I just bought a Solton X1 with hard drive and also purchased the vocalist expansion and the 13 switch foot pedal (this can be changed to 6). I realize it isn't right for my work. I've been playing a PSR 740, and it is lighter (I do a real lot of gigging in different places in one day), and it doesn't have the multipads that can be triggered by the disabled people I perform for. I feel like a real dunce buying something, and immediately realizing it isn't what I need. I bought the unit with hard drive and hardshell case from an extremely honest person. I bought the vocal card and footswitch from a dealer while I was wating for the X1 to be shipped. I don't want to take a loss on this thing except for the shipping I had to pay, but I can say I got a wonderful deal on the unit.

Please call (630)795-1775 or email lhl2468@aol.com.

Hey, give it a chance !!!

Seriously, you dont appear to of had it for more than a few days and you already want to sell it?? Surely, it cant be all that bad. You have possibly the best keyboard out there in the shape of the X1. It would be a travesty to sell it then later to find that it was the one after all, especially if you got it for a very good price as you say.

You appear to have a lot of extra features at a good price, not even I have some of the features/items you have, eg, vocaliser & carry case. What dont you like about the X1? If you miss the Yamaha styles, just say the word and we could send you the PSR9000 styles to you so you can play them on the X1. But surely, the X1 should of blown you away with its styles. I mean, the PSR740 is a great keyboard but the X1 is in a different league. If you got the PSR9000, you may find that its quite similar to the PSR740 that you already own, except of course its more professional and has more features.

Why dont you give the X1 another go before you make a hasty choice to sell it. Experiment with the styles on the HD, you have a lot of styles in FOLDER 1 for specific songs, they are brilliant.

DannyUK

Thanks Dan for your message,

I did decide to explore the X1 more and I am liking it more. There is some incredible instrumentation in these styles. I wish, however, that they didn't put orchestral sounds in so many of the styles. I got an offer for the keyboard today, but I told the person that I want to wait a few days. I am going to look at the Generalmusic WK8 this weekend. Has anybody played it? What do people think about it?

RE; WK8 -Every mainstream keyboard is a winner and loser, it depends upon preference and personal choices. The WK8, in my opinion, would be a great keyboard for your application.

You need to try it. I would be interested in your opinion as compared to the X1.

Well you wont believe it but I also own the GEM WK8, however, my father is currently using it. Its a good keyboard but I think its best usage for it would be its songs/karoake feature in which it does so well. The sequencer is fantastic on it as well and the operating system is one of the finest. Its very easy to use and very versatile, not to mention it looks very smart.

Now the down side. I think it has average sounds (I dont think its in the same league as the X1 or the PSR9000 with its sounds) and its styles are only average as well. They are usefull but I dont rate them as good as the other keyboards. They tend to sound quite plain, certainly the first 3 variations of any style sounds quite 'shy' not to mention very similar when stepping through them. The X1 has got to be the best keyboard for style variations, a lot of the styles on the X1 are just so different in the 4 variations, it really adds spice to any song you play.

By all means, try out the WK8, but I certainly would try it out thorougly before you exchange it with your X1. Believe me, you have an excellent keyboard in the X1, you cant go wrong.

As for the orchestral sounds in the X1's styles, if you dont like it you can turn them off OR just change/fade them out. The options are endless, you just have to spend time to learn it, the rewards will reap after a while, you will see. You can use the CUSTOM styles to change whatever you dont like from each style to suit your taste into how you would like the style to sound for you.

Anyhow, the styles of the X1 through an amp sounds like you have a band with you. You cannot beat the guitar strums, choirs, realistic drums & those Latin styles are just so wonderful.

Hear the WK8 but I warn ya, its not in the X1's league either !!!

Good luck,
DannyUK

Thank you very much for your opinion of the WK8. So you played it and in your opinion it doesn't compare with the X1 or PSR 9000. I think I might keep the X1, I'm going to tinker with it for a while. The PSR 9000 is prohibitively heavy. Sometimes I play in four or five places in one day. I can't be lugging around 50 lbs! I'll try to learn how to use custom voices so that I can pull back the orchestration on the X1. Sometimes the arrangements are so full that there's nothing to do on the right hand - and that's no fun! I really appreciate all of the help I've gotten from this website. Take care!

I would like to echo everything Danny has been telling you. My opinion is also based on my experience with all the keyboards you are mentioning. I sell the X1, the WK8, the PSR9000 and also the Korg i30 and the Roland EM2000 which are also in the catagory of the others. All these keyboards are very good, but as Danny has stated, the styles in the X1 are just plain great!.. All the others sound more keyboard like, but the X1 sounds more like a real live band. You might like some sounds in other keyboards better, and that would be your choice to make, but the styles are what sell the X1. Also, as Danny has suggested, turn off or go to the arranger function button where you can not only turn off any of the many style tracks you don't want to hear or change the instruments to any sound you want and store them in the style/custom locations (200 of these may be stored).
I have played and played the PSR9000 and PSR740 styles for hours and hours in my store, and as I have posted on this forum before, these styles still sound like all the Yamaha keyboards have for the past several years. There is nothing wrong with this, and for many players it is exactly what they want, but I am always listening for something fresh and new and especially authentic sounding for certain styles, and my opinion is that the X1 has not been matched by anyone to this date. I really hope someone else does soon, because this is what drives our market and makes it more and more exciting to be a musician in these fast changing times.
To comment on the WK8 for a moment, you will find that it's interface is very confusing for the first time to generalmusic users. There are many buttons to push in order to change a sound, and if you are not careful, you find that when you think you are changing lets say an upper 1 sound, you are in the upper 2 sound instead, and so you are changing the wrong sound. This is a very common mistake made on the WK series of keyboards. The styles are very good and the sounds are good, but not great. This is a keyboard designed in 1996 by generalmusic (the WK4) and has been around a pretty long time. Generally, we see changes made every 2 -3 years in our industry. There are things I would really like to see improved on the WK line. The most important being the ability to play songs directly off the floppy or hard drive without having to wait to load. This is the only keyboard in it's catagory that can't play direct from disk. In a live application this takes to long if you are playing a song and your audience calls out for another. In all other keyboards it only takes a matter of seconds to find another, and in the case of the Solton X1, you can be playing a song and finding another while still playing the first. Also in Solton, you can be playing a song on the keyboard using a style, and if you select single Registration mode, and have made hundreds or thousands of different registrations and saved them in a folder on your hardrive, you could call up any of these registrations while playing another, and at the beginning of the next measure you would have your new registration. Most of my customers are now using this feature when playing live, but never knew this feature even existed until I explained it to them.
I hope you make a wise choice and I agree with Danny that you give any keyboard you try a fair chance.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

I ran across this while reading some of the past postings and it got my curiosity up. What did Beakybird end up doing?

I, Beakybird, still own the X1, but I'm having lots of problems with it. Since I have fallen in love with the styles and since I never found a used PSR 9000, I have stuck with it. But the speakers short out intermittently after a half an hour of medium loud playing. I sent this to Solton in New York, and they said they fixed it, but they didn't. The keyboard came back with some of the keys damaged (Some metal object fell under the keys). Solton agreed to fix all this stuff and pay for shipping. I'm still playing the keyboard as I wait until mid August when they said they would ship this for free. Now I'm experiencing another problem. The X1 is sending double midi event messages to Cakewalk. I'm pretty sure it's the X1 and not the computer, because my Yamaha PSR 740 does not do this. So, I feel like I got a lemon that if it somehow could get fixed, would be an amazing instrument.

After days of frustration, I finally figured out that the doubling of note and controller events isn't the fault of the X1, but a miscommunication between X1 and Cakewalk. Basically, I am using one of pedals on the F-13 footswitch as a sustain pedal. This sends a system exclusive message F0 26 79 00 7F F7 to Cakewalk. The X1 wants to communicate that the one of the footswitches is being used as a sustain pedal, but Cakewalk interprets it as double all events being recorded. When I temporarily cancel sys ex recording, the recording is perfect and I still get sustain out of the footswitch on playback. I'm going to buy a regular expression pedal that doesn't send a sys ex message to Cakewalk. I haven't had any problems with any other sys ex messages that the X1 sends to Cakewalk. I guess this is just a glitch.