I FINALLY got a chance to audition the KN7000 in person last week and in ONE word, I gotta say, this is one fabulous sounding & beautiful looking keyboard. There was a KN6500 sitting next to it so I got to compare them. The KN6500 certainly sounded impressive but the vastly improved KN7000 speaker system really takes the KN keyboard sound to NEW HEIGHTS giving the Steinway piano sample & all the other legendary Technics orchestral instruments a whole added dimension of depth and richness. The KN7000 speakers bring on a whole new life to the support styles as well. I particular enjoy the swing patterns which seem to breathe even more now. The SD memory is another marvel. Hard to imagine how so much memory can be held in such a small card.

My disappoint comes with the drums. Though the drum samples themselves sound terrific, the volume of specific 'individual' drum style pattern parts (ei snare) seemed weak and without enough punch in relation to the other drum parts. In addition, the fills tend to rely to heavily on instrumental fills rather than drum riffs. I realize that one can customize and tweak these drum patterns, but it is not easy to edit 'individual drum note velocities via the Technics pattern editor, is it? On the KN5000, because there was no way to universally edit all the occurances of one specific drum instrument (snare, hihat, kick, etc), I had to go into the pattern step editor and indiviually adjust the velocity level of each & every occurance of a specific drum part, VERY time consuming & labor intensive. Does the KN7000 provide an easier method? It would be nice if the KN7000 had a special drum editor window where you could universally raise/lower the velocity level of all the occurances of just a specific note, reresenting a single drum instrument: snare, hihat, kick, etc.

Another disapointment is that there is no ONE button approach to activate a 'fill' when switching to/from ANY variation. My final beef is that the KN7000 vocalizer offers severely limited (1 only?) vocal harmony backup selection.

Even with my above disappointments, the KN7000 shines so brightly in all OTHER areas, that I rank it as one of my top 2 (or 3) keyboard contender favorites. If the few disappoints I listed above aren't important to you (and I'm sure that means most of you on this forum), then the KN7000 is DEFINITELY tops the rest of arranger keyboards on the market today.

Hi Scott,

Glad to see you posting here and to have the benefit of your thoughts regarding the KN7000. I am not buying the KN7000 and have already expressed my reasons for that decision in a post several days ago, so I won't repeat them.

Your comments regarding the drums and editing drum sounds, and the one dimensional vocal harmonizer are further reasons for me to wait until the next generation KN keyboard arrives. I would like to see vocal duet, trio, quartet, choir, and string quartet harmonies added to the options available when selecting Techni-Chord. I can understand your need for a facility to re-program drum velocities/volumes.

I have taken onboard your comments and all those offered by KN7000 owners so far. Your collective comments will no doubt be examined by Technics for desirability, feasability and cost. I think the KN7000 is a terrific instrument. I believe the next generation flagship keyboard will have software that is more user friendly and many of the features on player's wish lists will have been incorporated. Certainly, the next flagship instrument will be superior to the KN7000 in many ways and I intend to wait for it.

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts with us.

Beest Regards, Chuck

Hello Scott:
Haven't you auditioned the Tyros as well? If so, what are your impressions of it vs the 7000?

Hi Chuck: Many thanks for your kind words. As far as the inability to 'universally' raise/lower the velocity (or volume level) of specific drum notes (kick, snare, toms) go, I was only referring to the KN5000. I'm now curious to find out if the KN7000 may now support this, and hoping Alec Pagida or another KN7000 owner can provide answers for us.

In all fairness to the KN7000 vocalizer, I actually was less dis-pleased with its sound quality than I had initially expected. Though it certainly doesn't sound as good as the one in the Yamaha's, I felt it at least passable (minimally) for certain situations where you want to fill out your voice with the impression of a 'chorus' of voices behind you. The weird thing is that I couldn't find any other 'vocal harmony types' to choose from: ie female backup singer, male backup singer, female and/or male duo, etc. Was I not looking in the right place? Does the KN7000 only support ONE backup harmony type? I hope someone will FINALLY come forward and provide details about exactly what the KN7000's vocal harmonizer 'will' and 'won't' do.

Hi Larry: Unfortunately the Tyros STILL hasn't reached the California shores yet so I have yet to audition it. I'm of course anxious to check it out and compare it with the KN7000. One thing for sure though, the KN7000's speakers sound VERY IMPRESSIVE. The Tyros doesn't include built in speakers and I'm certain the Tyros computer type sub woofer/ satellite combo speaker system won't sound nearly as good the KN7000's. The KN7000 supports SD card technology, the Tyros opted for the older traditional HD approach.

Happy arranger keyboarding to all,

Scott

Scott,

Regarding the issue of adjusting the volume of a particular drum part, I'm not an expert on this but I have a suggestion that might help. Last night I did a bit of experimenting with this, but I didn't have time to take it right through. I took a style and found that the drum parts were using Standard Kit 1. I then went into Standard Kit 1 and changed the level of a couple of notes (ie instruments). This got saved as the User Kit. What I didn't get time to do was to try to change the style to use the User Kit instead of Standard Kit 1. But if that works, will that give you a reasonable method of bulk changing an instrument's level? I could complete the 'experiment' if you like, or may be someone else can comment on the feasibilty of this proposed solution.

Mike

Mike: SMART idea ! Your suggestion is a good solution for instances where you want a paticular drum part instrument's volume raised/lowered in ALL auto acompaniment style parts: intros, variations ABCD, endings, and fills. Unfortunately, this won't work when you only want to increase the volume of a specific drum part instrument in the 'fill patterns' ONLY.

of course it will work, just substitute the user drums in the fills only. That's exactly what I did in the Lord of the Dance tracks. Each drum can have 2 samples and has its own edit suite. At the same time you can reduce or take out the other orchestral parts of the fills if that's your taste.

Alec: Thanks ! I didn't realize you could assign a different drumkit to each individual part (vari a,b,c,d, fill1, fill2, intros, endings, etc) of a style.

Btw: On the KN7000, 'how many' USER drumkits are available?

Scott

Alec can correct me if I'm wrong, but as I see it there is only one User Kit, but you could set that up in different ways and save each version of the user kit in a separate panel memory.

Mike

hmmm VERY interesting. When you say you can save 'each version' of the user drumkit in a separate panel memory, what specific user drumkit parameter alterations or changes make up these different versions?

one user kit per sound memory, therefore you would save composer, sound and 3 bank panel which would load in less than 2 seconds. quote " Each drum can have 2 samples and has its own edit suite." This means that each drum sound can have 2 samples and has its own own edit suite, very like sound edit. You can also assign a programmable DSP to the drums if you wish.

Does this mean you can combine 2 different drum samples (ei: kick & crash) to create a drum sound which then produces both a kick drum & crash cymbal sounding together when playing just ONE note on the keyboard?

Exactly what 'sound editing parameters' are supported by the drum sound 'editing suite'? Do these include: velocity level, tuning (pitch), pan, and effects?

Thanks, - Scott

yes

Thanks Alec for your 'succinct' answer.
- Scott

Just to add a bit to Alec's reply which, of course, is perfectly correct!

If you select a drum kit and then select Program Menus / Sound Edit you get the Drum Sound Edit window. In that window you can select any note from C-2 to G8 and you have two sound parts you can assign to each note. For each sound part you can select Tone Name, Amplitude (Level, Touch and Curve), Pitch (Key and Detune), and Pan. You can also select a Reverb setting that that covers both parts.

If that's not enough, you can press Detail Edit and set or adjust Tone Dynamics, Amplitude Envelope, Filter / Eq, LFO, Effect DSP, and Controller (Mod Wheel) Assignment.

Hope this helps. I've certainly learned a lot about drum kit editing over the last few days! The mind boggles at what you can do with this instrument.

Mike

Supplemenary to all the good advises/solutions above I bring to yours attention to experiment with the equaliser. You will be surprise about the difference in output. Especially when you change the gain, fc and q settings in the display (see: programmenus: reverb and effect). Pherhaps it obviate the sometime weak sounds of some druminstruments.
Best regards
Cees

absolutely, another way to 'tune' the snare drum exactly.

This is all terrificly valuable information shared. Many thanks to all.

Scott,
Thanks for your review.
I was just curious . You wrote "I rank it as one of my top 2 (or 3) keyboard contender favorites"
What are your other 2 or 3 favorites? We all would love to hear your Top 1 , 2 and 3.
I would guess one of them is the PSR9000
Thanks , Larry Hawk

[This message has been edited by lahawk (edited 11-16-2002).]

Ok Larry, you put me on the spot (btw: surprise surprise, the PSR9000 is not included on my list).

My current Favorite (61 note) Arranger Keyboards:

1. Technics KN7000 (tied 1st choice)
1. Yamaha Tyros (tied 1st choice)
2. Yamaha PSR2000 (best bang for the buck)

Choosing between the KN7000 & Tyros depends MORE on your specific needs .

If onboard built in speakers and full keyboard mode 'pianist' mode pro jazz chord recognition is really important, I recommend the Technics KN7000.Unfortunately the KN7000 doesn't support pro jazz chord recognition in split mode, and its vocalizer is pretty much useless.

If you don't need or care about built in speakers, want a lighter weight KB, want the best split mode left hand chord voicing recognition, and a terrific built in vocal harmonizer is desired, then the Tyros may be the better choice. On the other hand, the Tyros's full keyboard 'pianist' mode type chord recognition pales compared to Technics.

Other things to consider: Both keyboard offer excellent navigation, though Technics may have a very slight edge. If exclusive onboard kb sequencing is important, I recommend the KN7000 over the Yamaha Tyros. Swing and jazz styles are better on the KN7000 while the more pop & contempoarary styles are better on the Tyros. My favorite acoustic piano is on the KN7000, afterall I'm biased toward the Steinway sound, I own one. I prefer the auto fill variation change approach to Yamaha, but Technics offers 2 fills per variation compared to only one on the Yamaha. The Tyros includes some outstanding new Mega Voice sounds: guitars and bass voices.

Though the PSR2000 (which I currently own) doesn't offer all the features the KN7000 & Tyros sport, it definitely is worth mentioning because it offers SO MUCH for the money, and really is a terrific sounding board in all respects, and even includes a terrific sounding full featured vocal harmonizer. The only major drawback re the PSR2000 is it supports no mass storage device and that the keyboard action feels more toy like than professional.

In conclusion, I only wish I could afford to own all three of these keyboards because they're ALL so outstanding, just for different reasons.

Scott

Wow ...Ask Scott a question and you recieve an answer . Thanks so much. One reason,I would lean toward the KN7000, being an ex Hammond Organ Owner , I love the Leslie Speaker sound that the 7000 provides, although I do not know if these sounds are available on the above mentioned keyboards.
Drawbar Rotary sound is important to me. The PSR 2000 seems like a lot of keyboard for the dollar and Yamaha has that great reputation. Like you I wish I could afford even one of them. For now my KN3000 will have to do.
Thanks Again for a terrific review ,
Larry Hawk