Well all my friends...........over the years many here at the synthzone have read my first impressions of new products. I was very vocal with my disappointed that Ketron USA had not been able to ship me an Audya in the first batch here in the USA.
First, let me say that Ted at CMC wanted to have AJ fly out to do a clinic in my store a few months ago. I declined the invitation because there was still not a product available to leave in my store for potential customers to demo. It's always been my feeling that a product shouldn't be shown until it is ready for distribution.

Hoping I would receive one in the initial shipment didn't pan out. Once I told Ted at CMC how disappointed I was, Ted worked hard to get Italy to send a few more Audyas to the USA. Today, my first one arrived.

Over the past month or so I've been reading all the posts here with pros and cons of the Audya. It's been really good of Frank of Audioworks to post many examples of the Auyda styles and sounds on the web and I wasn't sure what I would think of this new board when it would finally arrive.

So, here I am, not the first to discuss the Audya, but after just a few hours with it I feel like I can give you a pretty good report.

Looking at the box, I was surprised there could be a 76 note keyboard inside. It is just a little longer than most of the 61 note models I have. This will be great for people in need of car space to carry the Audya.

The display looks really good and bright and I noticed the keyboad came with version 1.12 operating system. I plugged it into my computer and in 10 minutes I had version 2.0 installed. It was really easy.

First thing I did when turned on was to listen to the voices. I recognized many of the very good Ketron sounds and really enjoyed the new ones. I was also very impressed with the rotary speaker on, off, slow and fast. In other models including the SD1 I have never liked the way I could hear a clicking sound when turning on and off. This model is very smooth. As expected, the Violin, Cello, Strings, Brass, Saxes, are all up to what I would expect from Ketron.

I played with dozens of new styles using the live guitars, basses and drums and I am impressed. I did notice some endings on certain styles felt a bit rough when entering the endings.

I really liked the way I could play any style and change the last style track to either be a midi sound or any of the live audio guitar riffs I like. I can also do this with the bass track as well. There is also an arppegio function available in the 4th style track which when activated allows me to choose between many different arppegio riffs. It's also really nice that when you make a change to a variation's track, you can do it in single mode or in global mode. This allows you to only change one variation and not all four if you like.

Having the live guitar riffs really makes this model sound different than all the other ones I sell. I also think that the Drum tracks have more punch than most of my other models.

One thing I wish is that I could remove some of the Reverb in a live groove drum track. There are times I would like to have less than has been sampled, but after playing a bit with the effects, I don't think this can be done. I can turn of the global reverb, but the reverb is still on the loop and I can go into the individual drum track's reverb, but this only turns off the reverb if there was midi drums instead of the loop.

But all in all, when I listen to this keyboard, I do think it is one of the best I've heard. I didn't expect to be so impressed after much of what I've read on the internet.

I spoke with AJ today and my few complaints were that the keyboard does not have a standard 16 track midi sequencer. It's like many of the other Ketron products that just lets you record one pass and that's it. I told AJ this is something I think the company should look into. AJ also informed me that the way the board is right now, no sampling and no pattern recording. Both of these issues will be addressed in version 3.0 according to AJ.

I really think the biggest obstacle will be the selling price. I think Ketron can update this model to fit most everyone's needs and desires.

My issue is that Ketron is charging the dealer a lot more than comparable Keyboards such as the Tyros3 and Korg PA2XPRO and Korg PA800. I know there is a Midjay and a high powered replacement for the SD1PLus in this product, but at the price Ketron has set up as a MAP price, which in my opinion was done because anything higher would have made this a more difficult product to sell, the price a dealer pays for an Auyda leaves such a low profit margin and so the effort it will take to show, train and provide assistance after the sale might hurt if like me, I can sell alot of other much less expensive keyboards and make more money. I hope you all understand this. It's not that I don't want a good deal for you players, but I don't think the manufacturer of distributor are understanding that a dealer needs to make a fair profit to keep their doors open and right now with this Audya, that is not the case. I think only time will tell if Italy will adjust their price that the distributor pays so that the distributor will have happy stores and then happy customers!

Sorry that was a lot of words............but if you are in the Los Angeles area and would like to come by and try the Audya, it is here!



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George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566
www.kayesmusicscene.com