The Audya sounds simply wonderful. Thank you for posting that link Domenik!
The Audya almost has me convinced. Two things I am most concerned about when watching the video is the demonstrator is really pushing the buttons an awful lot and it detracts from his presentation. If a person is preoccupied with busily pushing buttons on the Audya it would also detract from a live performance of the person playing the Audya in a live setting in my opinion. I found myself fixated on that guy pushing buttons instead of honing in on the sounds and ambience of the music he was playing. Maybe he was new to the Audya's OS and also possibly not real familiar with the button layout. His playing was outstanding though and in the end that was what put the overall demonstration in a positive light. The sounds that he showcased were fabulous and the icing on the cake is that the Audya has 76 keys.
He apparently was not using any foot pedals to engage fills, breaks, variation changes or DSP modulation, etc., so if that was the case I could then see why he was pushing so many buttons during his playing. That and his possbible unfamiliarity with the OS and button layout, etc.
Another thing that has me a bit tempered in my enthusiasm is the vocalizer. In his demonstration of the Britney Spears song he replaced Spears voice with his own; yet to sound like a girl's voice. It didn't sound too bad but he kept turning his head away from the mic so it really didn't give me a very good indication of the quality (or lack thereof) of the vocalizer. I know the first video demo of the Audya's vocalizer at last years Musikmesse sounded rather poor in my opinion and more like a vocoder than a vocalizer and even though this one sounded better I am nevertheless still hesitant about the true nature and quality of the Audya's vocalizer and if it will indeed pass muster and be comparable to the TC Helicon vocalizers on the Korg arrangers or possibly even better. Or will it sound more like a vocoder instead.
When the demonstrator talked about hooking up external hard drives to the Audya's USB interface it further confirms in my mind that the Audya will have USB 2.0 upon release.
But if a person is judging the Audya from just the sounds of the keyboard alone then I for one have to give it a resounding thumbs
It will be very hard, in my opinion, for Yamaha to come even close to the sound quality of the Audya especially when you consider the audio loop aspect of the Audya. It puts the Audya in a class by itself in my opinion. In both sound quality and in its innovation with its ground breaking technology for a keyboard product it puts the Audya at the head of the pack and the other manufacturers having to scramble to play catch up. I can imagine Yamaha's mouth gaping wide open in awe and amazement at Ketrons accomplishment. As well as Roland, Korg and all the others too. Bravo Ketron! Bravissimo!!
Best,
Mike
[This message has been edited by keybplayer (edited 03-20-2008).]
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