PAGE 12 DECEMBER 2006

ORGAN & KEYBOARD CAVALCADE
Ketron SD5 1,750 by Michael Wooldridge
Well here we are and its nearly Christmas again! It seems amazing how the year has flown by and, for me, it has been a very hectic one indeed. I started the year with a business trip to Las Vegas to set up my touring stage show, Liberace Live from Las Vegas, which was so well received this autumn that it will be out on the road again next year, then there were some gigs at the famous Empress Ballroom, Blackpool (and elsewhere) with one of my musical heroes, big band drumming legend Eric Delaney, and, rather nice after all of these years in the trade, as well as performing at many of my regular favourite societies, I have played for some organ clubs where Ive never been before! Besides all of this, on a personal level I am soon to be married again, with everything on track for a February wedding to Carole, which brings with it an impending house move and two delightful children, Katie and Simon. I hope youve also enjoyed a good year and would like to take this opportunity to wish you all the very best for the coming Christmas and New Year period. If you havent yet chosen your Christmas present, this months review keyboard could well jump to the top of the list. It seems that as every month goes by there are new and better keyboards released onto the market and they nearly always seem to get better for a more reasonable price. For many years Ketron have been renowned for producing keyboards that sound incredibly good but, perhaps because they have operated in a slightly different way to some other manufacturers products, have sometimes been a little tricky to operate. With this very much in mind, and not having received an owners manual with the keyboard, I was very interested to see how I would get on! The first thing to strike me when I opened the box was how very sleek and smart the new Ketron SD5 actually is. All finished in brushed silver, it is just 5 thick, quite amazing. Having 5 octaves (61 keys) it is the pretty standard 46 wide and a fairly slender 15.6 deep. To complete the statistics, it weighs in at 37.4lbs and, all in all, is a very nice compact unit. As I went round the back to find where the mains lead plugged in, I was amazed at the array of sockets on the back panel. I still have old keyboards in the attic here that, besides keys and stops, only have a mains lead and a jack plug for their mono signal output! Here, not only do
we have left and right outputs, we also have two MIDI ins, one for GM sounds and one for the keyboard, Midi out and through, a computer interface socket, a multi-pin footswitch connector, sustain and volume jacks, a microphone output jack and a speaker on/off switch. Interestingly, unlike most other makers, they have chosen to stick with a Floppy Disk Drive, although for an extra 250 you can have the Hard Disk version of the keyboard. Thats not where it all ends as, rather handily placed on the left end of the front panel there is a headphone socket with its own slider for volume and the microphone input jack. Thinking of the microphone input for a moment, I thought it was great that they have included a couple of buttons specific to this, one for adding effects such as echo and reverb, and another which, at the touch of a button, marked Talk, gives you a clean, straight through microphone for talking to an audience without having to make any adjustments. I mentioned the speaker on/off switch and this does highlight the fact that yes, unlike some keyboards, the SD5 is blessed with its own in built speakers, a stereo pair offering a total output of 44W RMS. Whilst I understand the reasons why having separate speakers can be good, I do very much like products to have their own speakers, as this means you can use them entirely independently of any other equipment. The speaker on/off switch here is a nice, easy way to mute them out when you have it hooked up to bigger and better things. The nice, easy trend does continue on this keyboard and I do very much appreciate that they have chosen to put on quite a number of clearly labelled, nicely spread out buttons, each dedicated to a straightforward little task of their own. This makes a product just oh so much easier to play than having multi-function switches and windows to delve through. Of course, it does have a screen in the middle of the panel and, rather than providing a touch screen, they have chosen to go down the more traditional route of a backlit monochrome display with a series of selector buttons down each side. This functions perfectly well and seemed to always provide the right options for what was needed. When you turn it on, you are presented with a very lovely grand piano sound. This is rich, full and lifelike. It was whilst this initial sound was set up that I explored a few of those dedicated buttons. They are great to use, as they just do what they say! One pair is marked Octave - and +, and they drop or raise the sound in use by one octave. Next door is Double, which sounds the note you play along with the one an octave lower. Harmony adds the notes of the chord you play to the left of the key split, or adds trills, repeats or a few other options. Portamento makes it slide smoothly from note to note. Pianist sets the Right sound section so that it plays on the whole keyboard. The other one in this line is After Touch, which adds vibrato to a sound if the key is pressed more firmly after playing. I really, really appreciated how simple it

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was to use these and really wish that all manufacturers would give us more buttons. It is also worthy of note that, whilst the buttons on the SD5 are all grey, because they nearly all have little red lights set in them, it is easy to see what you have selected at any time. So, moving on from the piano, the myriad of available sounds are actually located in family groups. There are all of the usual headings, Piano, Chromatic (tuned percussion), Organ, Accordion, Guitar, Strings, Brass, Sax/ Flute, Pad, Synth, Ethnic and Bass/FX. On pushing any one of these, the window changes to show the sounds in that family and how many pages of them are available. For example, push Chromatic and it will tell you that it is page 1/1. Select Pad and it tells us it is 1/3. The huge majority of sounds here are first class. One of my previous gripes with Ketron products is that they have a sound called Chimes, which sounds like a highly percussed Celeste and then they have a sound called Bell, which actually is the Chimes! For some bizarre reason, this is still the case! I particularly liked the aforementioned Grand Piano, the Vibraphone and very lifelike Marimba. Moving on to the organ sounds, the Church organs are very good. The Drawbar Organs have a great tone to them but, for my taste, many have a little too much Chiff or Key Click effect each time you play a key. Extraneous sound also makes a re-appearance when changing the rotor speed from fast to slow, as there seems to be a bit of switch noise through the speakers when changing, which is a shame after they bothered to give us proper little buttons to do it with. I suspect that this is a prototype issue that will be rectified by the time you get yours but, if you use drawbar sounds a lot, do keep an ear out for it when you try one. The Cinema and Theatre Organ combinations are, once again, flute drawbar based sounds and, as such, give the sound of a Hammond type electronic organ being played with a big sound, rather than that of a theatre pipe organ. The Accordion and Guitar sections are both brim full with great sounds and offer just about every variation imaginable. I particularly liked the very straight sound of the Tango Accordion and the slightly detuned Parisienne. Of the guitars, there are just so many fabulous sounds. Classic, Jazz, Spanish and 12 String are all super, as are some of the electric guitar sounds, including the Overdrive and Lead sounds. On Guitar Page 3 I came across the Hawaiian Guitar, which I found disappointing, but I was then made very happy again with the Western Guitar; an unusual option to offer but the most wonderful of sounds and very like what you hear in those spaghetti westerns. The Strings family is very good though, for my taste, it does lack one slightly sweeter string sound and a tremolo string. The ones that are here are excellent and cover all other needs. It is especially good that there are some big Octave Strings and a big Symphony sound. The solo Violin is a joy to hear, as is the combined string and re-

peating mandolin offered by Tzivago (their spelling, not mine). The vocal sounds are also here although, other than the warm Corale choir, which I could imagine using quite often as a mixer, they are nothing to write home about. The brass is very mixed in quality. Some of it, like the lovely warm Golden Trumpet and the very handy Fall Off Brass, which adds a downwards run when keyed heavily, is really excellent. Some of the others are not so good, especially the Trombones, which are very zingy indeed and, in fact, I think when I need a trombone section I would actually use the sound called French Horn! I love the entire Saxophone family; all the way through from Baritone to Soprano they are superb. The Flutes are equally good and the very lifelike Pan Flute really comes in to its own when used with the After Touch. The Pad and Synth sections offer a good range of very useful sounds, as does the Ethnic section, which includes the Steel Drums, Banjo and Bagpipes. Also worthy of special mention is the Jazz Bass, which is great. Every sound has a second voice selected ready to go with it. You turn it on by pushing the stop marked, well, what else, Second Voice! These are very handy and have been carefully pre-selected to work suitably with the main voice but, if you want something different, it is easy to alter the preset selections. When I last reviewed a Ketron keyboard (April 2005) I mentioned three things that I felt were missing. The first was the total lack of factory presets or conventional One Touch Play settings to give popular favourite registrations or sounds tied in to rhythms. Then there was the need for a few pads to give quick access to some sound effects like drum rolls, cymbal crashes and bird whistles. Last but not least, I found it impossible to play drums on the keyboard. I am delighted to say that here on the SD5 they have answered all of my wishes! There are now bucket loads of preset sounds, 16 Assignable Multi-Tabs (pads) which can be usefully set to live edit the rhythm patterns, or to add in drums and sound effects (including a great Australian sounding Didgeridoo sort of sound), or for various other functions, and there is now a button simply marked Manual Drums for putting the drum sounds straight on to the keyboard. Top marks to Ketron for listening and for making the improvements. Besides the uses Ive mentioned, a couple of my previous suggestions have actually now been inter-related by Ketron, as the Multi-Tabs can be used to access 160 One Touch Settings. Bearing in mind that they set aside from the other controls, to the left hand end of the panel, and are laid out with space about them, they are very quick to use. The Style section is very comprehensive and includes quite a few new rhythms and some new drum sounds, called Live Drums and Real Latin. They are excellent. The major new advance is in the Unplugged Section. This has 19 styles, all of which are as if played on acoustic instruments only. There are some very, very basic

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ones, good for early learning, which feature just piano and bass only, including Ragtime, Marches and Beguine. Then there are Guitar based ones, with drums, which are really enjoyable to hear and really do sound just like a band playing. I am really most taken with the guitar options and most especially like the Country, Flamenco and Bossa Nova, all of which are so very lifelike. It is worth noting that there are four variations of rhythm and backing for each and every style. A novel new addition is that variation D is also marked Riff and, in certain styles, it provides a harmonic sequence of chords, based upon the key of whichever main chord you have played. This is great fun for just doodling around and making up your own, creative melody lines. Other Styles here, 128 in all, cover everything you would expect to find. I tried about 30 of them, including swings, pops and latins and couldnt find one I didnt like! I must make special mention of the Paso Doble, as it is not quite so common to find it provided on keyboards and here it is offered in both 3/4 and 4/ 4 variants: the 3/4 version is particularly stunning. As you would expect, there are the usual very good Intros and Endings, three of each here and, on the whole, they are not over busy, so are useful. There is a Fill In which, when used in conjunction with the Jump button, advances the Style through its variations each time you use it. Like so many products these days, should you feel the need, you can alter everything about it by editing the sounds and the rhythms and the styles. This will make the keyboard entirely your own. In all, I am really very impressed by the Ketron SD5. Whilst there are one or two sounds that are not quite to my taste, the overwhelming majority of sounds and styles are top notch. More than that, the designers have really thought about making it simple
and straightforward to play and, despite not having an owners manual, I have easily sorted out how the huge majority of it works. This is because most of the things that you need most of the time have a clearly labelled button for the task. Ketron have been well acknowledged as producing good sounding products for a long time and, having now managed to make one that sounds great and that is very easy to use, I feel sure that the SD5 will be a huge success. For details of your nearest Ketron stockist, contact BCK on 442, visit www.bck.co.uk or write to BCK Products Ltd, Stationbridge House, Blake Hall Road, ONGAR, Essex, CM5 9LN.

PATTERN LIST

2-4&001 2-4&002 2-4&003 3-4&001 3-4&002 4-4&001 4-4&002 4-4&003 4-4&004 5-8&001 5-8&002 6-8&001 6-8&002 7-8&001 7-8&002 7-8&003 9-8&001 9-8&002 9-8&003 CIFTE&01 CIFTE&02 DUBLE&01 DUBLE&02 HALAY&01 HALAY&02 OYUN&01 POP&01 SHOW&01 SLOW&01 SLOW&02 WAHDE&01 WAHDE&02

Technical Tables

SPECIFICATIONS
KEYBOARD MULTI-TAB DISPLAY FLOPPY DISK HARD DISK SOUND GENERATION 61 half-weighted keys. 6 Velocity curves. Pitch & Modulation joystick. Aftertouch. 1-16 multifunctional tabs. Mode Select : Drum On/Off, SFX, GM Part access, Free Assignable, Registration Groups, Arabic scale. Koma control. 240 x 128 pixel backlit graphic TCF. 3.5 2DD/HD. (optional unit) Type ATA IDE 2.5. 40Gbyte (max). 290 Orchestral Presets Sounds. 292 GM Voices. More than 1000 Percussive sounds including typical Turkish Percussions such as Darbuka, Tef, Hollo, Bendir, Davul. 32 parts Multitimbral. Original hi-quality Turkish Voices : Ud, Yay, Zurna, Baglama, Cumbus, Dtelli, Elksaz, Gitar, Kanun, Kaval, Keman, Clarnet, Mey, Ney and others. 110 User Voices. Editing : A,D,S,R, Cut Off, Resonance, Effects. 60 programmable 1 Touch Sounds, assignable to Style. 10 Digital Drawbar effects. 120 Programs. 4 Voices, 4 splits. Sustain, Portamento, Velocity switch, Duet, Trio, Morphing, Steel, Slide, nd Harmony and 2 voice assign. Single & Global Program loading. nd 292 Preset & programmable Second Voices. 2 Voice Edit. 198 panel settings. Single & Block mode. Registration Group thru 1-16 Multitab. 24 New Drum sets. 24 User Drum Sets. 10 Drum sections. Drum Mixer. Manual Drums. 62 Live Drum sets. New Acoustic and Latin Loops. 202 Internal Styles, featuring new Unplugged, Real Latin, Ballroom and Pop Styles. Riff section. th Arranger Mute. After Fill. Smart 7. Alternate Bass. Swing Bass. Professional Guitar templates. Rewritable parameters. 4 Arrangers : A, B, C, D. 3 Intro/Endings, Fill In, Break. Interactive Accompaniment. Manual Bass. Jump. Tap Tempo. Accelerando-Ritardando. Tempo control. Pedalboard funcions. Rootless & Standard Chord recognition. Internal 2 Mbyte Flash ( up to 50 Patterns ). Record, Clear, Copy , Remap. Pattern Expansion memory (optional). 5/8, 7/8, 9/8, Azeri, Ciftetelli, Halay, Zeybek etc. Real time Song Recording to Disk. Standard & Auto Mode.Sustain On/Off. 1 octave Up/Down. Lower octave coupling. Full, Jazz, Double, Bluegrass, Trill, Repeat, Folk 1, Folk 2. +/- 24 half tones. 13 arabic setups (footswitch assignable). Tune + / - 99 cents per note. International, Belgique. Velocity control to Left&Right. Bass&Lower octave. Left Drum to Bass&Chord. Multieffect DSP. 60 different effects. Reverberation, Chorus, Flanger, Delay, Tap Delay 4 / 8, Wha Wha, Distortion, Overdrive, Rotor Slow/Fast , Bass Boost. Portamento. Mono Legato function. Input with Gain control. Echo, Reverb., Pan/Pot, Pitch Shift, Talk. (optional unit) Harmonizer, Vocoder, Melody types, Midi Vocalizer track, Vocalizer to Arranger, Vocal effects. Left & Right Harmonies. SMF Song playback with karaoke and Txt files. Convert files.kar & Midi type 0 to 1. Juke box. Intelligent Transposer. Song Chain. Drum & Bass. Lead On/Off. Save Song setup. Real time interactive Midifile and Style playing. Song and Style select. Capability to view, scroll and play the Midjay directories ( Wave, Mp3, Midi, fx/DJLoops, Play List, Autoplay ) directly from the SX 3000s screen. Start, Stop and Pause controls. In 1, In2 , Out, Thru. 32 Midi Channels. GM standard. Left/Mono, Right. Sustain and Volume Pedal. Footswitch (6 or 13 switches). Micro out. Stereo headphone. Micro jack. PC/Mac host Interface. (optional unit) Systems : PAL, NTSC, Super VHS. Monitor, Mirror, Zoom, Karaoke page and full screen, Mark, Underlined. Size and position controls. 2x22W RMS Stereo 2 ways amplification. Speaker On/Off switch. Video Interface, Vocalizer, Hard Disk, Pattern expansion (2 Mbyte). 115 x 39 x 12,5 cms (46 x 15,6 x 5 inches). 17 Kg. (37.4 lbs)

USER VOICES 1 TOUCH DRAWBARS PROGRAMS 2 VOICE REGISTRATIONS DRUM1 DRUM2 ARRANGER
PATTERN EDIT FUNCTIONS TURKISH STYLES SONG RECORD PIANIST OCTAVE DOUBLE HARMONY TRANSPOSER ARABIC SCALE ACCORDION MODE EFFECTS MICRO VOCALIZER MIDIFILE PLAYER DRUM REMIX MIDJAY UTILITY MIDI OUTPUTS INPUTS COMPUTER VINDEO INTERFACE AMPLIFICATION OPTIONALS DIMENSIOS WEIGHT
SPECIFICATIONS AND APPEARANCE ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE.

KETRON s.r.l.

60131 Ancona ITALY
Via Giuseppe Taliercio, 7

Ph. +39 (0)71 285771

Fax +39 (0)71 2857748

www.ketron.it

Manuale di Istruzioni