After having played on it at home for about a week, here are my personal observations:


PLUS:


1. Superb Construction, no plastics
2. Very good keybed
3. Excellent touchscreen
4. Many really good sounds/samples
5. Very good acoustic piano
6. Impressive Audio Drums
7. Equally impressive drum breaks and fill ins
8. Lots of stuff not yet unearthed by me

MINUS:

.
1
STYLES
Not all that many onboard (256) and rather monotonous and repetitive imho. Often using the same acoustic guitar in the acc. Sections 1 and 2, an acoustic guitar not even that impressive. Piano Bossa (Unpluggged section) is an excellent example of this. Only the first acc. Track is being used throughout the style.



2 CERTAIN SOUNDS/SAMPLES. Not too convincing trumpet, brass and even the ac. guitars


3 Operating System. A true nightmare if you want to do some signficant Inn-depth tweaking and programming. It basically all goes back to the original Soltons ( 1995) but as these machines have become so much more complicated there seems to be little logic in the built-up of the O.S.



4 AUDIO DRUMS

The strenght of its great Audio drums strangely enough also constitutes its weakness in that virtually all the styles in the SD7 use the audio drums thus making it impossible to intervene with the Drum Mixer, a great tool in previous models. Of course the Drum Mixer can be used in older styles and imho you should be able to replace the audio drums by midi drums if so desired, but so far I have been unable to do so.




5 REVERB ON DRUMS
Even with the reverb set to zero all audio drums retain a certain degree of reverb which the manufacturer will dub as “ natural “ or “ambient “ , but personally I like to be able to remove reverb to my liking.






6 USER STYLES

When replacing certain sounds in the acc. Tracks you meet with the following problems. For instance, let us assume you want to replace the guitars in acc. One and acc. 2 by acoustic piano. After having brought about these changes things sound just the way I want them to. Then I proceed to save the new ‘user style ‘.
Sof ar so good. However on selecting the new user style again things go horribly wrong in that the two new piano tracks are played two or three octaves too high.
No means on the instrument to adjust this, there is no TUNE function in the style department in as far as I have been able to discover.




7 VOICE EDIT

It takes nothing short of a miracle even to find out where and how you can tweak the voices….Nevertheless once you have done so and save the new voice as a user voice you are not able to use any of these user voices in any accompaniment track of the styles. In this way it resembles Yamaha and unlike Korg where you can do so to your heart’s content.



8 E.Q.
While you can adjust the right hand voices in the editing section with EQ Parameters all tracks in the style section have no EQ parameters. Of course there is an overall EQ setting at the end of the chain for the entire instrument
which is also limited in its capabilities but as I said no EQ on the acc. Tracks.
As Don suggested there is a way around this which boils down to the fact that you can simultaneously open the FILTER for all the acc. Tracks a little further.The effect is similar but obviously different from a real EQ setting….




This is how far I have gotten with the Ketron SD7 and it looks like it is not going to be my next arranger keyboard. Though I have dwelled on the negative aspects
I would like to add that for those who are not given to indepth tweaking and home recording it is an excellent keyboard. The characterists that I mentioned on the outset speak for themselves. I have heard the recordings and performances by Deane and Don, as you all have, and all I can say is that the instrument does them real credit. But for me………..I guess the new Korg is lurking in the wings one day

regards
John Smies

Thanks for sharing your review.

I found it very helpful and interesting.

Ron

John... Good luck with the new korg PAx4.

His comments indeed breath Korg... If you want full controll and superb onboard edditing... then Korg seems the way to go.. John allways sounded like a Korgy to me..

But for now John, enjoy the SD7, there is still a lot to enjoy out there.

The OS is a bit difficult and the manual is of little help.
I have struggled and will wait for the DVD that is promised.
With the new Korg and Yamaha keyboards available I sort of
wished I had waited just a couple more weeks before I jumped in. Lloyd

Not much resale value either!! Mine is STILL AVAILABLE!

Very bad sales figures according to the number of reviews at Europe's online giant Thomann: zero reviews.

I hope Ketron releases a Big Update for the SD7, peoples patience is wearing thin,....that's what players are waiting for & I hope they are listening to their feedback also.
I for one want to see them do well,...we'll see.

Updates and a DVD are fairy tales. I for one am not happy. Lloyd

I suspect AJ is in Italy right now working on the update with Ketron. I think that is a priority over the DVD. I expect the "update" to be huge, maybe what the SD7 should have been when they started selling it.
I find the operating system not perfect, but which one is? It is fairly easy to learn and negotiate once you spend a little time with it.
I like that you just plug a USB cable in and it appears as a drive on the computer.

As far as i know;Ketron working on a new Keyboard.. but i can be an oriental keyboard

Well, there are almost no resellers left in Holland, Ketron has a bad reputation with most of them, and after my personal experiences with Ketron europe and my Audya 4, which was a great instrument when and if it played (unreliable) i think i can see why.



The Audya top model is 6 years old, and its getting overdue. If i combine that with their current bad sales, it might be their last chance to bring something great innovative and reliable to the customers, or they might suffer the same fate as General Music.


And despite my bad experience with my Ketron Audya 4, its sad to see them in such position. because among my favorite user styles many are Ketron orriginated.

Seems as though the forthcoming update is sorely needed so speed is of the essence for Ketron to avoid hitting the dirt.

It must be remembered however, that the SD7 is a mid range keyboard and for full editing capabilities etc, you usually
need to be looking at top of range boards.

Have never played a Korg so I don't know whether their mid-range boards provide such in depth edits.
I haven't played an SD7 either but, on reading the Manual, the operating system looks as simple as it gets to me.

The board sounds very good for the price but people do remember the Audya problems and I really hope Ketron don't let themselves and their customers down this time around.

Still looking for the perfect keyboard? - no such thing, but if you look around, there is always one that's as near as dammit for your needs - some may cost an arm and a leg though.
Tony

Hi,

In Ketron's defence - the Audya problems have long since been solved completely. For many years already. And in their defence, the Audya was radical for it's time & still is, even six years later. Ketron ventured into a field that all others are hesitant to go. They are trailblazers in this regards. They were also the 1st to do time stretching & transposition on pure audio files. It is to their credit that they were able to solve all of the initial problems eventually.

In defence of the SD7 - everyone says WOW to the very few Yamaha styles using audio drums. ALL styles on the SD7 use audio drums. This alone is once again ground braking technology & once again Ketron ventured successfully into where others fear to go. At least give them the credit due for this. And from the few SD7 styles I was able to convert to my Audya, those styles are really nice & I have not even heard the majority of the SD7 styles.

Cheers,

Henni

It's too bad that Ketron had some bad years and people remember those much better than the later years when mistakes have been
corrected.
However, it's not fair to go back to those years when they are history.
All keyboards have had bad models in the early years. Lloyd
PS: I am not praising Ketron, just saying.

I really don't know what I'm missing here. I am a first-time Ketron Keyboard owner and have not had a single problem with using the SD7 on gigs I play almost daily. I was able to get it setup and use on it's first gig after only having it a week! I don't find the OS "horrible" as some here have said, and I don't find the styles difficult to tweak and save the changes. I have created user voices, changed OTS voices, tweaked drum kits, and save all of it which I use in different ways. I am aware of the Ketron past user support issues and understand why past Ketron owners who had to deal with the previous USA distributer would not be Ketron fans. But that has nothing to do with
the SD7 as a keyboard. It is common knowledge that the OS will be updated, probably will come this month. Afterall- Ketron closes in Italy for the month of August. Poor timing, but that is the way it is as they say. I would suggest those who have not played or owned a SD7 get some experience with the SD7 before posting negatives.

Deane

+1

I fully agree with Deane's statement. I'm getting lots of comments regarding the sound of the SD7.
If they address the omissions as promised, it will be a killer arranger.

Having started this thread and reading the comments so far I have to point out that it was never my intention to put the SD7 down. Perhaps I was rather brief in the advantages enumerated and did I dwell too much on the ( for me ) negatives so far.
As stated before I think the SD7 really shines in the live performances by Don and Deane, I seem to recall I even called Don + SD7 a match made in heaven. Knowing their own proficiency and the public they address themselves to I would imagine this to be close to perfection even without the promised update.
Despite all that I have come to the conclusion that it is not going to be MY next keyboard. Like I said before I will sit in the wings, try and amass a fortune and maybe, just maybe give the PA4X a chance. After all I passed on the PA3X and have had " to make do " with the PA800 so far. No regrets mind you.

regards,
John

P.S. I concur with Deane's remark that anyone not having first hand experience with the instrument should be wary in what one is saying........

Plus one here.

Case in point, I never had intentions of buying a Pa3x, but 2 years after it's release I went to Frankieve's store and played one, I ordered one from Frank a day later. In my opinion you have to play one and all the talk is fine but we all have our own taste and expectations. In October I'll be staying a short drive away from Lloyd aka Tyrosman5, I hope to visit with him and hear the SD7 side by side with the Tyros5 76 that he has running thru the Nano 600s, my ears as bad as they maybe will tell me something at that point.