Yamaha are in no way unique in not expanding the style engine’s capabilities much over the years. Truth is, all the hardware arranger makers have pretty much settled down to a tried and tested formula. There’s a degree of compromise between capability and content. Sure, I’d love it if styles had an infinite number of variations, fills and breaks etc., but I’m not sure we’d be getting the degree of new content if making styles turned into a nightmare with at least four times the work needed for one style!
Capability and content are largely (but not completely, I agree) orthogonal and independent features.
You can greatly expand the capabilities without touching the content.
You could for example allow to stack 2 inserts per part (still shipping the old styles with only one insert on *some* parts). But the power user could edit them and add the missing inserts.
You *could*. But as a matter of fact Yamaha did not. They developed a silicon chip with the processing power for 28 DSPs, but "forgot" to update the firmware to use this processing power. So, as in the early 90s, you are stuck with one DSP per part. Well, for 12 parts, not 16 as it would be logical. For some reason (maybe a 30 years old half backed spaghetti code buried in their firmware, nobody dares to touch anymore) they decided that 4 midi parts (the multi pads) should not have an insert. Maybe because 30 years ago 1 insert was the most you could ask from the top of the line HW, and nobody would waste it for a multi pad part.
After all a PC with 640 kb of RAM (the limit of an Intel 8086 running MS DOS), should be more than enough for everyone. Right? [Bill Gates, in the 80s].
I could go on with dozens of examples. But you got the idea.
Groovyband’s solution of a marriage between custom software and established hardware works well, but currently it’s a one manufacturer solution. Are you prepared to be as soundly criticized for not getting around to adapting it for Korg or Roland arrangers or even their workstations, as you criticize those manufacturers you rely on for not expanding their style engines? Cost/benefit problems cut both ways!
We do not criticize Yamaha for their policy. We just highlight what their policy is. Everybody can rightly decide to milk their old product till the very end to squeeze out as much money as you can without spending a dime.
Just do not expect everybody to praise you for your product innovation, or being "state of the art"!!
And after all it is thanks to those less feature-full arranger engines that we can hope to sell our one!
To be honest, the most exciting thing I read was the future marriage of Groovyband and a PROPER audio/loop/synth workstation and proper style engine. I have long given up on expecting the manufacturers to do it themselves, and honestly, I don’t think there’s a hope in hell of the hardware of arrangers ever being able to catch up with where workstations have gone!
We agree. Especially if the general trend of established HW arranger manufacturers is to milk their product lines (targeting wealthy "old" men), without trying to board in young musicians that can fuel the business in the (distant) future.
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