Stevizard said, "What we need isn't a full-fledged keyboard. We only need the arranger section but it must be built on a par with a computer. That is, it needs to have a removeable (therefore upgradable) motherboard, hard drive, scsi port, cdrom, slots for high-end memory, pci slots, USB, etc. We then simply midi it to our favorite keyboard. When better OS from any company arrive, we download and install them. Well, that may not sound very likely but its the direction we must go to avoid being taken hostage by the proprietary hardware and software of the keyboard manufacturers.
What do others think?"
I pursued this with my "Gigstation" concept and realized that it would currently cost more to build a non-propriety VSTi-based arranger workstation than it would to buy used 9000 Pro's and just maintain them until somebody builds what we really need. Used 9k Pro's are selling well under $2k currently. But I think you're on the right track and we will see eKo-type instruments and controllers with replaceable CPU's/motherboards coming in the next couple of years. Frankly Yamaha and it's competitors may see this coming too and that may be why they're focusing more on building home-user instruments and servicing their core markets.
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