Diki
I agree with you on this..I do not think it will happen over night...but it sure sounds logical...

Ron

[This message has been edited by rphillipchuk (edited 08-08-2007).]

Actually, the price is there because they can't get YOUNG people to buy them...

I think the problem is not the arranger KB its the people who KNOW how to play them & the upcoming people who are not replenishing , learning how, or even want to with all the alternatives to make music out there with a barrage of competition which the public is ever getting use too with the likes of Karaoke, DJ's, everyone & their mother who thinks they can sing artists, etc etc etc . Plus, the great music of years past is which in my opinion will be around way after we're all gone isn't mainstream so less people listen to it vs most of the crap on every channel. Im glad I was able to be around in an ever changing gradual musical influence joyride for the last 40 yrs of performing which makes it mush easier to go with the flow & keeping within the reaches and the pulse of whats going on to make a living as a KB artist & definitly way beyond versus a new comer who doesn't even know who the Beatles are let alone Harry James, Sarah Vaughn, Al Hirt or Connie Haines... man in this game ya gotta find your slice of the pie and take hold of it big time ....otherwise someone is gonna Eat YOUR Piece if you blink your eyes

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Donny

“ Choose a Job You Love, and you will Never have to Work a Day in Your Life! ”
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And HUG Someone tight Everyday....
You'll Feel better afterwards

SD3

I don't really think arranger keyboards will go the way of the old home organ. Yes, at the moment the vast majority of people who really understand how to use (or for that matter sell) an arranger keyboard comes from an organ background. But to say that until the arranger keyboards are re-designed to make them appealing to a younger audience, well that's not totally accurate. There are a few arranger instruments that can definitely hold their own next to what is commonly referred to as a workstation keyboard but not enough folks are aware of that fact. I see several problems that need to be addressed to correct this. Retail salespeople need to be trained on these instruments so they will know the capabilities, and they need to be de-sensitized to the word arranger. I mean there is a very fine line between today’s workstations and arranger keyboards. A lot of the newer workstations are filled with patches that with a single touch of a key starts to play patterns consisting of drum loops, bass parts, etc. Also, for arranger keyboards to gain some ground in the U.S. the manufacturer would be good to advertise to a younger audience, but with the relatively small margins made on this type of product that is kind of hard to do effectively.

A quick story; A couple of months ago I visited Sweetwater Music to provide product training to their sales staff (I think I worked with about 80 salespeople in a 5 hour period). One particular salesman who was into DJ stuff like sampling/looping, re-mixing, etc. asked if he could start a loop and then bring tracks in and out at will. So we found a techno beat that he liked, pressed start and triggered a key. The style played with the accompaniment tracks. I pressed Mixer and he was able to mix each track live. He then wanted to adjust the cut-off frequency of the filter for the bass loop so I pressed the Edit Sound button and he was able to adjust the filter and every other aspect of this sound like amplitude and filter envelope generators, LFO’s, etc. in real time. When he said “that is the sound I am looking for” I pressed the store button and saved his edit to the initial style preset, all while the style was still running. There were more revelations but suffice it to say that he was coming from a totally different background than the average arranger user and the questions he was asking pertained to the products he is familiar with that are designed with only DJ use in mind and he left realizing that there is a whole new instrument that he can introduce to buyers in his market.

As for price, there is the Euro/U.S. dollar issue. But also take into consideration the fact that an arranger instrument requires the same type of hardware and software that goes in to a workstation instrument PLUS on top of that additional software must be written for the arranger section, not to mention the cost of creating all of the styles that are included in the instrument. It costs more to create a professional arranger/workstation instrument.

Dave

Then you have the TOTL arranger keyboard versus the BOTL arranger keyboard scenarios......for example...

"I like your keyboard my grandson has one just like that....he paid $199.00 for it at Sams Club is that where you got yours?"

People are unacknowledged about these wonderful instruments ...but in there layman's eyes ONLY SEE WHITE & BLACK KEYS which in their mind is a keyboard right? & they all must be the same ? regardless of quality, brand, etc etc ....

You have to educate yourself in any way you can about your purchase....what is really dying out is buying gear from a store vs the Internet....besides 90% of sales people, tech-reps, geek squads idiots, etc etc are detrimental to your purchase, why? because they dont know squat about what is being sold in the stores they work in...management is not much better, plus they even hire UNTRAINED people just to fill slots on the floor, talk on the cell phone to their girlfriends & hide so you have to search for someone to even ask a question if your dare because the answer will almost like be
"I really dont know" "Arranger Whats that?"
"I dont think we have that in stock"
"What do you need that for?" etc etc .....its a sad state of affairs...your on your own out there

Dave, I believe the main problem that comes trying to sell arrangers to the younger players comes from the preponderance of styles aimed squarely at the 'older' market.

You may be right that a FEW arrangers are able in hardware and software to get close to workstation features, and even sound (if you are not TOO picky) but the sad fact is, 95% of the styles in the arranger (the very thing that the manufacturers are telling us why they are SO much more expensive than better featured workstations) are of NO conceivable use to anyone thirty and under (OK, let's be honest and just say the vast majority of under 30 players!).

Add to that the soundset is geared to acoustic and older sounds, samplers don't load fast enough to be a feasible replacement, and nothing so far integrates arpeggiation with conventional arranger operation, and while you CAN do a quick demo to impress a salesman, try taking your arranger to a rave and using it there.

Without a complete re-tooling of the styles (the manufacturers refuse to let their arpeggiation voicing teams work on arrangers) and soundsets, OOTB these current arrangers would be an embarrassment to anyone doing modern music.

Sure, you COULD spend months writing your own techno and Hiphop beats into it (and sampling more contemporary beatboxes) but as you know well, the vast majority of workstations sold don't ever have their internal ROM arpeggiators messed with, much. Most don't get sold to record producers or beat factories. People use them just the way they use arrangers (the vast majority of arranger users don't write their own styles, either) as something to mess around with at home, or with a few friends.

So why would ANY youngster want to pay 30% or more MORE than a workstation, to get a piece of kit that only had maybe 5% of the styles he could use...?

This is what I've been saying all along... Arranger manufacturers don't have to re-invent the wheel. SOME of them already have hardware and OSs that can cope with modern music. The rest only have to make minor OS changes to allow for modern styles, and allow a few more realtime voice controls.

But ALL OF THEM have to make a determined effort to pack the arranger with modern sounding styles and sounds. And this, so far, they refuse to do, DESPITE having voicing teams that do exactly this for their workstations. And then, they sit around scratching their heads, going 'Why are arranger sales so sluggish?'

Sadly, most modern arrangers are capable of having their entire ROM styles easily replaced. Why not take the hardware they already have, replace ALL the older styles with modern ones, and re-label the arranger? 'The Rave Machine', the 'Hood Party Blaster', the 'Alternative Arranger', whatever...

As long as some young hiphop guy doesn't accidentally hit 'Waltz 3' or 'Sunny Bossa', there's a pretty good chance you'll make the sale. But the minute he gets into that Ballroom Bank, or the Polka styles, he's outta there!

Why don't the arranger manufacturers realize this? Take ALL the older styles out (have them on a card that the dealer only puts in to show to the few older customers still alive!) and they will fly off the shelves...

There is very serious ommision on both the SD3 module & the SD5 keyboard - no USB to Device port, for a flash drive or external Hard Drive - not even an SD Card slot which almost every cheap camera has nowadays.
A floppy disk is steam age technology nowadays and a cost of £250 (UK) for a small internal Hard drive is far too much for far too little, when I have bought a 500 Gb external Hard Drive for my computer for £85.

After reading a brilliant review of the SD5 (on Jazzhooves), I had intended to buy an SD3 as soon as they hit the market - I consider the £1300 asking price (BCK) to be a fair price for this module, (which is a complete SD5 keyboard without the keys & speakers) but I don't want to go back to using slow & outdated floppy disks after using an SD card on my Technics KN7000 (as good as any hard drive I.M.H.O.)

Ketron make quality products with good sounds and features and they have been one of the few manufacturers to keep producing Module versions of their keyboards. I have praised them constantly for this and wish to continue my support for them - but the lack of cheap and convenient storage is a big turn-off in my opinion and I'm now reluctant to make the purchase.

I have invited AJ or, better still, someone from Ketron themselves, to comment on this but the silence is deafening.

Tony, SHEFFIELD

I understand what you are saying and in part I agree with you. It would be nice to have the capabilities (meaning money and time mostly) to create entirely new O/S's that would focus on specific market segments. I have suggested that in the past. But the reality is the manufacturer has to focus on the primary buyer that already exists for a given type of product and in the case here in the U.S. at least, it is the organ people of the past. Incidentally, in Europe arranger keyboards are much more prominent and used by ALL ages. Then again, most arranger users in Europe tend to have a sense of pride in NOT using built-in styles so much because they feel it is important to offer some individuality in their performance.

Would offering an arranger instrument focusing strictly on hip hop, rave, techno, etc. sell? Probably not because it would still cost more than a basic workstation that includes some built-in sampled beat loops.

Here's an idea, pick an arranger of your choice that has the ability to create custom styles and start programming. If you think there is such a market, you should be able to pick up some decent spare change by creating and selling these types of styles.

Not to turn this into an advertisement, but as an example, the Genesys has a very deep sound editing section. And some of the main values such as filter cutoff and resonance, LFO rate and depth, ADR, etc. plus of course volume, panning, effects sends and even the editable parameters within the effect algorithms can all be recorded into the sequencer (of which there are 32 tracks/MIDI channels) and into style tracks.

Just a thought.

Dave

Well, I'm one of those "older" arranger buyers. I play everything from the 20's through the 70's. Because of my market, I wish I could audition and select professional styles related to what I do and load them into a "blank" arranger. I don't use half of the styles on these keyboards. And programming----not me. Don't have the inclination nor time for that. Got to work fast with hundreds of songs ready to go. Overall, I've had good luck with all the major brands. With Yamaha at the moment, but willing to change.