Jose,

I hear what you're saying. Since I wrote last, about days ago, something good happened to me. I discovered my LOCAL music put a PA3x on the floor for demo. I've been playing it every night now for a total of about 8-10 hours.

The first issue I had was the same as yours. The drums do sound too much like synth drums and were not crispy, clear. I never heard a bad "synthesized" cowbell until I heard this one. In all fairness, I remember what someone here said about "EQ-ing" in "global" mode. We emphasized around 6K and the drums cleared up somewhat.

I didn't care much for the "fills"......no drama in them! I didn't work with the intro's or endings at all. Piano...I didn't get to listen to, saxes.......I heard they were awful, so I didn't bother listening to them.

I DID particularly like the Dixie trumpet and musette accordion and (very lush) strings.

All in all, I thought the "whole" sound was somewhat muffled and all parts sound crunched together.

Now, check this out. While I was playing it in the store, I had at least 1/2 dozen people come over and compliment me. Two of them went as far as to say that with my playing ability, I should buy the PA3. I didn't understand what they were talking about. I honestly thought I sounded like rubbish. But, I had recorded 2 hours of my playing on it. As I listened to the recording, the whole thing sounded "different." Suddenly I'm hearing it from 10 feet away (where the recorder was recording). For some strange reason, it sounded much better now. If I didn't know better, I'd think I was playing a real accordion. And the "strings" sounded superb when I played the string orchestra part of Save the Last Dance For Me. Even the drum patterns seemed to have more "bite" to them!

So I think I like it more now. The only thing holding me back is those dance styles. They are some of the worst I ever heard. A few of them had completely "off-tempo's" (too fast), so I have to wonder how much effort the programmers put into them.

Now there might be 300-400 styles, but I find most of them.....useless...repetitive. Is anyone really going to know that you're using "Rock 1" instead of "Rock 2?"

They focused too much on contemporary sounds and skimped on the "traditional" dances. Not a lot of "big band" stuff, various cha-cha's, waltzes, marches, etc. I mean.....relative to how arranger manufacturers used to stuff their keyboards in the past.

I think the Tyros has a good mix of colorful well-thought out styles, as I remember, and, in my book at least, Ketron remains #1, Numero Uno for the best quality styles and the best assortment of them.

Yes, I loved that Roland G-70. I played it for hours when it first hit the stores. I'm not sure why I never bought one....possibly the "weight" factor?

On the plus side, the PA3 is incredibly versatile. Just being able to "mix" those part in real time, and the programmable joy stick, the EQ, editable styles, the vocoder, etc makes it very tempting.

As I say, the only thing holding be back is being able to get my hands on some decent dance patterns. I'm going to spend an afternoon this week at the library listening to all PA3x demos.

And....I'll see what the new "update" brings and then make a decision.

Mark