K.N.A.T

Issue No. 2

Hello everyone and welcome to the second issue of Ketron News and Tips (KNAT).
This issue is targeted for July 15, 2002, which is, incidentally, my wife's birthday, and I hope to put out at least an issue each month and sometimes two per month.

First I would really like to thank all the wonderful people who have gone to the web site www.ketronus.com and opted-in to this news letter.

The very exciting news is that my XD9 has been received. The next news letter will have my extended impressions of the keyboard. Of course I ordered with the Hard Disk and the Vocalizer. Personally I would never order a keyboard any other way. I also have a Vega on order if any of you are interested in the Oriental Styles and sounds, but it has not shipped yet. I will be giving impressions of that model in future issues.

First impressions of the XD9:
My first thought was that they had removed a bunch of functions because there were a lot of buttons missing as opposed to my X1. What I found out is that the buttons that they removed probably didn't help a lot anyway and the functions are still inside the machine. For example "Pianist" is no longer a button, but is accessible and more importantly I loved having the button but I never used it. That function is available to assign to the footswitches like the FS13 so I am not missing anything, it is just moved. There are some things that are gone from the XD9 that the X1 does have and that would be like the Sampler, 16 track Sequencer, Aftertouch and a few little things like that. Actually this is more of a live performance keyboard like the older MS60. Still there are a lot of functions that are more like the X1 than the MS60 and several functions that first came out on the SD1, like the Interactive Arranger, which I wish the X1 had. See the tip on the Interactive Arranger below. When I add the tip to www.ketronus.com I will add the procedure for the XD9 to it. All in all I think Ketron has come up with another winner. The styles are great and the arranger seems to play the MS, X, and SD styles with equal ease. In fact I believe the MS styles sound a little better on this keyboard than they do on the X1.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about whether the company name for the keyboards is Solton or Ketron. Here is the way I get the picture generally. Solton is a company that is a distributor of keyboards, but does NOT manufacture them. Many of these keyboards were indeed designed and produced by Ketron. Those models include the MS series. Back in those days the keyboards said, "Solton by Ketron". When the X series came out it became obvious from the naming protocol that the association was ending. The SD1 doesn't have the Solton name on it that I can find and neither does the XD9. Solton is still in business and they are now having keyboards made for them by different manufacturers. That is OK with me since it is was never Solton that I loved; it was the keyboards made by Ketron. What's in a name? Depends--doesn't it.

The other day I was looking at an old 1997 price list for Solton. The MS60 listed for $2750.00 while the new XD9 will list for about $140.00 LESS while including the hard drive and Vocal Harmonizer. AWESOME.

Well I guess it's enough of the gabby stuff and on to the tip part. This tip will also appear on the web site soon.

Visit me at www.ketronus.com.

*Remember: Age does not bring wisdom, but it sure lends perspective to knowledge you manage to acquire. Let's all hang out and make music until we get perspective.

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The Interactive Arranger

This is one of the coolest functions I have ever seen on an arranger keyboard.

If you ever played in a live band you have probably had the terrible experience of having someone else play over the top of your solo. Or maybe just be too loud when your are trying to sing or do a solo. This is one fine reason for using professional arranger keyboards or well designed sequences for accompaniment on jobs. But up until the Ketron SD1 arranger keyboards had a similar problem because they didn't know when to get out of the way. So the solution has always been to use patterns and styles that didn't have a lot of fill stuff to get in the way of your music. Now comes the Interactive Arranger feature and it appears that it will also be on the new XD series.

Here is how it works.

On the SD1 press the "Lock" button. The screen says "Lock and Interactive Arrange" The four boxes on the left side of the screen control the Lock function which we will cover another time. The five boxes on the right control the Interactive Arranger. Each of the top four boxes controls one of the "Chord Traces" for the styles.

For the Interactive Arranger to do anything you must press the corresponding function key. The box will then change from "Off" to "On".
The lower box will automatically change from "Inactive" to "Active".

Just for fun turn all four to "On".

The window will automatically change back to your performance screen after a few seconds.

Now pick a busy pattern and use the "D" arrangement. Usually "D" is busier than "A", "B" or "C".

Play the pattern and very softly play a key in the upper section of the keyboard. Notice how a lot of the parts drop out.

Remove you finger from the key and the parts return at the appropriate time. That's all there is to it.

Now you experiment with which Chord Trace or Traces you like to affect and have fun.