I spoke today with Solton in New York and the latest word on when the SD1's will arrive here in the USA is within the next 30 days. I hope this is an accurate guess and keep in mind that this is not official, but it's still on track for Solton's original estimate of between 60 and 90 days from the NAMM show here in the US.
I know there are many of you who have ordered your SD1's from me and other dealers and thought I could get this message out to many of you through this forum.
Thank You for your patience. I assure you it will be worth the wait!
George Kaye

Hi George,

I heard the same 'news' from the European distributor in Brussels (Belgium)
I ordered the SD1 several weeks ago and was hoping the SD1 would arrive in March....
It's hard to wait... but the X1 helps me through these loooong days ;-)

Roel

Hi George,
Any word from Solton regarding my request (via your email to Lou at Bell Solton & Sandro in Italy) for rootless type chord voicing recognition in the new SD1?
http://www.synthworld.com/ubbs/Forum37/HTML/001167.html

This request was made over two months ago so I'm surprised that Solton has not at least responded to your email inquiry. I hope this is not an indication of Solton's customer relations. Thanks in advance for updating me on this situation.
- Scott

[This message has been edited by Scottyee (edited 03-29-2001).]

George,

It is truly disappointing news to find out from you that Solton has apparently decided to ignore the chord recognition issue. Even if they decided againest making any changes in this department, at least they should have shown the professionalism to at least have responded to your repeated emails regarding this issue.

At this point I must regretably say that I will not purchase a Solton product. Not only because they don't support the rootless chord recognition feature, but because they apparently have no interest in maintaining good customer relations. This in my opinion shows a serious flaw in the company no matter how good the product is.

George, Thank you so much for all the efforts you made in attempting to repeatedly contact both Lou at Bell Solton, NY, and Sandro in Italy regarding this issue.

- Scott

3/30: NEXT DAY FOLLOW UP:
The above posting made yesterday was in response to George Kaye's 3/29 posting (which he subsequently deleted) reporting that he was also disappointed that he had NOT received any word from Solton regarding my request for rootless chord voicing recognition. Apparently after reading my above posting, this news got quickly back to Solton, and they further investigated their records to determine that Solton HAD indeed responded to my rootless voicing request way back in January, but the news (email) NEVER got back to either George Kaye or myself. I don't know if this sudden "180 degree turnaround" news revelation was a result of someone reading my obviously negative comments in regards to Solton's customer relations or not, but apparently, Sandro, the head of Solton , had stated in an email (way back in January) that my jazz type "rootless chord" voicing recognitions would be implemented in the shipping version of the SD1. This certainly is "very encouraging" news. Please read my posting below for more details.

- Scott

[This message has been edited by Scottyee (edited 03-30-2001).]

Scott Yee,
It's Friday morning here in LA and about 20 minutes ago I got off the phone with Lou at Bell Duvox, New York who is the main distributor here in the USA. Lou had been informed of my commments here on the synthzone and went back into his emails from Sandro from Italy, all the way back to late January, right after the NAMM show. Lou did receive my email and fowarded it to Sandro in Italy. I am going to quote as accurately as I can the email sent from Sandro to Lou almost 2 months ago.
"Rootless, Jazzy chords can be implemented as asked for by Mr. Scott Yee. I think we can easily implement this in the last software revision before we begin shipping".
I wish we would have known this before, but Lou called me to apologize for not getting this information to me sooner. As I have always known from all the Italian Company people, they prefer to answer questions through Bell Duvox in New York rather than trying to reply to all those asking questions.
This is good news for all those who would like to see the rootless chord recognition implemented in Solton keyboards.
I only wish I had this information when I posted my comments to Scott and others. I will be more carefull in the future.
Regards to all,
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

Hi George and all,

Finding out just today that Solton will finally be implementing in its' Solton SD1, the rootless chord voicing recognition I had been requesting for such a LONG time, is truly amazing and WONDERFUL NEWS to my ears. It is even MORE interesting to discover that the head of Solton-Ketron, Sandro himself, had not only ‘personally’ responded to my request via a personal email to Bell Solton NY (way back in January) but also promised to have the “rootless chord” voicing recognition implemented in the final SD1 software revision before shipping.

To be honest, I was really beginning to really feel ignored by Solton, but apparently there was a major communications snafu and Sandro’s original January email response never got back to George Kaye or myself until today, March 30th.

If Solton in fact does follow through on its’ promise to add full rootless chord voicing recognition in the release version of the SD1, I will be most anxious to take a serious look at upgrading to what I remembered (from my short time playing the SD1 at the Jan NAAM show) a truly remarkable keyboard which has both exciting and realistic sounding styles and sounds. If the rootless chord voicing recognition gets implemented in the SD1 as promised, I now will no longer have to simply “get over it”! Let’s keep our finger’s crossed. Three CHEERS to George Kaye for all his help and support. He is not only an honest keyboard dealer, but a guy who really cares and listens to our needs as musicians.

Here is a link to my original email sent to Sandro at Solton & Lou Lazarro at Bell Solton, NY, via George Kaye. This clearly outlines all my chord voicing recognition change requests:
http://www.synthworld.com/ubbs/Forum37/HTML/001167.html

- Scott


[This message has been edited by Scottyee (edited 03-30-2001).]

Thank you George. Dan O

George you can move mountains!!!!
Scottyee, If rootless chord recognition is implemented in the SD1 and you don't buy one from George!#?*&^%$

Scott,
Can I have your KN5000 when you switch to the SD1?


Tom

Congratulations, Scott!