i hate old/outdated hardware

A new board takes a good 2 – 3 years to develop, (Sometimes longer) with the hardware chosen first; therefore they will always be using old technology compared to the current that is available when the board is released.

This is a bad thing...

With current hardware compatibillity, they can eassily and affordable update processing hardware during the design of a system..

So when i started out developing 4 years ago on Pentium 4 and 256 MB i would have ended up with a 3ghz Quadcore and 4GB RAm in the end. All the hardware is compatible.

Only the digital analogue soundhardware would be 4 years old at the end of the development. This would be no problem as this hardware has a much longer lifespan then the processing powers...

Your beloved Wersi is a very good excample of how it could be done, they even let you upgrade the hardware after release...

If developers choose smart and wise they would never end up with old and obsolete hardware.

You know, you guys should REALLY open up your arrangers and take a look inside, every now and again...

You keep confusing the fact that it has an Operating System with the fact that it is a full computer. Just because it has the former has nothing to do with the latter. Pretty much all arrangers short of the 'open' ones run on custom RISC chips, designed specifically for the job. And, because a) our industry is tiny, and b) the arranger market is even tinier, there isn't the money to go out and completely redesign these things constantly to try and keep up with the ever-changing PC peripheral hardware.

You can't swap out motherboards, change I/O components, upgrade RAM types like you can in a computer. There's probably ONE chip to handle all these subroutines, and it would cost a fortune to re-tool and design a new one.

Don't forget, USB3 is on the horizon. No doubt, as soon as it appears, you will all be groaning that your arranger ONLY has USB2, when the move to USB3 wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to how it works...

I agree that, when designing something more 'open', like the Audya, planning ahead for your users' needs in RAM capacity should be a given, but it is likely that much of the subsystems from the Audya still use SD-1 componentry. What RAM did that one support? Yep, thought so

The fact that Ketron say that they are working on a RAM expander should be cause for celebration, not misinformed grumblings that it isn't everything a PC is. Just be happy it is coming...

And open up your arranger, and try to see how different it is from a computer...

Comparing and Arranger to a Computer is like comparing Apples and Watermelons, they have
NOTHING alike...its just funny how far we can
stretch sometimes...really funny.

You clearly missed my point...

Thats exactly where i think these developers go wrong. They use underperforming expensive hardware... where standard PC hardware would be much cheeper and outperforming the old risk hardware...

As an OS they could for example run a version of VX-works which is an OS espescially develloped for real time processing..

A processor is a processor... memory is memory, motherboard is motherboard... and all you need to do is program the correct interface to all other hardware and compile your programs for the chosen system.


These statements are based on my experiences in the software industrie where i work for a company that developes technical solutions for the industry. And to me technically keyboards are nothing else then just a machine with a special purpose

Bachus is absolutely correct,

but it is obvious (and disappointing) the few monopolizing companies controling this small market do not see a vested interest in breaking these glorified boomboxes down into smaller, lighter, faster, expandable, integrated, compatable components that allow the user to pick and choose the desired features.

IMHO the only difference between a computer and an arranger is a piano keyboard or a querty.

best wishes all,
razoo

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Sorry guys, but until someone makes a computer based system that is as dependable, bombproof, easy to operate as a hardware arranger and does it for no more than a current TOTL (or MOTL) arranger costs, you can't sit around moaning...

My arranger gives me 128 notes. No matter WHAT else it is doing. No matter whether it is loading a style or playing a sequence. No matter WHAT effects routing and type they are. No matter whether it has the B3 engine engaged in or not.

It came loaded with hundreds of gig ready styles, OOTB. It came with a mature OS that doesn't crash. EVER...

Look, you want an arranger that is computer based? Stop whining, and buy an MS, or a Wersi. One costs a fortune, but works adequately (if you can get past the dated sound of most of its' ROM sounds and styles) and the other is cheaper, but an uphill battle to get working well, reliably, and you have to do most of the style development yourself.

But, these things come with problems. We have already heard what a nightmare it has become for users to change out motherboards (the very feature you are asking for) on MS's, as the core OS has to be re-written and debugged every time you do this. Where is the profit for the manufacturer to do this, if YOU change out the hardware yourself? He doesn't even get a piece of that pie, and now he has to completely troubleshoot a new OS so that you can slap a new piece of hardware in

Sure, it would be GREAT for us if they made it all software and PC based. But try to think of where the MONEY for the manufacturer to keep doing this is going to come from... Piracy will chew up his profits, and he faces a never ending cycle of OS debugging, just so you can change out the innards with cheap replacement parts...

I don't imagine anyone could stay in business for long like that, not to mention, what happens to the reliability of your arranger while the new hardware is being debugged (for free, apparently!)? Software OS's for computers need to ship in the tens of MILLIONS before the continual evolution of the software to account for new MoBo's and peripherals is cost effective. Arrangers ship in the few THOUSANDS... there simply isn't the money in it that the cost of continual OS development would not dominate the bottom line.

The fact is, on any closed arranger, there is a RISC chip that handles all the voice generation. Probably another one for effects. Probably another one for I/O. Another one for harmony generation (if your arranger has it). Move to a computer system, and ONE CPU has to do all of that, AND run the OS, and do it all without a hiccup. The Wersi is a hybrid system, with some of the sound generation and OS done in older RISC chips, and the OAS being taken care of by the computer. And it costs a fortune.

The MS tries to do it all on the CPU, and suffers from the continual development and hardware cycles that happen in the computer world faster than the arranger world can cope with. And it pays the price with erratic behavior and an underdeveloped sound and style section.

In the meantime, my G70 ticks on, sounding good enough for me and my audiences, and if I absolutely HAVE to have some VSTi's for the studio, or even stage, I can carry a laptop, and get them from a piece of hardware that the manufacturers can AFFORD to continually upgrade and develop for....

No matter what everyone says, Diki is dominating the thread, and for a good reason. He has a point.

PC's are designed to do many things. To do something specific, dedicated hardware is the way to go.