Overthere in Köln they have 4 floors of musical instruments, with headsets laying all over the place, and you are allowed to play and touch everything thats on display, the good thing is that they have absolutely almost everything even rare instruments on display..

The only thing absent was Ketron, they used to have that last year, but for some reason they stopped selling them, or atleast having them on display..

First of, a hands on with the Wersi Sonic, that according to the salesman got the latest software updat earlier this week. It is comming along nicely. Sitting behind the sonic is like sitting behind the weel of a rolse Royce, the furniture and the build quallity have i proved over the OAS and it avtually is a great piece of furnitur..
The software is also an improvement over the latest OAS version. Its obvious they finally nailed touchscreens, its the first instrument i played where the touch interface and the big screen really work as a replacement of some of the buttons and sliders..
Soundwise it is massive, and i really love how lively the styles and organ sounds sound.. There are no SA2 sounds or anything like that. But then it supports VSTs for adding those highly suffisticated solo sounds.. But all in all it was a great experience sitting behind that majestic beast. Awesome build quallity, big functional touchscreen, great keyfeel, best wheels in th buiseness, top sounds... But then if you want to drive a rolse Royce, you know what they cost...
One downside, it is not finished yet, many features like the VST support are not implemented yet. And in the hour i played the instrument, the instrument crashed two times. I would stay away from it for a while, atlease a year possibly two..


Afterwards i got my hands on the Kawaii MP11, and it proved again that i have a love affair with the Kawaii keyfeel. No keybed comes close to the Kawaii MP11.. If you want a stage piano and want grand piano feel, this is the choice...

I tried and compare it to many of the other piano keybeds, but nothing comes close to the kawaii MP11, well maybe the VPC1.. Others that i liked okay where the Nord stage2, the Kronos and espescially the Roland RD800... But all Yamaha and the cheaper keys of the other instruments felt out of place when playing them..

One thing i noted tough, is that the CVP609 piano sounds is miles beyound the T5, espescially when used in the piano room setting... Still strange they did not add this feature to T5.


One more thing i noted on the keyboards department, was that my switch from pa3x to T5 was a good one, i love the sound and features of the T5 way more then the Pa3x... Korg needs to really up the quallity of their solo sounds when they release the Pa4x..
.... Keep in mind that i dont mind the minor edditing available to T5 anymore, because i have a whole computer of VSTs for solo sounds that i can tweak around with all that i want...


And then i went upstairs to the computer music department.. Actually i was disgusted by the build quallity and keyfeell of most of those midi keyboards... However certain products here where of acceptable to good quallity... The Ableton Push device, the Akai APC40 and MPC, and the NI kontroll and Maschine where good quallity... The Nektar masterkeys and the Roland Aira series where also top quallity.. But in general most of this homestudio equipment i still consider toys.


And then there was the vintage department, i got to play a real B3, actually for the first time in my life. And a vintage mini moog, but also some modern analogue synths..


All in all i had a great 4 hours inside the store, and had some quallity time. Its the only place where i go witouth my wife, normally we do everything together, except working, everything except visiting music stores, and this is the greatest of them all.....