I think Ketron are starting to realize the difference between a good idea, and a good product. Not to mention the huge task of providing enough audio loops for the product to be competitive around the world (with its' vastly different musical tastes).

Let's face it, as I've said before... If these loop based styles are THAT good (and they had better be, at that price point and complexity), you are going to want ALL your styles to match. You are NOT going to want to sound brilliant on one tune, and lackluster on the next. Content, content, content... That is the FIRST and foremost priority of an arranger. We don't need technical innovation at the cost of poor content (thank you, Domenik!), we need first class CONTENT before any other consideration.

What is the point of any advanced feature, if it doesn't equate to a vast source of inspiring styles to use with it? The fact is, VERY few people even make their own MIDI based styles, yet alone have the skill to record a loop library, slice a loop library, and match it's feel perfectly to every other loop library they use. ESPECIALLY us old codgers that are the primary market for these things...

As some of the 'open' and semi-'open' flag wavers are starting to realize, an inferior technology with a superior style selection will win the race every single time... The main thing any one of us expects from an arranger when we first purchase it is - does it have a large enough selection of the styles that WE use personally to be musically satisfying OOTB? EVERY other question is secondary.

This implies a HUGE variety of styles (that ALL must be inspiring) to cover all the bases that the keyboard is likely to be sold in. Country to klezmer, rock to raga, bossa to the Bristol sound. NOT loop features that will be prohibitively expensive and time consuming to implement by the user, because the manufacturer did not have the resources to make themselves to their own ROM standards.

The LAST thing any one of us wants to have to think when someone comes up and requests an obscure style is 'Oh no! Now I've got to use a MIDI style that sounds like dog-doo compared to the rest of my loop styles!' But without CONTENT, what choice will we have?

Until technology advances WAY past where we are now, to the point of completely user-transparent loop slicing, 'feel' matching, and the new Melodyne technique of re-harmonizing live loops, these things are going to have to rely on factory and third party styles to become flexible enough to compete with a 'closed', MIDI based arranger. And I don't see either one of these having the resources to provide enough of these at a price that we are going to be willing to pay.

I ask again the question (that no-one has answered yet )... How many NEW 'live loop' drum styles did Ketron release AFTER the SD-1 was launched? And how much were they? Everyone says they sound great... and this is only the drum part using loops. So, if few have been produced, imagine how FEWER will be made when MUCH, much more work has to be done to get guitar chords, bass-lines, everything else loop based into a new style...

Content, content, content... Without it, and continued support for MORE content in the future (Roland just gave away 20 new styles for their arrangers - how many have/will Ketron?), it doesn't matter one jot what technology is inside the case. It matters how many, and how good are the STYLES inside the arranger....