Hi,it is of course very late to answer this to you since you got the keyboard now but for those who are interested here is a run over of the keyboard YOU WILL WNAT TO KNOW!!Sounds,Well the sounds are 650 roland sounds of which 107 are middle eastern as we all love them!The western sounds are not the best in the world even for roland..they sound thinner than say the JV and XP synth line!The Oriental sounds all sound real and GREAT!The Sounds of real interest to me are the IRAQI/KUWEITI Khaligari drums kits of which the signature iraqi music rolling high pitched bendir sounds are included.Listen to the older 1980s El Al Sawe "roohqi janebali song and mahkbuubi.The styles are most indeed middle eastern but not complete as the IRAQI/KUWEITI FAST beats are not included the feature the fast rolling bendir like drum sound.But it is complete enough.You add more styles via the floppy drive or the USB port when connected to your PC or MAC and copy them to FLASH disk EXR drive!Same goes for songs too.YES there are western beats from factory but only on FLASH and you must load them ONE AT A TIME to TEMP STYLE area..It sucks!Same goes for any arabic styles you make or download from the PC into flash.NO CUSTOM BEATS or SOUNDS or DRUM KITS creation is possible with this Keyboard!The sounds you hear as you play the built in keyboard are transmitting at different midi channels(mostly channel 4).Each sound you select may hane a different midi channel assigned to it..Confused yet?I was too.If you want to use this as a midi tone gen with you PC and trigger the sounds via the keyboard built in?Forget it!!It is too troublesome and you will end up not getting to the ethnic sounds via midi anyway as Roland did not spec out the midi bank number for those extended sounds only GM and GS sounds seem to program change via midi.You can record with this keyboard to audio tracks in a audio multi tracker no problem but via midi?..uh uh!Now the built in midi sequencer..hmm well it has NO editing functions not even quantize!You have to record ALL for the first track and it will triggerwhat ever drum pattern you select before pressing RECORD.After recording the first track,when you press record,using the family and select arrow buttons you then can select SINGLE for individual track per midi channel recording in overdub reatime mode.This is a REPLACE mode recorder so if you mess up and want to start over on a track you can.No edit as I said and no quantize so get it right on the first try!!You must know that the weird midi channel per tone patch settings are related to the arranger auto accompaniment settings.If you wnat to set a effect(distortion,comp,eq,etc)to a patch,you have to stay in FUNCTION MODE.Once you exit function mode,you get the sound back to normal and no effect applied.I sold my FantomX7 with ultimate KEYS and 4gb CF card full of samples and 512mb ram to be able to buy this board!I really hate myself for doing that!This board is NOT a friendly PRODUCERS board..It is too simple and is for just live play in parties and the such and is not for serious recordings unless you record to audio recoders in order to get what you play on the keys to record and play back as you wanted it.The Flash is about 8mb.The floppy drive is DOS 1.44mb PC type.The unit will save your recording(ONE SONG)to flash when you hit WRITE.The keyboard action is the cheapest set of keys offered by the Italian keyboard action maker FATAR sPA Italia.It is the ALL PLASTIC keybed version with no weights under the keys or aftertouch.The board uses a 3.5Amp 12VDC negative tip powersupply with 125v/250v auto volt convertion and uses a standerd 2 prong cord for USA or EURO sockets.The unit is all plastic even the bottom panel and has very LOUD but ok speaker system though it is full range not two way speakers.The scale function is settable by the player and the manual explains how to do most functions well on the board.If you buy this new or used with all items included you should be getting a CDROM disc with backups or all the FLASH based BEATS and some more Arabic beats and USB drivers for PC.The next thing is a floppy with some beats and songs.The USB cord and the powersupply with cord for USA or Europe depending where you buy this.I installed this to my PC via the USB 1.1 port and all works great and flawlessly.You get some arabic beats,some Khaligari iraqi/kuweiti beats(slow ones only),Egyptian nubean beats,some Russian beats,Some turkish ones,some Irani beats and some western beats but those only via flash LOAD to TEMP only.Ok.I had a problem in that after trying to load and play morning ballad beat and beyond..the keyboard froze..ALWAYS on that beat from flash or any beats AFTER that one too!I can email samples of the sound drum kits only after I sample them to my PC samples collection in order to SELL this board and buy another FantomX and NEVER EVER buy this again!!If you love this type of board and are a ARRANGER fan then this is one of the better ones due to the SOUNDS amount and quality of Oriental sounds..I never owned a keyboard like this before this one so it is not me.The Yamaha A1000 and PSR-OR700 have more features and fully customizable sounds,beats,arranger sections and scales(not just the panel buttons but full individual keys tunings!).But the yamahas have LESS sounds for ORIENTAL and less beats too.THIS IS A PRESET LIVE PLAY/RECORD KEYBOARD ONLY!!!The manual does not show WAVE FORMS LISTS of anykind so if you hear a sound you like and want to know the name?..sorry no dice!
