I am not prepared to suffer a lousy arranger, to get WS and loop player functions. Plenty of WS's that already do that. Arps, loops, sync'd up, cutting edge sounds...

But I use an arranger. So I need THAT to sound great first. THEN I can appreciate all the other goodies. But if the arranger sucks, it kind of makes the rest of the goodies not so good.

Dom has his head in a very dark place if he thinks that suddenly, after 20 or 30 years of an arranger providing styles for the player to use, and sounds that go together with them, the vast majority of arranger players around the world are going to start to write their own. Balkan and middle eastern users MIGHT develop their own styles, but I GUARANTEE that, when they have to play Western music, they use the styles that came with their arranger... You don't see much in the way of middle eastern developed western styles, do you?

And, I'm sorry, but even Dom doesn't see it that way... or he wouldn't develop ANY styles and sounds for it. Just sell it empty, and let the user do it ALL for themselves. So, I'm sorry, but that argument just doesn't hold water. No, the problem isn't that Dom doesn't think that the MS even NEEDS good styles and sounds... It's just that he can't afford to make them.

They are expensive. The soundset development and style development is possibly the most expensive thing he has to do. Write a few lines of code? Write a few tens of thousands of lines of code? He knows how to do THAT. But sampling a coherent soundset, and then develop styles for it that compete with the T3, PA2, or G70? Quite obviously, he himself cannot do it. And that means hiring someone (or several someones) that CAN. And that cost money. LOTS of it...

Making styles is HARD... or there would be a million of them out there for pennies, and they would all sound as good as the factory ROM styles. They don't. In fact, about the ONLY time you get to hear great new styles is when a new arranger gets released. Hell, they are so expensive, even the Big 3 don't make many of them except for a new arranger!

This is the dirty little secret of the MS... Sure, you COULD get it to sound great. IF you were the guy making factory styles for Yamaha or Korg, etc.. But how many user styles have you ever heard that sound even close to the quality of a ROM style? Bloody few, as far as I am concerned. I refuse to believe that middle eastern style makers are any better than western ones. Just that their music is so unfamiliar that I am unable to recognize how poor those styles are (and that there aren't any ROM styles in those genres to compare them to )

Yamaha don't sell the MoXS without any great arps and loops in it. Yamaha don't sell the T3 without great styles in it. But apparently, Dom thinks he can sell the MS without them. Just add your own... Trouble is, be REALISTIC about your chances of making a style as good as Yamaha's ROM styles (or any of the Big 3).

Look, it's simple. If you can make a piece of music on a WS, with no loops or arps, that could fool a LOT of people that they are listening to a real band, do all the drum parts, bass parts, keys, strings horns, then you possibly DO have the skills to make a decent style. Mind you, it's a lot harder making a style that can be used for a lot of different songs, that is useful to an arranger player, than one specific tune...

In other words, if you are already making top pro music production entirely by yourself, at close to the highest level, without using an arranger or production loops, then yes, you could make some great styles...

How many of those do we have here at SZ...

Crickets chirping