Yea, I go into my local Guitar Center yesterday to pick up some cables and while there I ask the guy when the T3 would be there. His answer - What's That? No one in the store knew. Go figure.

Hammer

Maybe that's why they present themselves as a GUITAR center.



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Then maybe they should stop selling all keyboards since it's a Guitar Center

If they don't know what a "T3" is, they probably should

(We don't have "Guitar Centers" here. Every city just has its own music stores. We have 4 of them in the just average sized city here )



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Guitar Centers...??? You got questions...they got blank stares!

Give Frank at Audiowerks a try...he's got answers and he is a player like us!

Lee

Their response doesn't surprise me a bit. Seriously.., they're called Guitar Center Keyboard departments in (many) stores today seem to be more of an "after-thought". Even in these large retailers such as GC and Sam Ash.

Keyboard departments are expensive to run (and to get started). All the larger retailers I've been to..., the moment you walked in there were GUITARS all over the damn place. Right there at the front door there were guitars on stands greeting customers.., BUT not one keyboard within sight from the front door. Keys are often off in the back, to the side or in a completely different room. Then when someone actually talks to you..., 9 times out of 10 it's a guitar or drum player.

You EVER NOTICE that these stores sure as hell won't hire a guitar player who can't play or a drummer who can't hold a beat..., but when it comes to keyboards you get FRICK AND FRACK metal head wanna-bes who CAN'T PLAY selling keys.... It's just nuts.

[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 09-16-2008).]

Look at what sells in the chain music store....the figures drive their approach....just look at a GC when you walk in the guitars & amps are all in the front of the store for a reason ......keyboards take a small room in the rear of the store...its like a placing the right Slot machine on the floor in Casinos for high traffic users. Lets face it, its ALL ABOUT MONEY....If you want information on products use your computer & ask questions your not going to learn anything in most of these stores.

I went to Guitar Center a while back to check out a Taylor 814ce , and after I went to the keyboard department , and just for the heck of it ask when they were getting the new Tyros 3.

Here`s there response " Tyros 3 ? We can special order a Tyros 2 , but I have not heard anything about a new Tyros , we have the { NEW } Motif XS if you want that" .

??????????????????????????

Like I have said . you walk into any music store in N.H. and ask if they sell arrangers , more often than not the response will be one of two:

"Arrangers ? O- you mean those keyboards that have the built in styles ? O__ we don`t carry them"

or

"We can special order you one , with a deposit , non refundable"



Jedi...

It is.....what it is...& it ain't changing' anytime soon....lets face it arranger players are dinosaurs & a very small rare segment of the musical picture in today's modern computer driven world. Most music today is being created with gear other then arrangers....& other then using instruments that are not on a computer program. There is just too much out there to choose.....
GC and other stores will tell you the story in a nut shell just by looking inside them.....they now sell what is popular....the odd niche "that's us" searches & educates themselves and buys off the Internet. Times have definitely changed.

I don't know if there ever WAS a time when mainstream music stores were knowledgeable about arrangers (at least here in the US). Since the M1, WS's have dominated the market, and low end arrangers are sold as toys for kids at Christmas. High end arrangers, IMO, have ALWAYS been a rare breed, and those that sold them knowledgeably a rarer breed still...

BTW, when a salesman has no knowledge of an unreleased product, you can hardly blame him. His job is to sell EXISTING stock, not to talk people into waiting until a new model eventually gets there (if it ever does). A sale deferred is a sale potentially lost.

It's hard to expect any salesman to educate themselves exhaustively on arrangers (or any other product) when we all too often prove to them that their knowledge is of no value to us. If we can find the product cheaper somewhere else, we'll go there AFTER we have wasted his time, and he gets nothing for his effort.

I see it on this board, all the time. A knowledgeable dealer takes time out of his workday to answer questions, provide information, even be objective about flaws in products he sells. And then someone goes 'yeah, but can anyone tell me if they have found somewhere that sells it for less'

Would YOU bother to take the time when that is a common response? You want it cheap? Educate yourself (and be prepared to take a bath if you get it wrong). If you want qualified advice, technical help, honest forthright dealer opinion?

PAY SOMETHING FOR IT, YOU CHEAP SON OF A B...CH!

You expect to get paid for your 'pro' work. And the better you play and entertain, the more you expect for YOUR work. Why doesn't this extend to salesmen and dealers?

Hey Donny,

No truer words need to be spoken !!

Hey Diki ,

I hear ya`, it is strange but just the way it is
I remember when Casio made the early arrangers , like the CT-701 , Casio was big , now they are just another keyboard maker.

I remember back in the early 80`s they ( Casio ) even had a dual manual arranger !!

That CT-701 I bought cost me a grand back in `83
It had 8 voices and 8 styles with 8 variations of each.
O__ and 2 orange sound F/X buttons !!

Take care guys,

Gary 

I'm not surprised by any of these posts. I live in SW Florida and a popular music store in Fort Myers didn't even have a Tyros2 six months after I had mine. Even when I go to Tampa or Miami the big box stores, Sam Ash, Mars Music (extinct now?)always disappoint me. Years ago I remember a store in Lansing, Illinois called MusicLab. They were the best back then. When Yamaha had its DX-7, TX-81Z, QX-5 hardware sequencer out their people knew everything about them. They could demonstrate all the features and seemed genuinely interested in my satisfaction. Even after purchase they were there with weekend workshops, always had the time and resources to answer anything. That was a different time, I guess. Maybe there are still places like this, but probably not as many? -charley

DX-7's probably outsold every arranger made in the last ten years by every manufacturer (at least the TOTL and MOTL ones). It still remains to this day the single highest selling keyboard in history.

OF COURSE a salesman is going to know more about his most popular product than his LEAST...

Trust me on this one.. if Tyros 2's sold in the same kind of numbers than the products they DO know about, they would be knowledgeable about THEM and keep them in stock. But a handful of retirees is a drop in the ocean compared to the hordes that buy Motif's and Fantom's.

What would YOU spend your time boning up on, if you were a salesman (assuming you don't have enough time to bone up on everything, which is usually the case!)?

Try MI retail as a living before you get too worked up about the lack of knowledge in most music stores... Either educate yourself exhaustively before you attempt any shopping, or simply be HAPPY to pay a premium for knowledgeable staff and well stocked stores.

You can't have it BOTH ways!

In this part of the world, independent music stores are slowly, but surely giving way to big box stores. Just two decades ago there were loads of Ma & Pa music stores along the Baltimore/Washington metropolitan corridor, stores that had a knowledgeable staff, carried everything from guitars to electric pianos, and provided outstanding service. Additionally, there were several stores that just specialized in pianos and organs, most of which are still around, but again, they too are headed for extinction. The few that remain, such as Washington Music in Rockville, Maryland, stores that have a dedicated area for keyboards, synths and electric pianos, still cater to the pro players who knows what he or she wants and is willing to pay MSRP.

For all others there is GC, and soon to come, Best Buy, which at best can be described as a training ground for high school kids that need a part time job so they can put gas in their cars and party. The kid that's an employee at GC and Best Buy could care less if you were a pro player, and in most instances if you are older than 30 they don't want to be bothered by waiting on you, especially if you have a question. God forbid, that would require using the thought process, or even worse taking time to look up the information of the store's computer data base.

The bottom line--Live with it! That's what's in store for the future. Within the next decade it will be click, shop and drop, few if any independent music stores, and the only service will be direct from the factory.

Good Luck,

Gary

Exactly Gary...... "click, shop and drop" we're there already............educate yourself & take a chance on a product afterwards...if it dont work out off to eBay & try again. This is where we're at now..."Old School Shopping" is a thing of the past.....& it's sad for our generation.......the kids will have no recollection of it when we're gone.

Few kids have much recollection of ANYTHING these days, after they fight through their drug and partying haze!

"Why can't they be like we were,
Perfect in every way?
What's the matter with kids?
What's the matter with kids?
What's the matter with kids today?"

Bye, bye, all you birdies!

hammer, you should have asked for a Pa2xpro instead, they probably would have known what that is! LOL

The only arrangers in the store were a Yamaha S900 and a Korg PA800.
Go figure.
Hammer