Well, the SD2 is actually the sound engine lifted out of one of Ketron's keyboards. As such, it represents a dynamite way to upgrade MIDI sounds for those of us who own plenty of older keyboards with built in synths. That's the reason for my interest in the Ketron, and even if I never ever had the tonewheel organ drawbars and rotating speaker effect I would still call this little box a darn good bargain at its street price. Instead of upgrading an entire keyboard yet again, less than $400US puts me at the forefront of great samples. That's MUCH less than buying the latest and greatest keyboard one mo' time.

And the M-Audio Keystation 88 Pro can indeed send Sysex, programmable from its knobs, according to the manual, so there's at least one solution for getting at the drawbars and rotor control.

AND -- there are at least three software pieces available for free download from the Ketron website, one for Sonar, Logic and Cubase IIRC -- these have pictorial drawbars and leslie control on them for use with DAWs, etc. Here's hoping an enterprising programmer might roll up a generic one in VST guise that would run from any VST capable software.

All in all, still a great bargain no matter what. I don't expect ketron to redevelop things for a product of this type, at least they let us know the drawbars and rotor are IN the thing, I wonder how many other companies would have simply avoided the issue and not told anybody, electing to make the money off of the 380 MIDI patches alone, leaving this information hidden.

Its a great little box.


--Mac