Ketron recently launched its rather funky Fusion arranger workstation, a five octave keyboard offering a wide variety of factions.
We’ve heard a few murmurs from people who don’t like the aesthetic of it, but we’re quite taken with the silver-blue finish and bookend-like… end pieces.
Unsurprisingly for a modern arranger keyboard, there’s a plethora of buttons, knobs, faders, and the obligatory display screen which shows pertinent information about settings etc. and can also be connected via HDMI to mirror a video source, for display of lyrics, visuals and so on.
The specification sheet is a bit of a jumble, to be frank, but we’ve gleaned a few points (full specs copied below).
It has a decent 216 note polyphony, vital for arrangers which will typically be playing a lot of different sounds at once.
The keyboard is a 61-note light weighted action with velocity and aftertouch.
The 7″ display is a touchscreen.
There’s some level of sound editing, with controls for envelope shaping, LFO, cutoff and resonance.
On board are well over 400 sounds in ten groups: Piano, Strings, Organ, Brass, Sax, Pad, Synth, Guitar, Bass, Ethnic. There’s also 4GB of space for user sounds. The specs hint at the possibility of sound stacking and such like.
There are 44 drum kits, 18 oriental kits, 32 user kits with remap, filter, tune, FX controls, and a drum mixer. The arranger has over 550 international styles.
Other sound features include three independent groove sections, live guitars, real chord accompaniments, real bass, style modelling and editing, programmable footswitch, various scales including Arabic, a three-voice vocaliser, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 240GB SSD storage.
Specifications
- Polyphony: 216 notes, multitimbral.
- Keyboard: 61-note light weighted action with velocity and aftertouch. 4 Dynamic curves.
- Controls: Aftertouch. Portamento. Legato Mono/Poly. Transposer +/- 24. Octave +/- 2. Sustain pedal. Volume/Expr. Pedal with 6 curves. Joystick with Pitch and Modulation. 2 Articulations. Ribbon controller: Arabic Scale. Arabic Set. Koma. 10 sliders with rgb led.
- Display: 7” touch capacitive display. Brightness control. 5 different skin colors.
- Factory Sounds: 10 Voice Families : Piano, Strings, Organ, Brass, Sax, Pad, Synth, Guitar, Bass, Ethnic. 464 Factory Presets. A single Preset can be made with up to 5 different sounds. Second Voice. High quality multilayer sounds with a great selection of Real Solos ® and a large variety of oriental instruments. Advanced Voice Editing. Factory overwrite and restore. Up to 1.280 User Voices available. Preset programmable Arabic scale and key shif.
- User Sounds: 4 GB non-volatile Flash memory for additional sounds ( 2 GB for Sound Banks and 2 GB for User Samples ). Sample Editor : up to 32.768 samples ( max 6 seconds per sample ). 128 stereo instruments ( Voice or Drum Set ), up to 4 layers per instrument and up to 64 splits per layer. Advanced editor with Split, Octave, Level, Range, Tune, Cut off, Velocity, Adsr. Sample Loop utilities. User Drum kits.
- Adsr/Filter: separate controls for Attack, Decay, Sustain, Lfo, Cut Off and Resonance.
- Drum Set: 44 Drums kits. 18 Oriental Kits. 32 User Drum kits with Remap, Filter, Tune, FX controls. Drum Mixer : 9 sections with separate controls for level, pan, reverb, pitch, velocity compression. 86 Midi Drum styles ( Pattern )on Grv1_Loop section.
- Arranger : More than 550 International Styles. Audio, Live and Midi styles. Freeze real control. 260
- Live Styles. Over 64 Oriental Styles. 10 groups : Ballad, Pop, Dance, Rock, Swing, Latin, Country, Folk, Party, Ethnic. 3 Intro, 3 Ending, FIll to End, ABCD, 4 Fills, 4 Break. Reintro, Count In, Pause, Key Start, Key Stop, Variation. User Styles with unlimited store capabilities.
5 Midi Chords and Bass. Close, Parallel, Logic mode. 3 x Lower with Mono/Poly function. Chord Variation. Varitone. Voice to ABCD. Auto Fill, Fill to Arrange, Fill to Aftertouch. Chord modes : Easy1, Easy2, Easy3, Fingered 1, Fingered 2. Orch. Variation Morphing. Rootless mode. Manual Bass, To Lowest, To Root. Bassist and Pianist mode ( Standard/Expert ). - Live Drums: over 500 Live Drums with a complete Arranger structure ( 3 Intros, 3 Endings, ABCD, 4 Fills, 4 Breaks ). Oriental and Latin Percussions loops. Reverb and 3 band Parametric Equalizer with 10 presets, programmable on each style. Drum Boost. Possibility to load external User Live Drums.
- Drum Pad: real time control for percussions.
- Grooves: 3 x independent Groove sections. Huge library of more than 780 Latin percussions, Electro and Acoustic Drum loops, Single percussion hits. Groove to Variation. Separate volume and EFX controls.
- Live Guitars: 216 sliced Guitar patterns including Long Chords. Separate volume and EFX controls.
- Real Chord: Real audio accompaniments covering a full chord range ( up to 13 different chords ). A big variety of electric, acoustic and jazz guitars patterns and other orchestral sequences synchronized to Midi. Dedicated Insert EFX with full editor, programmable for each style. Possibility to load external User Real Chords. Possibility to modify the Style voices with Adsr, filter and Q.
- Real Bass: Real audio Basses.Twin Bass. Support to external User audio Basses. 3 band Parametric Equalizer with 10 Presets, programmable on each style.
- Style Modeling: navigate and choose Drums, Grooves, Bass and Chords from the massive Midi and Audio Library. Multichord and Multibass templates.
- Style Edit: advanced pattern recording and editing. Copy, Quantize, Velocity, Octave functions. Special quantize available for oriental styles ( 7/8, 9/8, 13/8, etc. ). Single GM voice edit with ADSR and Filter.
- Registrations: 4 Banks with unlimited Registrations controlling the global set up of the keyboard.
- Performance: fast access to Styles, Registrations, Mp3, Wav, Midi files and Subfolders. 7 Sets with unlimited file storage.
- Play Mode: Master, Accord/Style, Accord/Classic, Organist.
- Phrase: real time recording and play for Style chord sequences.
- Footswitch: 20 programmable Set. Assignable to the most relevant machine functions and features.
- Arabic Scale : 16 sets. 6 scale memories.
- Dsp: Reverb, Chorus, Phaser, Flanger, Overdrive, Distortion, Tremolo, Autopan, Equalizer. 2 Stereo EFX Inserts (one dedicated to Voice and one to Style/Midifiles). 64 Single Presets and 64 Chain Effects. Deep editing. Dedicated reverb and EQs for Drumsets. Dedicated reverb for Arranger section.
- Stem: 4 Scenes. 5 audio tracks per scene to be played simultaneously. Lead track, Transpose, Time Stretching, Loop, Solo, Mute, Autoplay. Fixed pitch for Drum section. Support for external User Stems.
- Player: Transpose, Audio Time stretching, GM, Jukebox, Playlists, Drum Remix, Markers, Lyrics, Cross Fade, Search, Midi Mix, Karaoke Backgrounds. Support for wav, midi, mp3, mp4, avi, mov, flv, cdg, jpg, png, txt and pdf files.
- KTune: audio Wav files can be assigned to keys. Synchronization with Style (Bar, Beat).
- HD Recording: 1 stereo audio track. Midi and Song Style recording.
- Audio Multitrack: 5+1 audio tracks with separate track control.
- Micro: 2 x Micro inputs. Micro 1 ( XLR ) with gain control and phantom power. Effect with Reverb, Delay, Equalizer, Pitch shift. Micro 2 ( jack ) with volume and reverb control.
- Voicetron: 3 voice vocalizer. Assignable to Arranger or Midi file with Presets, Equalizer, Mode functions.
- Video: HDMI connection for displaying lyrics, pictures and videos. Mirror mode. Up to Full HD Resolution. Support for external touchscreen displays.
- Bluetooth: Streaming audio input ( ad2p profile ).
- WiFi: remote control via VNC.
- Storage: 240 GB internal SSD disk ( Up to 60 GB reserved for System ). Optional external SD Card ( up to 512 GB ).
- Side Connections: 2 x USB device. USB Host. HDMI.
- Rear Connections: Main Out Left / Right. Headphone/Aux. Sustain pedal. Volume pedal. Footswitch. Midi In, Midi Out. Micro 1, Micro 2.
- Optional: Volume pedal normal or deluxe. Sustain pedal normal or piano type ( available also with Footswitch connector). Footswitch 6 or 13 switches. Midi Pedalboard 13 notes ( K8 ). Soft bag. Trolley for bag. Hard case.
- Dimensions: 99,5 x 36.6 x 11,5 ( 39,1 x 14,41 x 4,53 inch. ).
- Weight: 11 Kg ( 24,2 lbs )
