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Hello: (background) I am a XWP1 and WK7600 owner for over 7 years, have gone deep into the programming of the synth and arranger. Now I just purchased a Mz-x500. I have been searching for 3 years now for a good hardware sequencer/sampler. All I found was incomplete devices. I thought the Roland JunoDS would do, no. Then the Roland FA, no. Then the 1010Music Black Box, good, but no keyboard, not really and instrument. Then the Pyramid Squarp, very powerful sequencer, but for $700 way over priced for a MIDI sequencer only. So here I have laid out lots of money on a Mz-x500 that has very little review on YouTube and the net. I read the 3 owners manuals and firmware update manuals and it seems the closest to what I need. BUT...the sampler seems very limited and I don't have any info on the mapping of samples to the keyboard for adding new voices. Is there a person on this forum deep into the sampler function? AND....did I make the right decision in buying this "arranger" more a workstation than arranger???? I am the guy on YouTube with all the XWP1 tutorials. Example of a XWP1 jam:

Forgoing the safety of a warranty, i got a good deal off of eBay. So far so good! Thankfully I've had a fair amount of experience with various keyboards. In the last 10 years or so I've had a Casio WK3300 (?), Yamaha Motif XS7, a Yamaha PSR 3000 (one step or two below the Tyros 1), a Korg M3 61, and still have a Nord Stage 88 Classic and a Casio WK 7600. My desire for this keyboard was many fold- was so frustrated and upset with the poor quality of the sounds from the WK 7600, the absolutely dismal keybed feel and responsiveness, the user interface that was OK in some ways and stupid in others. I did like however that it had built-in speakers, was lightweight, and was pretty cheap. I kept on wanting an upgrade to its portable form, and was willing to pay more. The x500 is a definite upgrade! One of the things that I've always found very challenging with any keyboard I've had is evaluating the sounds- i literally spent weeks and weeks with some boards trying to train my ear, trying to distinguish one very similar sound from the next, rarely ever HEARING something that moved me. Thankfully i got a Nord Stage, and everything became clear- instead of auditioning 1000s of sounds like i had with the workstations and all the others, there were relatively few sounds, but i pretty much liked them all, and could hear what an organ, an ep, a synth could sound like without all the fuss of deep menu diving and endless comparisons of one sound against another trying to find the best ones. The other thing I discovered along the way was the extremes of user interface. The Motif XS7, "the best and greatest workstation" available at the time, all told cost me around $4,000 once I'd gotten everything in place, and i ended up feeling like it was a total waste of my time, effort and money, ended up selling it for $1,400. The sounds for the most part did not inspire me (I'm apparently in the minority in this reaction), and the user interface (UI) was really poor and frustrating if you went below the top surface of interaction. The best thing I can say about it was the keybed was excellent. My music education was expensive! When i finally got the Nord Stage I was very happy. Great sounds, great UI, and now, 6 years later i still have it and will probably keep it forever if I don't upgrade to the latest one. However, it doesn't do anything like sequencing, sampling, etc. So I needed a new board, in part because I'd rather not be dealing with a computer to make music. My other choice would have been the Roland FA06. In fact it would be my choice before the x500 except the keybed on the Roland was one of the worst I've ever experienced. Come to find out recently they are coming out with the FA07, which apparently has a much better semi-weighted keybed, and with a 76 note keybed, that'd be sweet! Problem is it's not out yet, and getting a smoking deal on a used unit is probably a year off or so. And to be honest, having the built-in speakers and velocity sensitive pads is a big deal for me, so getting the x500 at approx half the cost of the FA07 made it possible to buy in the first place. The FA series has many of the same features as the x500 and is also known to be extremely user friendly. Anyways, I'm super excited about the POTENTIAL of this board- - Grab and go to jams and parties, no need for external amps for keyboard or mic - Those crazy pads! - Apparently easy to use sequencer, and included software to import samples to pads - Using things like Chords and Phrases with the pads (have never done that) - Seeing how user friendly it is to create my own rhythms with the pads - A board small enough I can play in bed? The things I'm worried about: - That overall the sounds won't be that much of an upgrade from the WK 7600. From my brief perusal so far the jury is still out - That the body will scratch easily - That the flimsy music stand will break (what were they thinking?) - That there will be frustrating impasses in the UI, like with the WK 7600, and quite a few poorly designed boards (IMO), where if you create a User Tone, then the Registration that uses it is looking at the slot number that User Tone is in, instead of saving that User Tone to the registration. That simple design shortcut means you can never move or re-order your User Tone from that slot, because the Registrations that references it is looking to a slot number. (I realize this requires a tiny bit more memory to save the parameters of that User Tone to that Registration, and that there's a potential benefit to all the Registrations that use that User Tone if you edit and improve the User Tone. But the number of times that this design has created unnecessary problems and inflexibility cause you had to keep every User Tone in one place forever- it's enough to make me swear!). Anyways- time will tell. Would be curious what other people think! Randy PS The board reluctantly upgraded from 1.21 to 1.5, so all good for now!