Yesterday I purchased the Premium update plus memory expansion and hope the delivery won't last long. Even without the update the Audya seems a powerful arranger - I don't think I began to get even halfway of utilizing its full potential, so with this update I expect it's going to be super enhanced.

I liked several features that apear exactly the kind of things to add to the existing Audya which facilitated my decision to purchase it, such as more of a human responses with longer measures in the styles, character emulations, Arpeggios and new synth voice that I felt lacking to some extent. In addition, it's a great fix to be able to call up styles and registrations on the fly always having an immediate, smooth transition between the audio files (or so I hope). I have a lot of interest in the new Audio guitars and of course, drums, since the audio aspect is one of the strongest elements in the Audya (that's why I purchased it rather than anything else).

The Balanced styles and especially balanced voices will be very functional. And also the idea about 20 voices linked to a style that can be immediately recalled. I'm expecting to experiment with the new effects (though don't exactly know what kind of effects they are) because currently there aren't enough of them to my taste.

Does anyone have the instructions\pictures on how to open the Audya and do whatever required to install the update once I get it? I live outside the U.S. and certainly wouldn't want to mess around with any mistake about it whatsoever...

AJ will probably respond, but the upgrade comes with detailed instructions, including pictures. I had some anxiety about doing this, but it is actually quite straight forward. You remove the pictured screws from the case, lift up the top, remove two screws from the HD, and detach the 50 pin ribbon and slide out the old HD. This is done after connecting the Audya to your pc via USB and backing up your reg's, midi's etc.

All becomes very clear when you look at the instructions. I am just average and it went very well.

Bernie

I just received my Ajamsonic upgrade yesterday. I also got the Ajamsonic 2 DVD Audya Tutorial. The tutorial was very helpful for getting me up to speed with all the features of the Audya. I don't do well with written manuals and pick up information much quicker by viewing a good video manual.

I have one of the first Audyas' that arrived in the US; no memory expansion, so my Audya takes a few extra seconds to boot up. I have no issues with that but I guess it could be a problem if my Audya would lock up during a performance. The good thing about a Ketron product is it never locks up in the first place. Mine never has.

Very worthwhile upgrade and I highly recommend the product.

I had order and pay yesterday the ajamsonic harddisk at moment without ram because have old soundboard. but I'm thinking to change soundboard to for have 256 ram
salsaman do you have see about the space need for best sounds ? because you have the compressed version (no ram) how much the guitar , the sax ?? I'm curious and waint when arrive in italy

Wow... the angle of those two little screws underneath the keybed.....

You aren't kidding. The space was too small for my angle driver so I ended up using a flex driver to get in there.

Thanks for agreeing Bernie, I have only unscrewed the left even then had to remove the panel for the pitch bend/mod wheel to get access.. Really looking forward to the install tho, Henni and now yourself seemed to not get enough of this upgrade, and to be honest I haven't even have time to discover the Audya as is... The realism of the tunes that comes out of the thing is still unbelievable.. And AJ promised more..... Yeeehahhhh.. Keep us posted please Bernie if you've discovered something special in there,, need all the tips I can get. Regards to you.. Ky

Ky

I must admit I have had mine for a year now and haven't gotten into half of what this machine is capable of. I think the reason is that if it sounds so good, why fool with it. I have learned this is wrong. Even if it sounds good, we must remember that any mfgr has to try and please a multitude of tastes in music.

AJ's DVD shows how easy it is to change styles to your liking. Also, the whole board sounds even better, as they went through and tightened up a lot of styles. The sound certainly is live, but not as brash and in your face.

The tutorial, in my opinion, is very important for non tech musicians like myself, just like the upgrade gives me a big boost in sounding good without my doing anything.

Good luck and keep posting.

Bernie

Bernie... AJAMSONIC pack installed today.... LIFE IS FANTASTIC....Listen and Believe..

Hi all,
Just wanna take this opportunity to thank all involved in helping me with the purchase of the Audya, it is truly a remarkable keyboard.. I've played roland arrangers in the past, this year the Tyros 4 and now thanks to this forum, discovered the Ketron Audya, cannot describe in words, but for those with this keyboard, and what have already been said, may I add that we are a lucky few.
Thanks to AJ and his team, the Ajam pack have completed this magnificent piece of technology, there isn't a song in my library that the Audya cannot cater for with added realism and gusto.
If you not have yet upgraded the Audya, please do invest in it,, you all have gone this far having this unit, why not treat yourself one small step and install this amazing pack, and rest assured, any queries or doubts, just email AJ or post on this forum and this team of wonderful people will no doubt put all to rest.. That's with my case and today, I'm the happiest man on this earth.. Until my next discovery with this keyboard, I wish you all a very merry Audya christmas. Keep safe, Ky.

I take it then that switching the HD shouldn't be complicated. How about the memory expansion, though? Has anyone ordered it? Sometimes my Audya doesn't respond on time when I switch registrations on the fly. It's quite rare, yet seems to happen more often when the styles involved have lots audios in them, such as different user audio drums in each arranger, plus live guitars and the like. I speculate it's a memory issue, because it comes back by itself after a few seconds or right when I press the fill or break button or stop the style and starts back.

Ketron_AJ said to me in a private massage that the upgrade fixes the audio timing issues because they reworked many of the loops and slightly revised the software to load differently. So my question is, does the memory expansion make things better for you? Originally I was under the impression that the only memory expansion is of 256MB RAM but then noticed Ajamsonic Master Manual mentioning that the optional RAM is either 128 or 256MB. Certainly, I wouldn't want the smaller one...

I see in addition that there are some improvements on the second version of the Upgrade so I'd presume they send the automatically the latest one - am I right? Anyway, thank you all for the informative responses.

Hi Salsaman,

I have the same problem as you with no extra RAM... Mine takes a loooong time to boot, but then that's it. I have no lockups or any other odd behaveours, so no need to boot again during a performance.

I believe that Ketron is working on a one GB battery powered sound board for the Audya. That means that once your stuff is loaded into memory, it stays there and bootups will be instantaneous.

Til then, this poses as no problem to me. I still love my Audya & I have only good things to say about it and also about all the Ketron & Ajamsonic upgrades.

And yes, no matter what I select, be it voice, style, drums or anything else - the transition is smooth, no hic-ups of any sorts. I've added two more voices to be loaded with AJ's selection, so my RAM is rather full during usage.

And yes Ky, I also struggled swith those two screws. Worked out the head of one of them, so one is still not tightened properly on my re-assembly. But apart from this, the upgrade was a breeze for me.

Keep well all my friends,

Henni

The Ram expansion will not affect loading time, whether you have one of the first off of the production line or the last ones, loading time will be the same. The user ram is only for working with sampled sounds. It is not used for any other purpose unlike your computer which runs programs and operations in memory. The reason a computer starts to slow down is that once it fills available memory it has to use the hard drive as virtual memory, the Audya does not need to do this as it has ample dedicated system ram which is not accessible by the user.

The user ram is one of the most 'misunderstood' aspects of the Audya and has been incorrectly targeted by critics even before the keyboard was released.

No TWD,

Of course it definitely won't. Mine takes roughly three minutes to boot. But of course the new RAM expansion with battery back-up will most definitely solve this!!! I'm really looking forward to this & I hope the new soundboard can be had as an upgrade only also. If not too pricey, I'll definitely purchase.

Else I'll try to sell my Audya & purchase a brand new one. I'm still sorry for not choosing AJs electronic hardware modification to upgrade my older RAM.

All the best,

Henni

The size of memory doesn't affect the time to load, but does affect the max size of samples in total you can load.
It's the size of the samples (user created) which does determin how much time it takes to load. Ofcouse with a bigger memory you are tempted to load even more samples and as such, more time is taken up loading these. If you have a larger memory but still load the same number of samples as when you had a smaller memory, the time to load remains the same!

Now ofcourse with a battery backed 1GB RAM (when applicable), you might look at an initial (first time) loading time of 15 minutes to occupy the entire RAM, but once loaed, the next time you turn on the AUDYA, you will only need about 45 seconds (as is standard now with no samples being loaded).

As TWD explained above, the technology used in AUDYA is slightly different from other manufactures and so the specifications do not tell the same story. This is why (for an example) the SD1 (which only has 64 note polyphony) sounds richer than other keyboards produced at that time with 128! Different way in which sound is manipulated and handled. This same theory applies to the specifications on Powered speakers today ... you as the end user (unfortunately) need to go through to find out what is needed ... for you! 1000W on a JBL might not 'feel' or 'sound' the same as 1000W on QSC (how far is the speaker from the measuring device? What was the temp./pressure of the air in the room when measured by each manufacturer ... etc (as an example) )!

Hi AJ,

I wonder what effect will the Ajamsonic upgrade have on ketron's 2011 pen drive update. I have installed the 2011 pen on my Audya at the time I originally purchased it (as the US distributor sent the pen to me), but then lost the physical pen when I moved back to Jerusalem. How will I be able to keep the pen update on my Audya when upgrading to ajamsonic?

Thanks

ketron_aj thank's for send pack to me. I'm only thinks that not arrive before new year!
about "battery backed 1GB RAM" please can you explain more ? are you working on it ? is ready but need ketron italy software ? or is only a dream ? thanks

Leibniz,

We have a 'surprise' for you in your package!

Thanks,

AJ

Thank you AJ, I got the email... so I'm wondering what kind of surprise it is, candies? some Swiss chocolates? :-) I'll let you know about the surprise once I get it (by the way USPS doesn't recognize the tracking number).
Did you notice the above question about pen drive anyway?

leinbiz, I'm the same situation as you. my pack is started 12 december to italy and your ? we can see wich arrive first. the post in italy is very bad
about pendrive hope will be ok, becuase one of pen I have cleared for put my files, never think before that can be necessary in future

Hi pastroccio, I'm the same as you. My ajamsonic delivery started on December 12 to Jerusalem, so let's see which comes first.
At any rate, did you order both Ajamsonic and pen drive? hope AJ has some solution to my 2011 pen drive problem stated above. Anyway, if I were in Italy would have likely spent a lot of time in some espresso store until the upgrade will have arrived...