Italian Engineering!!

All made (not just assembled) in Italy.

There must be a reason(s) for this, right?

I never knew Roland arrangers were made in Italy?

The Fantom G that I previously owned (for 3 weeks) was made in Japan!

All the synths are.

Roland used to make their arrangers in Italy, then tried to offshore the production to China, had problems (no idea what) and the talk was that they were going to go back to Italy, but that must have been what caused the cessation of production. Seems that, in the interim, Roland simply decided to cut their losses (can't be cheap moving an entire production line around) and get out of the whole sector (TOTL and MOTL arrangers) completely.

Looking at Ketron's lunacy (factory or staff seem to be on holiday half the time, and working short hours the rest! ), maybe the thought of going Italian again just pushed Roland to seppuku?

"What do the top of the line Ketron, Roland, Korg and Gem Arranger keyboards SHARE?"

That they all are playing catch up to the great sound of Tyros 4 ?...

If this were a courtroom, that statement would be disallowed as conjecture, hearsay and argumentative.
DonM

then again it could be the truth nothing BUT the TRUTH

1, 2, oh well, you know what comes next...

con·jec·ture–noun
1.
the formation or expression of an opinion or theory without sufficient evidence for proof.
2.
an opinion or theory so formed or expressed; guess; speculation.

I MUCH prefer Roland's lead and drum sounds to those of Yamaha. I obviously prefer the Audya overall to both, along with some, not all, of the lead sounds. Korg is not in the running for my purposes. Those are opinions, but not conjecture because I've owned or personally played all of them. I can't comment on the T4, but what I've heard doesn't sound any different from earlier models. Another thread compared the same song done on Audya and T4 and I think I recall the jury mostly preferred the Audya's rendition. So maybe it's NOT the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Even though we all know you were just making a joke, I don't see a reason to turn an interesting thread into the same old mine is better than yours stuff.
I sincerely hope Yamaha has improved the drums and vocal harmonizer on the T4, but I haven't heard any evidence of that happening.
More to the point of this thread, it would seem the quality of construction hasn't improved and they are likely to continue to have the same problems with such things as sinking buttons, paint wearing off the plastic case and having to replace screens. These have all been recurring problems on various models and I have personally experienced all of them with past Yamaha models. I can put up with the delays from Italy for the sake of owning a unique and high quality instrument.
And that is my sworn statement and I'm sticking to it. The defense rests.

DonM

Having both the Audya 5 and Roland G70, I would say the styles and lead instruments on the Audya are better, but not the build, including the keybed. I know it is a few pounds heavier but, still a classy keyboard with some better functions.

Hi DonM,

Although I do not own one as yet, I am a huge fan of the Audya. Buit I'm curious though:

How did you compensate for the loss of the HUGE database of styles available for the Yamaha's?

As far as I can understand, there are not too many styles available for the Audya. Do you compensate by using different wave loops along with the same styles, or were you able to find quite a few new styles for your Audya?

I do not intend to hijack this thread, but I'm seriously looking for your answer. You can mail me in private if you care to respond at all.

Henni

Hi Henni,

One of the reasons I purchased the Audya was because of their u.Unique styles. I don't want Yamaha styles in my Audya. They are overproduced and do not sound like a real band.

However, with that said, you can use EMC Styleworks to convert Yamaha styles to the Ketron and use the Audio mapping built into the Audya to use the Audio sounds with the new styles. I have not done this as yet as I'm waiting for my Ketron update from Klaus.
I have other Ketron styles that have been converted which sound fine.


[This message has been edited by kbrkr (edited 10-14-2010).]

We will be A/B'ing both the Audya 5 & Tyros 4 next week.....more honesty to come..stay tuned.

IMO ketron has some great styles but out of every ketron unit I've owned I had to convert too many types of styles for my needs from other units to cover my needs, in return they sound weak & thin............they need to really need to improve some of the Big Band & Jazz, R&b, and a few others ..... a style library would be a nice addition also that you can buy.....they need to know that Better Styles, & More Styles = More Sales & more happy owners.

No problem for me. There are tons of great styles on board, and it's easy to edit them by changing sounds, levels, drumkits and yes, audio loops.
I also have thousands of styles from earlier Ketron models and converted from other brands.
DonM

How many of them hold up to the BEST of the ROM styles?

That's one of the things that gets to me. I want my band consistent. I don't want them to absolutely rock on an R&B tune, but them go all limp and lifeless on any ska, or whatever. Translations and conversions rarely EVER match the quality of ROM styles, IMO.

BTW, you have ACTUALLY replaced audio loops with different loops on an Audya yet? Or are we simply 'assuming' it's going to be easy? I can see substituting one ROM set of drum loops for another, but how about importing in completely new loops? From what we have read, even Ketron themselves haven't managed to get a completely glitch-free operation out of their own loops... Just how 'easy' or perhaps hard is it to get imported loops to line up perfectly?

I don't know where all these wonderful Yamaha styles are, but when I owned an PSR9000, Tyros 1, and Tyros 2, I was always searching for really good styles. Even in the public domain, I was lacking great rock, slow rock, Ballad Rock, Fusion, Funk, R&B and Country styles. If I wanted to play "Singing in the Rain", which was like never, I was covered with the Yamaha styles.

Even looking on YouTube at the new premium styles for Oldies Rock it just doesn't sound real. And now all the styles are going to have Vocal backgrounds in them. I would have to spend hours and hours editing copied ROM Styles to get them to how I would like them.

This is why I gravitate towards the Audya. The bulk of their styles cover most of what I want.

As a drummer playing the Audya styles, I feel a much better/deeper pocket and thus a better groove. When I started playing the Audya for the first time, my wife actually started dancing. She NEVER did that with any of my Yamaha keyboards. So, i guess the proof is in my wives dancing feet!

Please remember, this is just my opinion. You are all entitled to your own.

Al

[This message has been edited by kbrkr (edited 10-14-2010).]

When the Midjay Plus was released, several of the new Plus and SD5 owners, me included, requested that more styles should be made available for the Midjay Plus and SD5. AJ said that Ketron would consider converting SD1 and other Ketron styles for use in the Midjay Plus/SD5. Last September, AJ was asked about the progress of the conversions and he responded: "I'll have to look into this and see where we are with the conversions.
The AUDYA is a huge project that has absorbed most of our Engineers at the moment, but we'll follow up on this.
Thanks,
AJ"
So, it looks like until all the Audya issues are addressed, style conversions and all other Ketron product issues are on hold as we haven't heard anything about conversions for over a year (certainly, breakdowns and other such problems are addressed immediately)... Exasperating!
Ciao,
Jerry

I have always said you need to look to the past to get an idea of where the future is going. Numerically, Ketron haven't exactly been overflowing with new audio based styles on the SD1+, SD5, etc..

And the cost and time to produce new audio based styles must be an order or two of magnitude greater than doing it with MIDI...

I'm afraid it just doesn't bode that well, IMO.

''Italian Engineering!!

All made (not just assembled) in Italy.

There must be a reason(s) for this, right?''

don't know now, but until a few years ago, all these arrangers were made in Italy. The synth workstation were always made in Japan. I am Italian and I think that the reason is because arranger keyboard players were in high demand in touristic places like Rimini, were musicians were in demand in the hotels there.

Don't know now, though, it's been many years that I don't live in Italy.

[This message has been edited by arranger_yes_pc_no (edited 10-15-2010).]

The arranger was the bastard offspring of the home organ... and ground zero for the home organ industry used to be Italy. Stands to reason that many of the same people doing auto accompaniment for home organs would migrate to the arranger business.

Speaking of the home organ business. I did that for 30 years. There were some great sounding instruments that came out of Italy, but, what did all the Italian organs share? They broke down more while the Japanese Yamaha, Technics and the Roland Ateliar's rarely needed service. And really the Japanese technology was always ahead of Italian brands.

[This message has been edited by Scott Langholff (edited 10-16-2010).]

as for technology, Japan has always been ahead of any other countries....don't know if you knew that?

Also, say what you want but in the 90's the only brands that could really compete with Yamaha and Technics arrangers were the Italian Roland, Gem and Ketron.

Never seen an arranger keyboard from UK or France or Sweden... why ? No keyboard players there?


[This message has been edited by arranger_yes_pc_no (edited 10-16-2010).]

But my recollection of them is that they sold quite inexpensively...

They were the Casio's of their day

That might have been the reason in the 70's and 80's, but in the 90's I think the reason was simply work. Getting paid to entertain other people. Your answer doesn't really explain why Ketron or Gem didn't really price their instruments 'for the home user'.

But anyways, who cares....the present is all that matters.

.



[This message has been edited by arranger_yes_pc_no (edited 10-16-2010).]

I sometimes get the impression that the FUTURE is the only thing that matters here...

What is just ABOUT to come out, what is going to happen NEXT, what Yamaha or Korg or Ketron (or even optimistically, Roland!) are going to come out with SOON

Not so much about what we are playing NOW... And definitely NOT about what we have been playing for the last five years or more!

Hi,
I recently upgraded my Band in a Box software, so that I had access to all of the Real Track audio styles for BIAB.
What a difference audio styles make.
Rock & Country styles that sound realistic compared to the old midi versions. I'm not a Rock or Country player, but I'm giving it a go. haahaa
Unfortunately, the closest I'll probably get to having audio.

Can't imagine how brilliant the Audya must sound with audio tracks. Maybe one day the price will drop over here, considering our Aussie dollar is doing well.

best wishes
Rikki

Hi AJ
Wow,
am I imagining things, or does the STYLE COMPILER software allow you to create styles from midifiles, similar to what the Korg does? ie one long midifile track with markers, to define the intro's, variations etc
best wishes
Rikki

All this Italian engineering isn’t going to sell KBs, the T4 will perhaps outsell all the Italians KBs put together, so what gives. Yamaha know what people want, the Italians have only got their finger in the water.

AJ you forgot MS, Doh!