God, Diki's posts qualify as essays, both in quality and quantity! If you are on Skype Diki, and you have spare minutes, I would like to talk to you. I will have a lot to learn.

Anyway, the thing is that, as usual, everyone here is right.

Domenik is right on his struggle to deliver a keyboard that will please as many potential customers as he can, using as many technological advances as he can to his benefit.

James is right in seeing a very capable machine doing things that would bring other, more ordinary machines to their knees, from a technical perspective.

Diki is right in seeing a "rebranded" product, finally on the steps of being offered to the "correct" market.

Spalding is right that the presentation is lacking (read really sucks) when viewed from a sales-marketing perspective.

I stand by Spalding. As I have (in my infinitely nonexistent wisdom) pointed out to Dom years ago, (and I have the link to prove it), he really needed, and now probably DESERVES, a marketing department.

Someone who will explain....
not what the keyboard can do,
but what the keyboard can do FOR YOU.

Sales will triple, IMHO. And correct me if I am wrong, word of mouth and "word of ear" (pardon my pun), still works for both older musicians, and techno kids around.

The most used phrase is still "see the video and HEAR how good this instrument SOUNDS", and not simply "Hey guys, watch this".

I also understand that Domenik may suffer from the "It's my money, therefore I know best" syndrome, which plagues most Greek company owners. And both Italy and Greece sit very close on the world map, especially when viewed from the North American point of view. I bet even Spalding from Birmingham sees them alike. And he is the most right of all.

Dom, the product seems very worthy. Market it well and you won't believe what you've been missing all this time.

Sorry for the tiring message.
Theodore

Magica... more demos, then...

If you are gigging with it, let's hear it. Let's apply the only objective standard we have (our ears) and let's decide for ourselves if all the trouble you have gone through to voice and style the beast actually HAS ended up with something that blows a closed arranger away. Tons of demos. Selections in a wide variety of styles. No MP3 or SMF stuff (because I can buy a perfectly good WS to do that). Straight ahead style play ONLY.

In the end, that's the final arbiter. Technical specs and capabilities don't mean jack in the face of the actual SOUND...

Did you make your styles from scratch, did you translate them from other arrangers, did you use LiveStyler on older Yamaha styles, did you use the internal ROM styles, do you use the internal sounds, or a VSTi like Goliath, and how long does it take you to prepare up a song or style?

Details, details...

I'm not going to even try to argue with you, at least you yourself are talking from actual experience, rather than James' theoretical point of view, but I need to actually HEAR what you are doing with it, to see if our ideas of 'good' actually coincide. I am afraid, in the past, I've heard all too many things that sound really average, or even worse than a T3/PA2/Audya/E80 (often little better than a cheap arranger), but their posters are just SO proud they managed to get anything semi decent from the MS that they are willing to overlook the fact that, OOTB, they can get something WAY better from a closed one. The process itself, rather than the end result is what they enjoy.

Sadly, the vast majority of style demos posted so far other than loop groove hiphop and acid jazz stuff have failed to impress me, whereas T3/2 users, PA2 users, S910 users, and even G70/E80 users have managed to post things that are quite impressive. Certainly the manufacturer demo-ers have made those closed arrangers sound amazing... (and Dom's have failed miserably)

That's all I'm looking for. Amazing That's what it takes to match up to the closed arrangers, and that's what it takes to match the hyperbole of the fanboys (that don't own one).

Got anything amazing? Live playing, just the MS... I'd love to hear it...

At this point (actually, from Day One of its' release) talking about the MS is pointless. Want to wow me, want me to change my mind about open arrangers, want me to even buy one? You HAVE to play me live stuff that blows away the closed ones.

Still waiting, after four or more years...

Sorry, trident, but I don't Skype, and the only thing I can teach you, you seem to have a pretty good handle on... Don't listen to those that hype things they don't have, don't believe everything that you read, and use your ears ALONE as a final judge of anything. And ALWAYS pay attention to the man behind the curtain!