return policy subject to 15% restocking charge now(Guitar Center)....It only makes sense..this return offer has been abused for a long time..So if is worth a couple hundred dollars to check a board out..go for it...(It is worth it to me..to find out if I want to use a board I never tried before]..

Hello and greeting from a fellow Detroiter!
I was in the same boat as you. The only store that I could find that had arrangers that was within reasonable distance from my house was the GC in Southfield. I went there and saw that at the time they only had Yamaha arrangers. They had T2, PSR3000 and PSR1500. Unfortunately, the conditions to try out these instruments were very poor. T2 was not even hooked up and the PSRs were placed on a very tall rack (not easy to try out). The day I went there they had a water leak and water was dripping from a ceiling on the keyboards . Did not try out Roland or a Korg until I took a trip to Europe earlier this year.
Went to the same GC yesterday and saw that they now have a Korg Pa 50 and the new S500 BTW.
All in all, from what I have seen in the mass-merchant music stores in US, arrangers are not given a high attention. I spoke to a manager from a GC and he mentioned that, in the Detroit region, some GCs are not even carrying arrangers because the "perceived" interest is very low. The manager however, seem to think that it is on the contrary. He especially though that the oriental arrangers would be a big hit since we have a large Middle-Eastern population here.
Best regards,
Bart

[This message has been edited by Barty (edited 07-23-2007).]

If its that important to you & it will make you happy & you dont want to go the 30-45 day return buy off the Internet route.......then make an appointment..take a long road trip or even take a short flight to where ever it is that has the Unit you want to try out....bring money make a deal and take that baby home ......although that's not where the real decision ends........1 or 2 months later after you really dig into the KB's OS & /or start to gig with it in live navigational situations is where the real personal decisions are made for personal happiness which after that time period could still make you change, sell, upgrade or whatever.....here lies the benefit of a 30-45 day return policy.....do your homework first, ask questions, ask yourself what YOU really need this KB for & dont procrastinate JUST DO IT!!! Its not the end of the world & its not the last KB you'll even own Good Luck!

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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

With all due respect Donny, the whole concept is to see and hear the darn things before you decide to buy. For sure, if I was hot to trot for keyboard I might do a little traveling to make the deal. I've done that, driving 3-4 hours to buy my Kurzweil and then the Allen organ for church.

But we're talking arranger keyboards here. I don't know diddly about Gem and wouldn't think twice about one until I ran into one way up north in Gaylord. Same with a Ketron and basically the same for Korg in many instances. I can surely find a Yamaha and probably a Roland, but I certainly have to drive more than 50 mikes to see anything else. For many people that's too much for them to consider those other keyboards.

Reread my post CASSP
"If its that important to YOU" nothing will change ....arrangers are less & less prevalent in most music stores if at all ....that's the bottom line with Internet sales alternatives rising daily vs the older players/younger set vs arrangers & synth workstations......either you HAVE to get your hands on what you want or its pretty much forum here say

Vilo,
GC on 635 and Midway have a couple of Tyros 2, but I just discovered that Murphy's music in Irving(183) have Korg PA 8oo, and PA1Xpro...I just bought PA1X pro elite from them.....hope this help, thanks!

Until the arranger manufacturers start producing arrangers more like the MM6 (but more pro quality) that cater as much to younger players tastes AS WELL as our own, arranger sales will continue to slip, and stores will be less and less inclined to stock something the majority of buyers have no use for.

And the raping of the elderly (us!) has got to stop...! There is no reason other than marketing why a highly technical, extremely well built (few arrangers have the build quality of even a modest workstation) and voiced workstation costs thousands less than it's equivalent arranger. Simply on a bang for the buck basis, arrangers are a very poor bargain.

WE all know how practical these types of keyboards can be for older, classic styles of music, but as squeak, and many of the younger dance, hiphop and techno players will tell you, they lack many of the features and sounds that make workstations so popular. I don't think it is the workstations' workflow that is so popular, but just the soundset, editing capabilities and certain arpeggiator and loop capabilities. If these were added to arranger capabilities, and styles developed that sound like something from THIS century, a whole new generation would come to accept them, and we wouldn't have as much problem finding them in the stores.

But until this happens, arrangers' market share will continue to diminish, making them a poor choice for a cash-strapped music retailer...

Right on, Diki.

I have little use for Klezmer and Orch Wtz or many of the other styles. What I want is a damn drum machine-style arranger that kicks butt. We tried to play a rock song using the arranger last week and it basically sounded like crap. Whay do you think I use SMFs? They have the drums and bass and rhythmn of the song. Nothing on an arranger comes close. I keep the arranger because of all the other features it has. I'm no young stud, but I'm not playing just from the yellow bible either. For me, an MM6 probably is a little too much, but the styles on the G70 are starting to make me scream !!!!!!

I don't think we'll see the "pro modern arranger" anytime soon. The makers always keep a stiff line between the pro synth, and arranger. Yamaha finally is letting a little of the technology leak over into the synth line as the Motif XS has some "arranger like" functions. Hell just the other day Yamaha posted a reply on the Motif forum that some of the patterns on the Motif XS were taken DIRECTLY from the Tyros 2, along with many of the acoustic voices--however those sneaky boys in marketing and design "changed" the names of these instruments carried over to their top synth so they wouldn't have the assocation with their "arranger roots".

I don't think you'll see a modern pro arranger fro several reasons. One it's already a very shady issue on "price justification" for pro arrangers now when compared to pro synths. The price difference of the Motif XS and Tyros 2 is evidence enough for that. There has already been numerous complaints that the MM6 is at least $100 overpriced. So I can only imagine what the makers would charge for a "modern" pro arranger. Personally I don't think they can get away with the high price because obviously (as the numbers will probably show) the (younger crowd) which is where they'll sell the most wouldn't pay $3500-$4000 for a pro arranger when for example a Yamaha Motif XS can be bought for less.

Please elaborate on this statement Roland has some of the best styles available for an arranger to fill many situations...what are you specifically looking for ....also have you tried to use the G70 tools to create your own specific user styles....this is an arranger feature not many player every utilize....the power is there write anything you can play or think up.