You are disregarding how much profit is to be made.

A small piece of a small pie is hardly a big profit.

Yamaha's wait and see attitude is right for them...if you can't see that, I'm sure no one in the company is going to fret about it.

Ian

Geeezzzzzz, I can't believe there is so much to say about 61 or 76 keys!

Bottom line is, no matter what you buy, 61/ 76, Roland, yamaha, or Korg, You are filling the same pockets!!!!!

Do your research people!

spalding,

You got it quite right.

Mixing different 76-keys arranger keyboards (like G-70 and E-60) doesn't make sense (even if they are from same manufacturer and so "alike" as in former example) because they have different features and might be targeted to different parts of market.

Keybed, no matter how important (because this is primary "interface" between player and the instrument), is not the onliest "quality" of 76-keys arranger, and cannot be considered the onliest reason for buying, or not buying it.

Somebody buy 76-key arranger because of the fact that it has 76 keys, but others buys it because of the keybed quality (Roland G-70 for instance), or because included sampler (Korg Pa 1x Pro), or live arrangements (Ketron SD-1), and all these reasons are not the onliest one that made someone made specific purchase decision.

By buying any 76-keys arranger customer gets all the "bells&whistles" but also all negative sides, like size and wight, that might be very important to gigging musician who lugs his instrument to every gig. Even on this forum we can read complaints on size and weight of G-70, and we can be quite sure that keybed is not the reason (at least) for heavy weight.

I am (still) not a keyboard player, but, from what I have seen and read until now, 61 keys are quite enough for an "average" one-man-band player.

Advantage of having 76 keys is having one more split point and additional sound without touching control buttons, and/or wider key-span for playing more demanding (piano) music pieces. So, if I'm right, only "advantage users" who do want to perform something more then one-man-band show needs 76-keys.

So it is quite understanding that there is more demand for 61-keys, then for 76-keys keyboards (there are more amateurs then professionals). The results of the pool on this forum might just indicate that majority of the members are professionals or advantage users.

But, although the number of potential buyers of 76-keys arrangers is smaller then the number of buyers o6 61-keys keyboards, it is still profitable market.

And not only that, but also all the users who wants to have the TOTL arranger keyboard from Korg, Roland, or Ketron, will end up buying 76-keys arranger keyboard weather they need it, or not.

Where is the justification for the 9000Pro?

This is the apple that upsets the cart... You can't keep constantly asserting that there IS no market, there never WAS a market, there will never BE a market for a 76 Yamaha.

Remember, 'Yamaha can do no wrong'... The FACT that Yamaha produced this keyboard demonstrates one of two things...

Either there IS a market for the product - there is NO WAY the infallible Yamaha would produce this expensive beast if it had not researched the market exhaustively (shame they didn't consult Ian, who could have told them what a mistake it would be... oops, I forgot, Ian would assume that because Yamaha were doing it, it MUST be OK!), and come to the conclusion the demand actually WAS there. Hey, maybe they conducted a POLL?! But the FACT they produced it shows there IS a market, Our arms haven't got any shorter in the last few years, there's no reason to assume that the market is any significantly different than it was in 2002...

OR.... Yamaha can get it wrong, just like any other company.

Now, which is it...? You can't have it BOTH ways, you know.

The PSR-9000 Pro didn't sell well.

No more risk taking until the market proves itself.

That's easy to understand, ain't it?

Ian

Korg did well with the PA1x as it came in 2 versions, 61 notes and inbuilt speakers, with options for more advanced users, and 76 notes without speakers with most options fitted, thus giving the user the choice. (The board’s internals were the same)
The Pro was also more expensive, however it still sold well, but as would be expected it was outsold by the standard 61 note version.
I presume they will also do the same with the PA2x as otherwise they will probably loose quite a few sales. (And I can’t see Korg making that mistake)
When it comes to Yamaha however, the type of users that buy most of them, have no interest in Pro versions, a point that seems to be ignored by those that say they should build a 76 note version. (Its also interesting to note how they ignore my posts about what world dealers say about the type of Yamahas they could sell (Talk about head in the sand)
Take it from the dealers, take it from users, take it from Yamaha, take it from the Yamaha Forums, Yamaha users are NOT interested in a 76 note arranger.
Not difficult to grasp

Bill

ian,

I cannot agree with You for one simple reason.

If it's "small piece of a small pie" that would mean that all current manufactures of 76-keys arrangers (Korg, Roland, Ketron) are doing something wrong, and they are doing it for a quite long time (decades), and some of them (like Ketron with SD-1 until SD-5 emerged) had only one, and only 76-keys proffesional arranger.

Well, if You know something about the market, You know that You can make wrong decision, but You cannot do it for a long time because You will vanish from the market, but it's not the case here.

Waiting for several decades to see if the 76-keys arranger market would be profitable is also out of the question, because it would be equal to waiting to see if the newly planted sequoia will grow 100 meter tall.

Here in my country (Croatia), and in the eastern neighboring countries (Bosna and Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia) almost everything that has letter "PSR" on it is considered a toy (with exceptions of 9000 Pro, and maybe S-900 lately). The most popular arranger amongst professionals (gigging OMB performers) was Korg Pa-80 not because of keybed, not because of sound, not because of interface, but simply because sampler and relatively affordable price.
These people would buy it even if it was 76-keys (if it would still be affordable).

I was quite surprised when I read that PSR-9000 Pro was unsuccessful for Yamaha because here it was one of the most desirable pro-keyboards (because of the included sampler, and quality of the keybed), and it still holds high reselling price.
Of course, it would be as successful as it was even if Yamaha decided to make it in 61-keys version only (like Tyros 1&2 are popular now).

So You can clearly see that the number of keys is not reason to buy or not to buy keyboard.

Sorry kalimero...you fail to convince me...thanks for trying.

Ian

And why didn't it sell well?
Was it because of the 76 keys.

As a market leader, is making a 76 key arranger a risk for Yamaha? If so, why.

You could try asking Yamaha...or the dealers...or the sales people.

I've already made my views quite clear.

Ian