Dear Fillipe Tomas;

Where are you Fillipe? It has been ~ 1.5 months since you have received your X-76. Could you please provide a review & assesment of the Keyboard ( pros & cons). Further, could you create some demos highlighting the sounds & styles plus the audio-midi arranger ( which is not well explained). Thank-you in advance

Regards;
BN

I can answer all of your questions with regards to the Mediastation. Although mine arrived with loads of faults and I've since received a refund for it, I had it over a month so can easily give you some insight.

GM sounds - all of a very poor standard, the likes of Casio and lower end PSR instruments sound far better.

Lionstracs sounds - a few good ones but certainly no way near the likes of Korg, Roland, Ketron, Yamaha, Technics, Wersi etc

Styles - Absolutely terrible. Poor quality midi backing with weak intro's and endings that do not work. Very little fill ins or variations on offer. Later updated to some new EMC styles, still very poor, sounds like an ice cream van and not joking here either.

Audio midi arranger - The audio styles as far as I am aware are in production. They were not present on my Mediastation. No demos on their web site yet either. I have heard 2 of the demo styles for these and they are far better than the current ones on offer but they still have a long way to go to get near Tyros 2 territory (sorry but I haven't heard many G70 or Korg PA styles)

VST plugins - I could never get any to work although the NI organ plugin was good. My full version of Albino 2 never worked even though the demo version did.

Giga sounds - Having a 1gb piano sound did nothing for me, I've heard far better from arranger keyboards (eg. SD1, G70, G1000). Other sounds were reasonable but nothing amazing.

Keyyboard features: Very nice keys (feels like a FATAR master keyboard) but there is no aftertouch on them - this is ridiculous for such an expensive keyboard and is a must for me when purchasing an arranger.
Fairly easy to navigate around the various options and buttons but without an instruction book it gets hard to work out which to press at times. I think the instructions are just in Italian but there is a limited online help feature and also a help button on the MS itself.

To sum it up, the Mediastation I had came with loads of faults. These ranged from sounds cutting out or sticking, MP3 files pausing then speeding up in order to catch up to where they should be, terrible noises coming from some VST plugins (full versions not demo's), only main XLR outputs were set up, this I find very poor since many users would want to use the stereo outs instead which you have to set up in something called JACK. JACK never memorised setups when keyboard switched off so this process was lengthy. Most times I booted up there was no sound at all and it could take 6 reboots totalling almost 15 minutes until sound was audible - very poor. USB doesn't work for a mouse or keyboard have to use the PS2 mouse.
Couldn't use the update from net feature button as the server was always down or hacked into. I even had to reformat the entire hard drive after 4 days because Domenico thinks I messed it up. I never even touched the thing or edited 1 single sound as the MS always died on me. Even pressing the edit button and moving the resonance slider caused the MS to hang up most times resulting in another reset.
I know Fillipe said he didn't have these problems so I guess I was very unlucky to receive this instrument in such a bad state.
I honestly think the Mediastation has too many software faults and these should be ironed out before selling them. I didn't appreciate being a guinea pig for Lionstracs after spending just over £2600 on the top model - ouch

I would say the Mediastation does have some good sounds (synth type, karma/wavestation sort of stuff), for GM/midi files/arranger use just forget it. This is definitely not an arranger keyboard. I doubt even with the new audio styles if and when they appear it would come anywhere close to the likes of a Tyros 2 or G70 since the other sounds are extremely poor quality.

I'm not having a go at Lionstracs as Domenico is a great bloke and did try to help me. I have spent the last month living on Yahoo with him trying all sorts of updates etc to stop these faults but they all failed. He did also refund me so good on him as I guess some companies could have said TOUGH you bought it so live with it.

Make sure you try the MS in person and don't buy it immediately like I did.
The MS has great potential if they can put some good styles onto it. The sounds need a major revamp, GM wants updating maybe to a large giga type library which is possible with the MS, instruction book is a must, get aftertouch on the keys asap and get rid of all of the faults.... Maybe next year the MS will kick some serious butt in the keyboard world but for now it's seriously lagging behind.

Please note these are my findings from my experiences I had with the MS, the users who have purchased one of these that works should be able to offer a different view.
If YOU have a Mediastation get replying on here now..

[This message has been edited by Craig_UK (edited 11-01-2005).]

Dear Craig_UK;

I appreciate the time you have taken to write the review, as there is not alot of information concerning the X-76 or individuals who have actually played it. Do you sumise that any/all of the poor sounds/interfaces/styles etc.. could have been caused by the "bug/defect?" that was present in your keyboard, and with out it the KB could have performed much better?

Your KB had the 64 Mb Dimm ram with the upgraded GM/GS sounds?

I am surprised at your reported results. I thought that the demos on the web site were not to bad. ( i.e. bosendorf. 2Gb piano, jazz guitar etc..) I am assuming that you are saying that the demos are not reflective of the KB in live form? Do you think that the demos were modified?

Thanks
Regards;
BN

The demos were all poor on Lionstracs site apart from the ones posted by Andy spiller in my opinion. He is a great player and far better than the other guy who they have to demonstrate.
The faults did't have anything to do with the sounds one bit. The MS just has a very poor internal sound set, simple as that.
Why do you think there have been no postings of styles to listen to over the past year or so? - because they are terrible! Why don't Lionstracs show at the big music festivals eg. Caister? maybe because they know their keyboard doesn't cut it with the competition out there in terms of sound and styles.
As I said above, this is definitely not an arranger keyboard.

Hi, people, there are some mistakes on Craig explanation, i go explain just one now. I have one Mediastation X-76, one SD1, one XP-80 and a Korg X3. I open all my keyboard´s some times to clean. Like "all" people know near the keyboard key´s board (internal) there was a ribbon "connection" with 2 wires to make aftertouch. Right ? It´s the same think that tell the aftetouch is MONO. In audio lexic the aftertouch is allways stereo and one aftertouch per KEY, sow my XP80 have 76 ribbons connector´s of aftertouch, one to each note KEY. wrong don´t have, all people can open a XP-80 and see it with eyes. It´s just one ribbon connector (MONO). XP-80 DON´T HAVE AFTERTOUCH, but soun´d have aftertouch. ( INTERNAL SOFTWARE CONVERT KEY PRESSURE TO MONO AFTERTOUCH ). Key pressure is the right name to give to all keyboard´s, because is natural that key pressure is mono and aftertouch poly. How many keyboard´s that have "aftertouch" have many ribbon connector´s ??? SD1 ?? My not, X3 ?? my Not,,, X76 ?? my not..XP-80 ??... All my keyboard´s and off course your´s have fisical key pressure and "aftertouch" emulation mono. Saw MS X76 don´t have aftertouch, and XP80 not too, SD1 not too and X3 not too. Better, all keyboard´s have the same phisical system, in this ideia SD1 have aftertouch, XP80 aftertouch too, X-76 aftertouch too and X3 aftertouch too. Now it´s true or false the ORIGINAL aftertouch on all keyboard´s ??? off course MS X76 have "aftertouch" too, but tecnical it´s named "Key pressure" like other companies keyboard´s too. I´m completey open to explain better this if you want. Now i´m a little busy, latter i can post more explanation´s about Mediastation X-76 features and send to this forum a demo of me playing. I´m a alive player. Thank´s to all !! Bye

Filipe, the MS definitely does not have aftertouch. Even Domenico confiremd this to me. Release velocity and touch sensitive keys etc are all different.
The SD1 does have aftertouch as I use one and so do many other keyboards.
I don't understand your posting so waiting for a better version please.

I think you there dont know nothing about midi keyboards...
About all the keyboards have ONLY the Channel pressure control and NOT aftertouch: http://www.borg.com/~jglatt/tech/midispec/pressure.htm

The brands in europe, like Roland, Korg, Ketron, Yamaha, Wersi...use only FATAR keyboards.
I have here the FATAR catalouge and they DO NOT have ONE keyboards kits available with Aftertouch BUT ONLY with MONO Channel Pressure.
So...If you ther think to have Aftertouch, is JUST one illusion!
Ketron is the first one that will buy and use the cheap/toys keyboards from Fatar.
I had one SD1 too, broken some keys when I had loading in my car. I buy the whole keyboard in Milan for only 37 Euro.

About the " Aftertouch" in SD1:
SD1 use the Dream chip too, NO one sound have the aftertouch but some are programmed with the Channel pressure.
Just connect the midi out of SD1 to one PC sequencer and record the event.. you will see: channel Pressure.
IF Lionstracs use the FATAR keyboard, for sure they have the same control, but they dont have programmed some sounds with this CC.

From what I have read so far, I think you are all talking about the same thing, in that most manufactures have 2 sensors on there keyboards, one measures the speed the key is hit, which allows the system to work out the dynamics for the sound, and a pressure sensor, to allow extra effects the harder you press the key, however since keyboards like this have been made (A few decades now) manufactures have always called it Afterouch, and that is why the term is used instead of pressure.
It’s like most people drive cars, but the correct name is Automobile, but how often do people say that.
However no matter what you add on to your keyboard if the effect is not programmed in to the voice, then it will not do it anyway.
Finally yes, a lot of manufactures use Fatar keyboards but they come in different qualities, (The more you pay the better the quality) and I can assure you that High End Arrangers do not use the €37 version.

Bill

This is a great example of a horrible thread title. It says not one thing about the keyboard.

------------------
Bill
Yamaha PSR2000

Dear SemiLiveMusic;

The thread wasn't intended to say anything about the "Keyboard". Its original purpose was to attract the attension of an SZ member ( Fillipe Tomas) , in or to find out his impression of his new KB.

Regards;
BN