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The Familiar and the Unfamiliar
The first thing I noticed coming out of the box is that the
Vega is strikingly like the XD9 and yet the more I looked
after I got it on the stand is that it sure is different than
the XD9. The temptation is to tell you the differences, but
if you don't have an XD9 that won't make a lot of sense. So
I will try to resist. However, if you have not read my review
of the XD9 it will help to do that first.
Ketron says that this machine is built on the XD9 and has
all the same features. Truth is, it has MOST of the same features.
For instance: The pitch bend and Mod wheel have been combined
into a joystick. Using the mod wheel feature on the joy stick
is ok, but you can't leave it set in position because it is
spring loaded to return when you let go and there seems to
be no graduation from off to on. That's not much of an issue
since most of us rarely use it by leaving it in the on position
anyway.
The first thing I noticed was Oriental scales just above the
keys at the left end of the keyboard. I have spent my life
learning to "get in tune" so mostly I don't enjoy
this type of tuning. Perhaps I need someone to show me the
correct way to use these. Until then, mostly this will remain
inactive.
The second thing I noticed was that the styles start in the
Oriental mode. In this mode, you navigate the styles by bank
and number instead of group and function key. It didn't take
long, however, to find that you can change back to the way
the XD9 functions by changing the settings under "Left
Control" to Occidental. Then the Oriental styles are
in the "Country" bank. There are 217 very high quality
styles on the Vega. 172 XD9 styles and 45 Oriental styles.
I spent several hours going over the Oriental styles and I
have to say that there are some charming styles. They are
really high quality and when I transferred some styles to
my XD9 guess what! They sounded NOTHING like the style did
on the Vega. This is largely owing to the Oriental percussion
on the Vega and that, my friends, is why I may be keeping
this Vega. I now understand why this is truly superior to
the Oriental kit on the X1.
I remember the high demand for the few Oriental styles that
were available for the MS series and those sounded like bird
droppings compared to the new stuff.
These Oriental samples are fantastic. And there is nothing
that keeps you from using these samples and styles in other
ways. I tried Girl From Ipanema using a traditional Pan Flute
and one of the Oriental styles and it was a great fit. This
opens up lots of new possibilities.
The thing is, you gotta have a Vega to get these styles to
sound right.
Now a word about the Jump Button. It is back on the Vega where
it was missing on the XD9, but it doesn't work like any Jump
button on any of the other Ketron keyboards. I fooled around
with it for a while and decided that Ketron was again on to
something. If you are on Arrangement A and play Fill 1 nothing
happens. However, if you are on Arrangement A and play Fill
2 you will go to Arrangement B. If you had played Fill 3 you
would have gone to Arrangement C or Fill 4 and Arrangement
D. This way you can use your to go to whichever Arrangement
you wish instead of moving up or down only one Arrangement
as on the other keyboards. I could easily get used to that.
You must realize that the Vega and the XD9 have newly designed
operating systems that do some pretty remarkable things. First
in my mind is their ability to play all the popular Ketron
styles whether they were originally done for the MS series
or X or even SD1. However, the reverse is not true. Those
styles written especially for the Vega will probably be acceptable
only on a Vega. The Live Drum Technology insures that everyone
else will be taking a back seat. Again.
Like the XD9 there is a Drum Remix in the Song Play mode.
If you activate it you can take out the midi drums on yours
SMF (Standard Midi File) and replace them with the fills from
your styles. You can also control the fills, etc. A great
chance to make a good song sound crappy, but also a chance
to experiment with replacing some Latin drums with some Oriental
sounds to give you a entirely new wonderful rhythm.
I was slightly disappointed that Ketron had not redone the
Program section of sounds to reflect some of the Oriental
sounds, but the Program sounds are the same as the XD9. I
guess I shouldn't complain since the Program sounds in the
XD9 really are special.
The Vega has Play Control and Left Control buttons like the
XD9, but located in different places and with slightly enhanced
functions on the Vega.
Since the Vega came a couple of days ago while I was still
trying to learn the XD9 I haven't had the time to completely
dig in to it, but there should be more next KNAT and I should
soon have a complete review posted on the web site.
In weeks to come we will be discussing various Ketron features,
but I will probably devote several tips to registrations.
I know of performers who will go for many performances without
once using a registration and others who use registrations
for everything. Registrations is an incredibly powerful feature
that can make your performing life much easier.
Most people think of registrations as a way to save the panel
(or desktop) condition to a file to be called up later. That
is true and less than true. You can save functions in registrations
that can be saved no other way. A great example of this is
the assigning of a variable to one of the wheels, like assigning
wha-wha to the pitchbend wheel. The minute you turn the machine
off and back on, the original condition of pitchbend returns,
but you can save many steps by saving the wha-wha condition
on the wheel as a registration and calling it up at need.
This saves a lot of steps in getting the condition back. There
are a lot of internal features that will save as a registration
and sometimes no other way.
Find the features you use the most and set them as registrations.
It's worth learning how to do that.
The first thing to learn is how to save a registration.
First get your setup exactly the way you want it. On most
Ketron products you will then hit "Save/Enter".
On all the newer machines (after the MS series) you will then
press F1 (Regis) and then make your selection.
Use the numeric keypad to select the slot (e.g. "Reg_001")
and then you can use your Value keys and Cursor keys to rename
it to something you would like (e.g. "WhaWha").
Then press F10 "Save" and you are done.
When you turn on the registrations during play and press "001"
or just "1" you should get the exact condition that
you saved.
I had intended to cover more about registrations, but more
will be coming.
*Remember: Familiarity breeds contempt. How accurate that
is. The reason we hold truth in such respect is because we
have so little opportunity to get familiar with it.
- Notebook, 1898