if some of the patterns are actually recorded live licks that have been morphed into styles. (The X1 has a sampler that, apparently, can be used to do this as you create your own styles--so why not the manufacturer?)

This is an aside from your question, Tom, but I strongly recommend that, before buying an X-1 or X-4 (the non-keyboard module version), that you take you own sound generating gear to the store (masterkeyboard--if you're getting the X-4, any pedals, mics, vocalist units, etc.) and hook 'em up to the Solton and play for a while. Many of us have unique setups and you want to make sure that your musical needs and playing style aren't too compromised by the Solton's (or any unit's) way of recieveing and trasmitting midi data. I'm having a tough time getting my rig to work "like the old rig did," so that's why I caution you to test drive the whole thing at the store.

Good luck.
Jim Henry

[This message has been edited by Jim Henry (edited 10-22-2000).]