This kind of brings me back to the point I've made over and over in regards to the Ketron...

With a traditional MIDI based arranger, it's a piece of cake to revoice the drums, perhaps substitute a brush kit for a sticks kit, easily remove busy parts and edit them down to simple ones, things like that. Make the tools to do this as simple and easy to work as the Roland's do, and you are also likely to DO IT...

But loops are loops. They are what they are, and if they don't work, it is a HUGE job to replace them with something that does...

It seems that so many of us think that, if audio loops are too 'in your face' and some arrangers drums (particularly Yamaha) are not ENOUGH in your face, that's basically IT... The truth is anything but. If you listen to any of the demos of newer drum libraries like BFD, DFH, EZDrummer, and products like that, you will have an almost impossible time telling that they AREN'T loops of audio. But they are all exactly the same as your arranger... MIDI performances playing drum samples. Only, the difference is, these are REALLY GOOD samples.

Arrangers do NOT need to go over to uneditable audio loops to sound live and realistic. They simply need more and better samples for the drum kits they DO have! And, once that is provided, the problem that the style itself may be busier (or simpler) than you actually want is easily remediable. I really DO believe that audio loops is a dead end for arranger technology. Some of the better Yamaha Mega Guitar and SA guitar Parts are close to indistinguishable from a loop. Some of the better Korg Guitar Mode Parts are the same.

Once again, BOTH of these can easily be edited, substituted (want a nylon playing the same part as your electric..? a snap in MIDI, impossible with a loop) changed, whatever you feel like.

We should not be all screaming for Yamaha, Korg, etc. to CATCH UP with Audya... We should be screaming for Korg and Yamaha to catch up to BFD or EZDrummer..!

JMO...