Here in the US, Generalmusic does not suggest a retail price to dealers. At Kaye's Music Scene the Suggested Retail Price is $4500.00. As we have been asked not to quote prices by Nigel, the synthzone moderator, selling prices are not quoted on this forum. This price is a guide only. All dealers may set their own retail and selling prices.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566

I came into my store today to play around with the Genesys. I called up a SMF of the Everly Brothers All I Want To Do Is Dream, Dream, Dream. I turned on the Vocal Genus which already had the vocal channel for the midifile selected, hit record and selected "New Stereo Wave", pressed start and recorded my first wave file along with all the midifile tracks. When done, I pressed stop, a screen came on which asked me to name my .wave file and which folder did I want to save it in. When finished, I found the file pushed play and it sounded.......terrible because I'm a lousy singer, but the recording sounded great. I then made a CD of my song when finished right inside the Genesys. This is a feature none of the others can do. I can really see alot of customers loving this feature.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California.

George keep us informed but you haven't answeard my question and that is. If you where to pic 3 best keyboards will Genesys be one of them that is considering and most important the sounds styles and overall SOUND. Appreciate if you would answear.
And one other thing how would you compare the styles to the SD1.

Thx TONY

[This message has been edited by ziggy (edited 08-25-2002).]

In terms of sounds and styles I cannot place an order of 1,2,3. I can however tell you my favorites of whats available on the market today. I am not going to include TYROS until it is in my store and I can play all the styles and sounds like i've done all the other ones. My opinion from just hearing it for a short time a few weeks ago is that it will be right among the top models on my favorite lists.
Ketron XD9/Vega and SD1 are on my favorite list (not the X1 because of it's piano sound and older numeric system for calling up styles and sounds)
Generalmusic Genesys (It does everything well so far!. Some might not be happy with weight, a carry over of WK8 sounds and some styles, but with enough new sounds and styles to surely satisfy most players)
Korg PA80/60(A very well rounded keyboard although I would say in the style and sound dept. just a notch below the other ones mentioned)
These all have outstanding sounds and styles. The Piano is stronger on Genesys and Ketron then the PA80, but I still like all the sounds on the korg.
In the next group would be the Yamaha 9000pro, the Roland VA76, the YamahaPSR2000.(Piano sounds better on the 9000 and VA76 than the PSR2000, but the 2000 has to be up there for styles and sounds although much less expensive than the rest. The Yamaha 9000 and VA76 have what I would call older type styles that are a little more bland and less exciting than the top choices and even the PSR2000, but many customers still choose these because they like more neutral styles).
I would put the Generalmusic WK6/WK8 just behind this group(sounds not as strong but still great styles)
The hard part of trying to group these keyboards is because in some areas, even some of the second tier models are as strong if not stronger than the first, but if you are asking me my opinion as to which ones my ears like to hear the best and which ones get my customers the most excited, I will stay with my choices.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

Hello George,

As always, great reviews. And I'm really diggin' the way you keep coming back with more stuff. Funny how I find myself coming back to this site at least once every two hours (what did he find now?).

Got kind of a different question for ya...Hopefully it's not too out-of-whack.

Have you tried to save some of the new sounds (or styles or songs) from Genesys to a floppy and load them into a WK8 (just out of curiosity if nothing else)?

I guess my question comes from you saying that it appears they are using the same processor as the WK8 rather than newer technology (which is fine IMHO). And, I realize that the same processor doesn't necessarily mean the same tone generators (or maybe it does?). I guess you trying it would kind of answer that question. If it doesn't work, or if it does but the sounds are terrible, then it looks like some tweaking was done to the tone generators.(?)

If ya get a chance....

Thanks.

mike

What did you mean by TERREBLE SOUNDS?????

Hmm, good question.

Okay, when we save a sound file from a keyboard to a floppy, what do we end up with on the floppy? The actual sound...Of course not. We end up with software that manipulates, triggers, and/or setups the proper parameters of the tone generating hardware in the keyboard. Pressing a middle 'C' on the keyboard simply says, okay hardware, you've been told how to sound, now give me a 'C' using that sound.

Now here is where my assumption comes in (and I could be totally off base here), I assume that the hardware comes first. The ability to make the sound has to be there first, right. The software sets up the hardware to generate the sound. And if that is true, and Genny uses the same hardware as WK8, was the ability to generate the sound always there from the beginning, were we simply waiting for them to develop better software? Or are the two always developed together, side by side?...Can't have one without the other.(?)

So back to my question about might work but sounds crappy. The Genny sound file loads successfully into the WK8, the new register displays correctly, Live Sax, for instance. But when you start pressing keys, sound emits (tone is being generated) but it's not the same, it's distorted or it has some weird effects added or maybe it just doesn't play at all. The software has given commands to the hardware, the hardware is trying to follow, but it just can't. It doesn't complain (because it wasn't programmed to), it simply can't generate the sound like it should.

That tells me that they have tweaked the hardware and I think that is a good thing. I would expect that from a new generation keyboard. I wouldn't expect the the new sounds of Genny to be reproduced by the WK8...but I just had to ask.

Kind of 'whacked', isn't it?

mike

[This message has been edited by msutliff (edited 08-26-2002).]

[This message has been edited by msutliff (edited 08-26-2002).]

Apart from the demo's of the Genesys on General Musics site, are there any other MP3's available that anyone has seen elsewhere?
I've got about a 2 week wait for my Genesys to be delivered and I'd like to here more sounds/styles in the mean time.

OK got you now.
Now about waiting 2 WEEKS, I have put a deposite about 6 weeks ago but haven't got it yet!!!!