I guess I'm just too big a drum lover... Other than generic elevator stuff, each and every hit tune has something in the drums that makes it unique, makes it stand out. That's why, if you have a style that nails a certain tune's groove, replacing it with a DIFFERENT groove just to have audio drums in the style don't cut it for me. Likewise, that moved snare drum hit, or specific kick pattern is what makes a certain song. You cannot do that to an audio drum groove,

It's either the right one, or the WRONG one, for me. Generic patterns don't cut it for most music.

And we still haven't addressed SMF playback. Once again, if your act is a mix of style and SMF, how do you get around the change in sound when you have to go to MIDI drums for the SMF's? And please don't go on about replacing the drum track with an audio track from the factory patterns. That's even MORE difficult to do, when an SMF's drum parts can be much closer to a song's groove...

I also know where you are coming from, Tone. At what the Ketron does best, it is head and shoulders above other arrangers. But if your needs go beyond that, you are back to having a mere MIDI arranger, and TBH, the Ketron isn't necessarily the best at that... I still believe the future of arrangers isn't audio. That will always have limitations and not be as versatile as MIDI. And as sample ROM sizes get bigger and bigger, it gets harder and harder to tell the difference between audio and VSTi quality MIDI tracks. Soon, you won't be able to at all.

In the meantime, my ROM styles, my legacy styles and my SMF's ALL sound exactly the same. I'd rather have that than some killer audio styles and the rest not as good.