Ketron U.S. -- Main Page

But wait! Darn it! They took off some of the buttons. Boy am I bummed. So first let me find out what this keyboard WON'T do. It is a good thing I downloaded the Manual from the Ketron U.S. website and printed it out. Good idea because most of the things I thought were missing are just found in a different place.

I'll get to the buttons and functions later but let me say a few words about the styles and sounds.
There are 170+ regular styles to choose from. I believe that these styles are a great core group. As ever, Ketron styles are far ahead of those by other companies. The Latin things especially have a reality that is absolutely missing in other arranger keyboards.
I loaded 49 patterns into pattern memory from the hard drive before it was full so I had 219 available styles. Pattern memory may hold more or less than 49 depending on whether the patterns are very dense or sparse. I have been told that the pattern memory expansion will be available for this unit. The patterns I loaded from the hard drive are exactly the same ones that come on the X1 hard drive so I got a good impression right away as to how the XD9 handles the older patterns. They sounded very good and I thought that they translated better than on my X1. That may not be true since I did not set up an A/B comparison, but that was my impression. One very important thing is that the XD9 will play MS patterns, X patterns and SD1 patterns. That is a very strong feature.
I love the sounds and some are improved while others are the same as on some of the other instruments. I was happy to see the return of Blow Sax in its original form. That has always been one of my favorite sounds and the SD1 called it Night Sax and voiced it an octave lower. Welcome back, Blow Sax! There are some sounds that have been renamed, but that is not a problem. As ever Ketron uses the very best sounds and styles in the world. Believe me that is true. The sounds and styles were chosen to be just a bit more contemporary than the earlier keyboards. I don't mean that they are heavily Hip-Hop, but the Country are more modern country, the Jazz is more modern etc.
As I have stated elsewhere, I would never buy a keyboard without a vocal harmonizer and Hard Drive if those options are available. The Hard drive comes loaded with over $1000.00 of software which includes some sound banks and over 400 patterns. Folder 1 contains 3 high quality sound banks and nearly 75 song style patterns. Folder 2 contains the 99 ROM styles from the MS100 while Folder 3 contains the 99 ROM styles from the MS40/50/60. Folder 4 contains over 140 of the most popular extra styles that were sold by Ketron for the MS series as extra styles. All these styles disks which retail for $30.00 per disk containing 10 styles each gives you an idea of the incredible resources at your disposal.

Ok--Buttons and functions!
There are a couple of new buttons. One called "Left Control" and one called "Play Control". These buttons do a lot of functions without a lot of fuss.

First let's talk about "Left Control". Under this button you have two jump functions instead of the one like on all the other keyboards from the MS series on. Now the Jump function can be assigned to either the fills or the intro/endings or both. Saved a button and improved the usage. Cool.
Then there are the three functions that used to be buttons for bass. Manual, Lowest, Root.
Next you can turn on or off the Interactive Arranger.
The last function sets the Split. Another button saved. Still I liked having it on the top even though I must admit I rarely used it. No big loss realistically if you can remember where it is. Then...
PAGE TWO:
There are only four functions on page two of "Left Control".
First is the important (to me) Pattern Edit which works just like X1 and SD1.
Second is Retrigger and Mode. I usually build this function into my patterns so no biggie except for people who want to change the way a pattern works while performing.
Third is a new function or at least I never found it elsewhere. Dynamic Arranger, and it could be highly useful for live performance. Turn it on and the volume comes down to a preset level so you could talk over it, introduce songs, say goodnight or whatever and when you turn it off and hit the chord again, the level comes back full.
Fourth is the on/off for the Interactive Arranger. The Interactive Arranger is the coolest thing on a keyboard since polyphony.
A lot of buttons saved and several new functions and others improved.

Under "Play Control" is the same scenario. And in most cases I agree with the layout.
First is Fade. OK I'll give up the button because the styles have such great intro/endings, but if I were a person who does a lot of fading in and out (I'm not) I would rather have the button. Of course I could always get an X1 or SD1.
Second function is "On Line Effect". They could bury this as deep as they want. I don't personally know of anyone who uses this function, but it is there.
Third is Portamento. It is OK to lose the button for this. I only use it for recording anyway so time is not an issue.
Fourth is Harmony select. Push this button and the screen displays the choices for keyboard harmony. The choices have been improved and there is still a button to turn Harmony on/off.
Fifth is Octave. Sorry, but I think this should have been kept on top.
Sixth is Pianist. Like several of the other functions the button is missing yet the function remains intact and Ketron has provided a link so you can add it to your FS13 or FS6 function switches.
Seventh is Piano Sustain.
Eighth is Pattern Mode.
Ninth is the Vocalist on/off.
Tenth is Rotary on/off which then goes to the modulation wheel.
PAGE TWO--another nine functions.
First is Second Sustain--a pretty useful function if you use Second Voice a lot.
Second is Second Split--same as above.
Third is Velocity Curve. Most people only set this once and then save Power On Setup and just keep it the way they like it.
Fourth is 2nd Voice Edit. You never need a separate button for this function anyway.
Fifth is a newer function called 2nd Lock. It does just what the other lock functions do.
Sixth is the Bassist on/off. I don't play good enough left hand bass to need this up top, but the way it works is extremely useful. With this function selected, the left hand play a manual bass line below the split and the right hand triggers the chord changes if you play more than two notes. After playing a three note chord you can then solo over it with your right hand without changing the chord until you play another three note chord. Absolutely not for beginners--but an exceptionally useful advanced feature.
Seventh is Drum Remix
Eighth is Bass Boost. You can get up to six dB of bass boost at selected frequencies.
Ninth is where you select those frequencies.

Another vastly improved function is the One Touch. The button is still on top, but now we can have 60 "favorite sounds" instead of the 48 of on the X1 which this instrument is more akin to than the SD1 which had a lush 80 one touch functions. This functions like the SD1 as far as operation which is more useful. I have arranged my One Touch functions into groups that I can remember. There are ten selections on each of six screens (total 60) and my first 5 are pianos; second five, organs; etc. The good news is that if you don't like the arrangement of voices you can change it to your liking and it isn't hard to do.

As far as the virtual drawbars are concerned I can't do much better than insert what I wrote about the X1 a couple of years ago;
n discussing the super sounds I left out the organ sounds on purpose. This little gadget has "virtual drawbars". If you are old enough or lucky enough to have gotten to play around with a real Hammond B3 in the past, you will have a fit of déjà vu when it comes to playing with the organ sounds. In addition to the nine or more sounds in the internal section, you can modify those to your taste and save in a lot of places and then there are 16 fully programmable slots where you can play with those lovely drawbars and save your settings if you find some that you love. You also have a choice of key click and a couple of kinds of percussion very much like a B3. The key click and percussion are variable as to level from 0 to 63. You can also get the effects to do some crazy things to the sounds.
I find it interesting that as near as I can tell this is about as good a B3 (and others) sound as you can buy without actually having a dirty old B3. There are a lot of keyboards and modules on the market today that give you ONLY Hammond sounds and many of them cost as much or nearly as much, as this entire keyboard.

There is a new feature called Drum Remix that, in the Song Play mode, allows you to substitute the drums from any pattern, including fills, for the drums in the song. That means you could take a Standard Midi File with a weak drum track and use the better drums from the XD9 styles. The style drums sync up to the original track. You can also do some really dumb things like put a Hank Williams ballad to a Hip Hop beat. Not an improvement, but it may give you some arrangement ideas.

Again, here is the deal. A lot fewer buttons, but two buttons replace a lot of buttons that many of us used only rarely. A lot more functions including some that will be very useful and a lot of functions that have been improved.

In summary I have got to say that this keyboard is an absolute winner. It has a host of advanced useful features that are unbeatable. For the fifth consecutive model, all the other manufacturers will be playing catch-up.

PS. I will add to this review from time to time as I discover other cool things so check back once in a while.

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