I agree. Good case in point. In Europe, Yamaha Germany UK promote their arrangers thru featured arranger keyboard demonstrations presented by Yamaha artists like Michel Voncken Peter Baartmans, and Martin Harris, of who also host Yamaha sponsored "in store" arranger keyboard clinic demos too. Though Yamaha USA frequently offers in-store demos & clincs for the Motif and other instruments (and presented by official Yamaha artists & clinicians) this is totally missing in the US, when it comes to arrangers. I suppose one can't expect dealers (lest their sales staff) to show much incentive & enthusiasm in promoting & stocking high end arrangers until the manufacterer provides better dealer support of their arranger keyboard product through in store demos, and manufacterer sponsored arranger kb clinics as well. - Scott

QUOTE

Which bring up my final point: maybe it's time for arranger manufacturers to sell directly to consumers. Dealers are fine for a lot of things but are becoming less essential to working musicians, who often shop online anyway. Cutting out dealer markups would mean a better deal for everyone. [/B][/QUOTE]

Esh,I think thats a bit harsh for the majority,the good dealers have been the backbone throughout the time, without these there would have been very little sold, without these, there would be no p/ex,s, nowhere to go for repairs,support and advice. Yep you could go it alone and save a bit of money,you would also be the one who would be talking to a recorded message or the janitor (you don,t have a clue who you are talking to)asking how long will you have to wait for your board repaired/ delivered. A dealer who buys maybe 100 boards a year will get results quicker than,a mr X who buys one on the net and often rings with an enquiry .I agree not all dealers are the same but the good local shop is there for both the pro and the novice.Mike

Hi Fran,

Ya' know, I have so many comments on the remarks made here that I decided it would take far too much of my time at the moment. Having been at NAMM for a week, things have piled up a bit.


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Wm. David McMahan
Nat'l Product and Support Manager
Generalmusic USA
GEM Community Forums

I NEVER shop for keyboards, amps or accessories online UNLESS my local dealers don't stock the item, and they cannot order it for me in a reasonable time frame. I would much rather support my local dealers, and in all the years I've been buying pairs of keyboards, I have yet to purchase the first one online.

Gary

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Travlin' Easy

Esh,I think thats a bit harsh for the majority,the good dealers have been the backbone throughout the time, without these there would have been very little sold, without these, there would be no p/ex,s, nowhere to go for repairs,support and advice. Yep you could go it alone and save a bit of money,you would also be the one who would be talking to a recorded message or the janitor (you don,t have a clue who you are talking to)asking how long will you have to wait for your board repaired/ delivered. A dealer who buys maybe 100 boards a year will get results quicker than,a mr X who buys one on the net and often rings with an enquiry .I agree not all dealers are the same but the good local shop is there for both the pro and the novice.Mike[/B][/QUOTE]

I've worked at music stores and was the guy that people came to for repairs and advice... the things we fixed were out of warranty and most everything else went back to the factory if it didn't work. Support beyond basic operation was often referred to the manufacturer also. And our customers were overwhelmingly music students and hobbyists with pros taking the minority, so the products and services we offered reflected the market. I personally haven't made a keyboard purchase from a local dealer in ten years.

BTW: one thing my wife and I took notice of... we just got our Feb/2006 copy of Keyboard magazine which has an very good review of the Tyros 2 in it (it got a KeyBuy award). Interestingly, Yamaha has no ads for the Tyros 2 in this issue, only ads for their MO's. I found that surprising, especially since the review touts the many "pro synth" features and flat-out says tha Tyros 2 surpasses many top workstations sonically. The only arranger advertised in the issue is the Roland G-70, and that ad shows the keyboard at an extreme angle and calls it a "music workstation". It's a stealth-marketed arranger.

Hi AJ,
don't know about the USA, but in Aust, there seems to be a bit of a stigma attached to using arranger keyboards. They're regarded more as a hobbyist or home user board.Problem is arrangers here are normally sold in stores where digital piano's are sold , ( and electronic organs used to be sold) rather than in the so called "professional" store where synths, workstations, guitars, p.a's etc ( all the cool stuff) haa haa.

Try & tell an 20 year old it's "cool" to play an arranger. They walk in the store, notice it's mainly retirees ( like myself ( haa haa) plonking away on the keys , and they walk back out.

Put the same keyboard in a setting with an array of synths & workstations, point out some of the amazing features, and you've got half a hope.

I think marketing has a lot to do with it, plus it's very difficult to find a store that bothers to keep top of the line arrangers in stock.
Technics was one exception, we had a really great dealer in Sydney. He had all the models.
I had problems before Xmas trying to buy a Yammie, no hope of getting a Tyros 2, & discovered much to my surprise , I couldn't even get a PSR3000 till some time in Jan or Feb 2006. I rang close to a dozen yammie dealers.

Anyway, their loss, Ketron's gain. Discovered we actually had a Ketron dealer in Sydney, and more's the point, he actually keeps the top of the line Ketron
in stock.
Hoping he turns out to be as good as my technics dealer of 15 years. Time will tell.


best wishes
Rikki
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Ketron_AJ:
[B]

Interestingly enough, the G70 will not be found in the stores which most Keyboard magazine readers visit (GC, Sam Ash, etc.)

The big difference between Europe and the US is that with the much lower population density, a dealer is exposed to fewer potential customers than in Europe. For that reason, I don't think demonstrations will work as well here. Also, while I suppose an average 20-year old may be impressed seeing his/her favorite band with an arranger on stage or in a video, most people who really use the arranger features would not necessarily be impressed by that. Speaking for myself, I don't give a hoot if some big-name performer is using a particular instrument in a scripted show on stage - their needs are quite different than mine.

As far as stocking the arrangers - by the time I go to a car dealership to look at a car that interests me, I know more than the salesman, and I will consider having him around as a necessary evil. My main goal is to feel the quality of its built and experience driving it. The same is true about an arranger - most users of high-end instruments know how to play and use most features of an arranger, and having a salesman hovering over them is not a necessity.

I would say that for me an ideal shopping experience would be to try purchasing an instrument from a dealership with a sufficiently long return policy (e.g. 30-45 days), try it out for myself, and then decide if that is what I want. It may be helpful to have access to a knowledgeable online resource (e.g. AJ or Dave McMahon, or the like) for some very specific questions about more obscure areas of functionality, and perhaps an instructional DVD that comes with the instrument.

Beyond that, the problem is with the American music tastes - I find that many European hits lend themselves to playing with an arranger, while much of the contemporary stuff that my kids listen to here in the US do not.

REgards,
Alex

My point is that people buy romplers all the time, and arrangers are just romplers with accompaniment, so why not buy an arranger if it can do the same job as the romplers that are sold in every day music stores? Arrangers give the same (or better) sounds for your band but also give you the option of having a solo/duo/trio gigging machine, not to mention a great practice and composing/recording tool. I read posts on other keyboard forums where people who play keyboards still don't know what an arranger is. Marketing is an issue, maybe not the only one but a big one.

[This message has been edited by Esh (edited 01-28-2006).]

Hi AJ

One corny style can blow a sale. Allow dealers to select the styles on the demo, e.g., by shipping the dealer multiple software personality modules to select from. The dealer can then load in lots of styles of interest to customers and leave out ones that will drive customers away. I think some of those oom-pa-pa styles send many young customers running out the door. How about arrangers with no ballroom or folk dance styles, but heavy on rock, blues, etc.

Clif

I think these last few post made some important points and they are all things for the manufacturers to do.

The sounds on an arranger should be of the same or even better quality than that on workstations. Both arrangers and workstation should have the same quality of bread and butter sounds and synth sounds. There should not be that big of a difference with respect to sounds between arrangers and workstations. Yes for marketing reasons you would have to have sounds that would be speciffic to a keyboard, but there should not be that big gap.

The nexthing is the styles. The styles need to cover some of the musical styles that persons would play on workstations. They need to have more hip sounding styles and not styles that just try to mimic songs that have already been done 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 years ago.

The manufacturers need to change the way they think about arrangers. Produce them market them and display them the same way they do workstations. Stop thinking that arrangers are for home players. If you make it for professionals, the home players would still buy it because it would have the arranger features.


I don't know why they have to call some keyboards arrangers and some workstations.

If Yamaha were to make a new keyboard called the "Motif grand" (or what ever name you want to call it), and market it and produce it as the upgrade for the motif S but it has SAV and arranger features, you would see both the "workstation" and the "arranger and home players" go for it.