"The fact is simple, few people will spend anywhere near $4K let alone over $5K for a keyboard. Just look at the Korg Oasys for example.. it lists for nearly $8,500 and its market is so small less than a few thousand units have been sold worldwide.

Even if Domenik could make the Mediastation lighter he'd probably not sell many (if any) more because most people are cheap and won't spend that kind of money on a keyboard. "

Most people are cheap ???? Do you know how insulting that statement is ? Did you go to the same charm school as Dom ?????

So i guess it makes perfect sense to market his expensive heavy niche instrument on this forum where the vast majority of the members have bought "cheap" lightweight mass produced mass market apeal instruments right ????

You are not helping Doms cause Ensnareyou

I wasn't trying to help Domeniks cause, I was stating what I know based upon being in music sales for the past 25 years. The "average" person will not spend over $2K let alone over $5k on a keyboard (Grand Piano's excepted). I'd love to see a show of hands on who owns a Wersi, Mediastation, Oasys, or any other high end workstation or keyboard that costs over $5K. As I said, I doubt there are more than a handful of us here on Synthzone who do.

Yes, when it comes to spending over $5K on a keyboard most people are cheap. The high end market has been declining for some time now. If that weren't true sales of high end keyboards would be equivalent to the lower priced ones and that simply isn't the case. Yamaha can sell thousands of PSR's not because they are the best sounding best made instrument, its because their cost isn't too high. If a PSR3000 was at a $4K price point few would sell.

Don't be insulted by what I wrote... if you think you can sell tens of thousands or more of keyboards that cost over $5K maybe you should go into the manufacturing business. If you predicate your future on selling high numbers of $5K+ keyboards chances are you will be out of business really fast. If it were that easy Yamaha, Roland, Ketron, and Korg would be doing it. Korg is the only major company to take a chance with a very high end instrument (Oasys) and so far its sales in the past two years have not exceeded a few thousand units (that's a fact).

I'm glad companies like Wersi and Lionstracs exist because they push the envelope of what is state of the art. Not everyone can afford these instruments and there is nothing wrong with that. Telling the manufacturer that they should cheapen their product by making it from plastic because they might sell more is simply stupid. Chances are if they did most people still wouldn't shell out the cash for one because of the price. If you said the same comments to Ferrari, Rolls Royce, or Bentley do you seriously think they would cheapen their cars just to sell a few more? No way!

My Goodness Folks! Dom couldn't have explained the reason for the weight any better.

I think what most aren't seeing here is WHAT the Mediastation really is... How many times have you seen someone post here about wanting to take their laptop with them on gigs, but don't want to haul that along with their keyboard. What the hell do you think the MediaStation is???

The MediaStation "IS" your keyboard and laptop in ONE unit. Break it down and what have with the MediaStation is simply that it is "literally" a computer with one hell of a bad ass midi controller attached and fine tuned to it. That's simply what it is.

Be pissed off if you want that someone said "homeplayer" when talking about some of these arrangers. Well like it or not, the makers THEMSELVES market these as " home keyboards". Yammie, Korg, and Roland make full synths as well as arrangers. Take Yamaha for example. Compare the construction quality of the Tyros 2 to a Motif ES-7. It's like night and day.

Sure Dom can add a lighter composite plastic body, but that doesn't always means it's cheaper to make. Anyone here own a pistol with a high impact composite frame??? Those aren't cheap. Seriously be realistic about this.

Dom clearly pointed out the FCC regulation, ect as for some of the UNAVOIDABLE weight issue. Geez compared to what we used to lug around, the MS's weight ESPECIALLY for a solidly built 76 key unit isn't nothing.

Also why should Dom go cheap on the body. Yammie and the others make cheap boards clearly marketed to the home player with flimsy plastic bodies. Dom makes a PROFESSIONAL keyboard, not directed at the home market. It is built to take the abuse of daily gigs. Now it's not to say that just because you have a keyboard marketed for home users it's a toy (we've all beaten that topic to death over the years so no use going into that crap again).

Dom I say ROCK ON my friend. You have clearly made a keyboard worthy of the money, and clearly lets the other makers know, they NEED to catch up because these open source keyboards ARE the future for keyboard players. Naturally those used to the typical "hardware" unit will be skeptical. It's like watching 8 track tape fade into where we are today with portable MP3 players. In time everyone will fall in line

[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 12-18-2006).]

Is the MS the keyboard of the Future ?? It may very well be. The only problem with this is that I purchase something to use NOW. There is always that good chance that I will not be around to see the future. This means I desire top quality Styles and Voices NOW.
The only thing everyone seems to agree on is that the MS Styles leave a lot to be desired. If you are looking to purchase an Arranger keyboard (and this is an Arranger
keyboard forum) I assume you are looking for killer styles NOW. Just because new things will be available in the future does not mean they will be good or even usuable -
I remember when the Edsel came out as the car of the future.
I would love to have another option when buying a new Arranger - for this I need to try it out. Since there is no place for me to audition the MS I must depend on company Demos to give me an accurate picture of the benifits of the keyboard. I listened to the available MS Demos and if they are accurate and reflect the abilities of the MS, the future looks dim. Let's hear a Demo that does justice to the Keyboard.
One last thought - How many of you would marry an ugly woman (one without style) on the promise she will look better in the future.
Bruce

ferarri, mercedes and rolls royce have done their market research and analysed who their customers are and what they will pay for what they want, has Dom done this excercise because if he had he might decide to choose a different way to market his instrument.

As someone who has been involved in music sales for 25 years you will appreciate that you will not be selling to the "average person". I am a salesman and i have a profile of the customers that i choose to sell to. Average people probably would not fit my sales profile. Musicians are clearly not average people . Most of them will save their hard earned money to spend ££££ if they believe the instrument that they want can fulfill all their needs and wants . Ask some of the guys on here that own 2-3 instruments currently or have spent in excess of £10000 over the last 5 yaers on new instrument purchases. They have the interst and they have the means but the product being offered does not meet their wants.

I know lots of musicians, producer etc who could afford the Oasys but have simply chosen not to purchase one because there is a concept that most "cheap" people ( especially in the UK)have understood and apply dailey. Its called value for money. These musicians are not cheap and they are not average people. They simply are not convinced that £8000 on one piece of equipment is value for money when they can work with far less costly equipment and get the same if not better results.

If i bought a ferrari the very least that i would expect is that i could drive it. If i bought an arranger keyboard, the very least i would expect is for it to have good balanced styles . afterall i bought it because it is supposed to be an arranger ...

If telling a manufacturer that in order to sell to us they need to make it lighter and actually functional as an arranger compared to its competitors is stupid then i guess ignoring the customer, being rude to them and telling them that they will not listen, denigrating the existing instruments and insinuating that they are not professional must be the hieght of intelligence ????

Last note , if Rolls Royce were short of customers in order to make a profit it would make whatever adjustments it had to to stay in business and yes that includes cheapening the price.Right now Rolls Royce has customers prepared to pay its prices for the percived value of the product. Dom certainly has potential customers willing to pay his prices but the value trade off is falling short.All businesses will not stay in business if it cannot adapt to the needs of the market.From what i can see nobody is beating down Lion Tracs doors for this product hence Doms attempts to encourage (in his unique way) more sales here.

Ensnaryou..... My fully loaded and accessorized K2500S, after all the options I installed (not to mention paying for them in 1995 dollars) easily gets close to (or exceeds!) the MS's current price. It is still on of my primary session tools.

However...... it did what it claimed to do on the day I bought it, and now does considerably more. I have always thought it worth spending good money for good value. Keyboards I have owned and used in the past also include expensive CS-80s, B3s, Oberheim Xpanders and OBxa's, not to mention grand and upright pianos and accordions.

But all these keyboards did one thing - they all did what they were claiming they did the day I bought them, not in some nebulous 'future' when we'll all drive around in air-cars.

I am prepared to admit (although, of course I haven't had the opportunity to play one - who has?) that the MS is probably already the best workstation on the planet. But that is not what Domenik is claiming.... the MS is supposedly the best ARRANGER on the planet. Now go listen to his style demos..... convinced? I didn't think so.

If you have the MS so dialed in, why not donate a few killer demos to Domenik...? Presumably he's not willing to PAY a professional demonstrator to make them (despite how many amazing arranger players there are in Europe), but if some of the more vocal supporters would post examples of kick-a$$ style demos, it might help out a lot. Just make sure you demo OOTB styles and sounds, so we know what we are buying....

How i tough before and always a lot of time...I think here im this forum I lose only my time and I can now understand why a lot of you guys don't like this forum too.

Fortunally in the oriental area they can develope his oriental styles alone and they don't need the western styles.

Untill they continue place order like this: http://www.lionstracs.com/data/images/100groove.jpg
I have first to listen what they want of features first, after they get what they want we are able to add our western features for make you there happy.

USA can be a big potentially area too, we know that but is really hard to try to change your dish where you had eating from many years.

I'm the first that gave the full respect of other brands too, i have to many friends there and they know me well too.
I told always that the T2 have the best styles, that Korg is the most advanced company and that I like much better the Roland design.
What I wrote before is that the MS still have the most advanced OS and Tools features that no another keyboard can have right now.
We can fix in better the styles, more balanced and what you all like, but for the others brands, develope the all OS and tools features that the MS have NOW, mean to waiting another 4-6 years.
And IF after 4-6 years they can arrival at the MS OS status, we still have another 4-6 years new advanced OS features.
That's all.
I'm bored now here...
have fun.
regards

My last post on this thread......

Domenik - you want to sell those kinds of numbers in the West, too? Just LISTEN to us.....

If it takes 4-6 years before your styles are BETTER than Korg, Yamaha etc., it won't matter how advanced the features and OS are! You may be bored with this thread - perhaps honest feedback from your target customers in the West doesn't excite you as much as a Linux sampler, but unless you WANT to get relegated to selling to the Orient exclusively, western styles, in large quantity and better than the current offerings from your competition (no matter how hard you deny you have any!) will be the only thing to prevent it.

Now, it's up to you...... You want MY money? Get moving!

Still bored?........... See ya!

.

[This message has been edited by Fran Carango (edited 12-20-2006).]

my last post on this thread, too. and piggybacking on what Diki said re STYLES,, same goes for WEIGHT issue, and it IS an issue, dammit, and it's not going to go away because you don't want it to be an issue. For those that want it all, have the bucks, and don't mind, or even prefer, having a sherman tank, keep offering your x-88 as your flagship model. But, as an alternative, make your x-76 with non-weighted yet quality keys, put the power supply
external, use a quality plastic case, or at least partially plastic. everything else can be the same quality, and you will lower the weight to 35 lbs, and you will be able to lower the price as well, and you will still have a great kb
that will sell many many many more units!

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Miami Mo