If Ketron would make the tools for producing new groove styles easy to operate (think Ableton Live easy, or Garage Band), then I would expect a huge explosion in styles as the current crop of groove libraries available for PC get ported.

That's the issue, I think. Ketron don't really need to go into a studio with live players and produce live styles any more. That work has already been done, with MANY highly detailed (far more chord choices and strum alternatives than any Ketron factory style) VSTi programs out there.

But spend $20,000 on developing easy to use PC tools to convert these audio loops into the sliced, proprietary format that the Audya uses, and the users will do it for themselves. $20k one time, or $20k for each style? Obvious choice, really...

But the Audya needs a re-vamp. It's current architecture is obviously incapable of streaming enough at speeds that are usable, which is why it is crippled when used for polyphonic, chordal material. Sure, slice a drum groove up, and that's all it needs. But a guitar pattern is not only the rhythm slices, but the chord choices and the transitions...

Audya need to look closely at the Korg Kronos, and leverage the high speed RAM and SSHD streaming technology that make it possible for the Kronos to stream instead of using sample ROM. And, one of those isn't exactly up there in Fairlight (or Audya!) price territory. Only a few hundred more than a MoXF, if truth be told.

But Ketron have shot themselves in the foot, releasing the Audya as an unfinished 'work in progress' without the MOST important tool an arranger can have. An EASY style creator system. If styles are going to cost the factory five figures to produce EACH, no-one in their right mind is going to consider it unless it ALREADY does exactly what you want. And what has EVER done that (unless your needs are pretty basic)?

And no busy contemporary producer or artist is going to use it, if the tools for making new styles are so clunky, so unintuitive, and so inelegant that they will probably be able to achieve the same result faster, better and with less hassle on a computer in the first place.

If Ketron fix these two things, they stand a chance. But seeing the multi-year gap between its release and the still crippled capabilities it has now, what hope can we really hold?

It's a small company, yes. But so were Korg, and Moog, and yes, even Roland when they started. But they made the right product at the right time, at the right price.
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An arranger is just a tool. What matters is what you build with it..!