Originally posted by Diki:
You honestly expect them to put something as powerful and as graphically intuitive as Cubase in a hardware arranger, squeeze it through a tiny four inch display, and not charge an arm and a leg..?
No but I do expect an inuitive and useable sequencer interface. A MIDI sequencer user interface is NOT rocket science despite what you think and doesn't require a lot of cpu resources or screen space. It simply requires some thought and design. I have used sequencers on computers 20 years ago that were easier to use than the one on my Yamaha Motif 6. Those computers didn't have a fraction of the power of a modern keyboard and didn't really have much more screen space. I am not sure what features of Cubase's MIDI editing and processing seem so astonishing to you. I think most of Cubase's basic MIDI features could easily be implemented onboard a keyboard.
I am a professional software engineer so I do have some basis for making a judgement about software design. I wrote MIDI software on computers as simple as the Commodore 64 and know that MIDI processing and editing doesn't actually require a lot of resources.
[This message has been edited by Nigel (edited 08-11-2008).]