It occurs to me - and I might be mistaken, is it possible that arranger keyboards are designed mainly for the European Market and sell in the USA in smaller numbers just because they are available?

The reason I say this is because when I worked for Hammond there seemed to be two very distinctive markets. The XB3, XC3, B3, C3 etc sold far more in the USA than the UK because of the Church and pro market (i mean keyboard players in bands). When we asked for the XE1, the USA were not so interested in it because there is a only a very limited call for that kind of instrument. However in the UK we sold huge ammounts of XE1 that were upgraded to XE2 and even XE200, because it was so succesfull we had a special edition version in burgandy with a full length music rack. I don't believe anything more than an XE1 in a cabinet ever found itself to the USA.

If that is the case, it is very worrying because it means that the larger companies still have the home organist in their sites and rely on those people for sales of arranger keyboards. Every year there are fewer and fewer of those customers. And unless the industry does what Hammond did in the 60s to establish their own market could it be game over?

Whenever a sales department ask the factory for a new product, the question will be asked...How many units will we sell?

Hammond no longer makes ensemble instruments (at least not for Europe), Yamaha no longer openly imports organs into the UK, Panasonic withdrew Technics completely. Roland have not introduced any new TOTL arrangers. That question must have been asked around many tables.

TWD



[This message has been edited by Tonewheeldude (edited 01-27-2010).]