With technics leaving the arranger picture ,
Ketron , Korg and Yamaha are the key players now .

I heard from AJ that the Ketron booth has been very busy with the fall of Technics .
Technics dealers are scrambling to add another product line to sell . Perhaps Ketron will get a better distribution in the USA .

What is interesting to me ( having been a demo guy for Ketron ) is that the SD1 and now SD1plus was introduced in 2001. The SD1 and SD1plus is still a competitive product even with the release of the Tyro's and now the Korg keyboard .

The only option for the SD1plus is a video interface . The hard drive and vocal kit are installed . Korg PA1X is made practically right up the street from Ketron, why such a BIG price tag ?

Dan O'

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Technics,Ketron Yamaha Casio arranger keyboards . www.keyboardcity.net
1-866-348-8876

[This message has been edited by DanO1 (edited 01-18-2004).]

[This message has been edited by DanO1 (edited 01-18-2004).]

That price tag will hurt them IMO....
The SD-1 is definitly holding its own for sure thru the years!

The Retail Price of the Korg PA1Xpro is $4500.00 vs the SD1plus retail price list of $3900.00. Why the difference? There are many more options available on some models and there are many features already built into some of these newer keyboards which are not possible on the current SD1plus.

Korg and Yamaha have USB, Korg has a digital out, Both have built in video outs, sliders on the Korg to adjust volumes and other functions, both have much more expensive to use larger color touch screen monitors, CD/RW burner option on the Korg. These differnces justifies the slightly higher price point in my opinion on the Korg and the Yamaha is less then the SD1plus at a Retail price of $3495.00 and if you add a hard drive it's about another $100.00. Then it comes down to the choice of which keyboard one likes the feel of better, the look, the sounds and styles and other features, and which sequencer functions more to ones likings. All these three brands are great keyboards.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

We must add ROLAND to the list. The EXR3 & EXR5 are good value and Roland are to launch a top end keyboard this year. I was told it will be worth waiting for....we'll see.

Graham UK

George,
I beg to differ.
As regards the new Korg keyboards, they are priced ridiculously high, even more so here in Europe ,as they are with you.
The former model PA80 was introduced with a RRP of 2300 Euros. (appr. 2900 dollars if I am right). Its successor, the PA1x (61-keys version) will retail at Euros: 3900 !!!
(almost 5000 dollars ). I much admire their quality and am seriously considering of acquiring the PA1, but still think their pricing is quite scandalous. (as was their customer support over the last couple of years with the PA80, arrogant to say the least, and believe you me I know what I am talking about.)

P.S.

the Ketron SD1plus here retails at 3700 Euros (appr. 4600 dollars !!!), with an
average going-price of appr. 3000 Euros
(3800 dollars). It seems we just can't win.
So keyboard-wise I would love to live in the STates....................

in 1997 i bought the korg i5m and in 98
i bought the korg i5s. my investment was
less than 2000.00 . at about 30,000 dollars
a year for 7 years (210,000 dollars) average
income using these instruments, i say i got a great return on my investments. my point is that with all the new stuff out there
to choose , i had to decide what works for me
with the least amount of aggravation. i believe you get what you pay for in quality,
but my problem is that the keyboard companies
have yet to prove it to me(as far as arrangers are concerned). but they are getting are message slowly thanks to forums
like this.

What percentage of sz members care about the retail price when making a buying decision ? Curios ?


Dan O'

All that matters is what you can actually buy it for, not the advertised price.
DonM

John,

Technics used to be a much better deal for you than for most of us in the USA.

Besides, Korg had a higher price here because of high Euro, and now they have jacked up that price even more because of the same high Euro. If this trend continues, those of us who want to buy a Korg will have to pay an arm and a leg (and 20% of another leg)

The arguments that the manufacturers (and some of the dealers) make is "look how much more you are getting - an MP3 player for $300, a CD burner for $500, a hard drive for $600... surely this makes a [insert name here] a good buy at only $4500"

This argument is flawed, and I don't buy it for a minute. A $15000 car would cost around $75000 if you had to buy all its parts piecemeal. Yet none of us would think of paying $75000 for a cheap car. If the cars were that unaffordable, we would not be driving, but walking, biking, riding a horse, or whatever else people used to do. In other words, if the car makers had tried to gouge us too much (some will say they are doing this already), people would not use cars as their everyday mode of transportation. In other words, the manufacturers' greed would be hurting primarily themselves. Of course, it would be inconvenient for the public, but it would kill the profits of the car makers. Yet, the keyboard makers are operating in exactly the same mode - charge what the market can bear and then some, because we can.

I believe that today any major keyboard manufacturer - Yamaha, Roland, Korg, Emu, etc., is able to build an arranger keyboard relatively inexpensively - the sound generation technologies of all the major makers are sufficiently high to be able to reproduce natural instrument sounds, which is what most of us look for in an arranger.

The arranger functions are not overly complicated. The only advantage an established manufacturer has is the ability to re-use their operating system, as Korg and Yamaha and GEM are doing. I believe the fact that Roland has never nailed down the kinks in the operating system is what is biting it in the ... now, but given the wealth of public experience, anyone can design a good operating system without too much trouble. For the most part, it is a packaging exercise, reusing the same technologies and parts they are using in the rest of their product lines.

Ultimately it comes down to giving the user some extra convenience. I have been using arranger keyboards for the last 14 years, and can attest to the convenience of having an all-in-one instrument, which can allow to to express myself musically at the push of a single button.

However, in the absence of an alternative, I have almost resigned myself to going to a two-box solution - a laptop and a keyboard controller. One thing for sure - I have seen plenty of slab pianos with long keyboards and speakers, which I would love to play instead of some dinky spongy short keyboards found on some of today's even not-so-cheap instruments.

Regards,
Alex