James you got all that from the demo ????? You must be the one person they aimed that demo at then ;'-). And question 4 is not the same as question 3 but i am not surpised you did not spot the difference as neither did Liontracs. These are YOUR explanations of what was going on in the demo and who the product is aimed at not Liontracs which is precisely the problem but i am not going to labour the point.

If you think that was a professional demonstration and a good peice of marketing then there is no point in debating it with you. look at the open labs demonstrations again and compare the two. You will see they use musicians making music on there systems and not simply demonstrating technology.

Seems to me the neko message is getting out there clearly and professionally to some very high profile and some very ordinary musicians. And even lowly people like me can clearly see the purpose of the neko as a musician even if i might never by one.

i wonder why that is...

You never answered my question. Who would you have more confidence in buying from ? i am not talking about having one given to you like a member here did with the MS . funnily that person started to sing the praises of the MS when they got into bed with the company.I am not insinuating that you are doing the same James. Pleas dont misunderstand me.

Anyway i have said enough.



[This message has been edited by spalding (edited 01-02-2010).]

Just take what I said and look at the video now. You should be able to see all the different VSTi's, the two DVD's, and all the other things I mentioned running while the topic the video was to cover was demonstrated.

I'm not making anything up here, just look and you can see yourself.



Question 4 was two questions, half of which I did answer in 3, and the rest in my post above. Still I did take the time to reply again and expand on everything I've pervious post already. I'm simply trying to help you by answering your questions and sharing my view video.



Please see my reply to you on your comment about “This is basic marketing theory” because I've covered this. You have either not read what I said, or you have misunderstood something alone the way. If the latter, just let me know and I'll try explain myself a different way.



Yep I said more or less the same thing myself already. My reply to you on the basic marketing also covers this to a point.



I don't see that question being asked anywhere in your previous post, and it's not like I was trying to avoid you. Look at the length of my reply

Do a search on the forum, I've been one of the people who has been up on Lionstracs back over the Mediastation for a very long time. Right now I'm all over KETRON like a rash because of their shameless behaviour and OS4.0. I've done the same to KORG in my time and heck I own KORG Forums. I'm not bought out, and I'm not posting here because I have a vested intersecting in anything to do with lionstracs. Simply fact is, I hate seeing broken **** on the market because it's my fellow musicians who suffer not the company who built it.

From what I gather right now the only ones with any known issues are Ketron. So everyone else has their house well in order and Ketron will hopefully too come NAMM on the 14th and OS 4.0.

Good, so everyone happy. 2010 should be a good year. If things remain like that I would have no problem buying a Audya 2, just as much as I would have no problem buying a Lionstracs X-6 or a rack unit.

That siad, my days of buying closed keyboards is now finished. The OASYS was the first taste of OPEN, and whatever I buy next will be fully OPEN. I've seen the light if you know what I mean.

I'm sick of reading tte spec sheet and wondering how much sample RAM I have and so on. It's OPEN all the way for me from now on.

Regards
James

Look, I'm sorry, but I can't help laughing when Dom et al get all indignant about being consigned to the WS forums. They've had five years to find out they DON'T have a viable arranger, to the point where they've actually rebranded the product, dropped arranger development and now sell the same thing as a WS to the WS crowd.

And they still want us to take it seriously?

Have you fixed the plethora of problems that Dennis outlayed describing its' many issues AS AN ARRANGER? Have you created any more TOTL content for it to rival its' closed competitors? No....

Same Emperor, same clothes.

You playing live out, much, James..? Solo, OMB work, that kind of thing?

Bet you aren't using an MS...

Open stuff has its' place, but as the best tool for the average arranger OMB to use, it still has a VERY long way to go.

Content, content, and more content. THAT'S what the arranger market's vast majority want. You don't think Yamaha would LOVE to save a fortune and sell their arrangers with no usable styles (obviously, a HUGE part of R&D for a new model for them, or Dom could have afforded it, too), and leave it all in the hands of their users, do you? They aren't that stupid. Lionstracs is, apparently.

Even Ketron realized that their Audya would stand or fall on the strengths of its' included styles, NOT on whether it could play audio files as part of a style (but you had to make them yourself). Lionstracs didn't though.

Different tools for different jobs. Want to make utterly original music, ambient soundscapes, groove based music? Open keyboard's your best bet every time. Want to go out to a restaurant and entertain the diners with some jazz and light pop, oldies and standards? Open keyboard is NOT the best bet, in fact, it's the WORST. Dom never got this. Still doesn't, IMO.

I only wish he could play worth a damn. The MS might have turned out FAR more a player's tool than a studio wonk's. Still could be, if he bothered to make it a GREAT arranger, THEN add the 'open' stuff. But he always felt that 'open' was sufficient by itself. It's resounding failure to make any serious inroads to the arranger market ought to convince him of his error.

But no, you'll NEVER hear Dom admit it. Only his actions to change to designating his product a 'GrooveStation/WS' do that.

Hi Diki.



All Studio work theses days mate. I am thinking about going back on the road again though. My wife is not happy about that though so we will see.



Quite a few toys in the Studio but the only thing getting any use right now is my KORG OASYS and the V-Machine. So much so that I will be selling my M3 very soon and a few other items.

I've down sized my Studio in a big way over the last 2 years. Works wonders too, I get tons more work down now and my quality is much higher.



Ok, but lets look at this another way. Technically it's not the fault of the open keyboard. There is not one single Arranger VSTi in existence anywhere that has it's own sound engine and I doubt you will ever see one either as arrangers are becoming increasingly less interesting.

You can probably find a million workstation VSTi's though. So from an OPEN keyboard point of view, I don't think you will ever see one becoming a out of the box all dancing arranger like a closed keyboard comes.

Not everyone uses arrangers in OMB settings either. The last arranger I played with on stage was a Technics Kn800 and since then I've used workstations. Played 7 nights a week with just a Trinity for many years.

Hanging out on KORG Forums I can tell you I'm far from alone. Most people there who gig use workstations, and the arrangers. It's a pretty mixed bag if you ask me.



Yes but lets compare the difference here.

Yamaha are selling a closed arranger keyboard that offers a set list of features and functions that cannot be expanded at any point by the end user. It's a closed system.

Lionstracs are not selling an arranger or a workstation. They are selling a VST HOST that you can use to run your third party VSTi Synths on. So no matter what way you look at this, the only duty Lionstracs have is to provide a platform to you that allows you to install your VSTi's on, and that the entire system and it's custom software runs flawlessly.

They are not responsible for any sound produced. That lies with the developer of the VSTi.

So comparing it to a closed keyboard is pointless when Lionstracs are not even responsible for so much a single factory sound. If it comes totally empty but functions flawlessly, then job well done. It's an OPEN keyboard and it's up to YOU to install what you need.

Its a very different concept.



Well I'm not going to sit here and tell you that the OPEN keyboard is universally better in any situation when the person playing it and how technically minded they are matters just as much as what instrument they own.

An OPEN keyboard is technically limitless, so if you have the abilities to handle it, then it will surpass any closed system in a heart beat. If the user doesn't, then this is not for them.

The only way I could see an OPEN keyboard being universally better as an arranger for every level of user is if Dom hired a programmer to setup all the styles and optimise them with the sound engine so that the keyboard is all singing and dancing out of the box with no effort at all.




I'd like the opportunity to do the demo work myself, but I can't see it happening.

Cheers
James

JAMES, thanks for really nice explanation.
That I want to tell to you guy but it is hard to explain things so close.

MS is VST host for all matters. Interesting is that is also prepared for live playing. That means that you can play with any kind of sounds or styles or things that you want on MS- it is like playing tool.

And Interface that is look like on keyboards from box is ready any time. So When you play on stage you are playing like out from BOX.

I'm sorry James, but perhaps you haven't been here for the last five years while Dom CONSTANTLY told us that the MS WAS an arranger. He NEVER came here and told us it was an empty VSTi player, and that we would HAVE to do all the work ourselves for it to sound better than a Casio. Dom himself made the comparison...

And Yamaha, Ketron and Korg have samplers in them. This makes them pretty much identical to an open machine, albeit at a different level. You are using your V-Machine primarily as a sampler, aren't you? My G70 has a virtual B3 in it... how is this different to running B4 on a VSTi? Plus it has a lot of sounds in it that rival many VSTi's... Bottom line is, open or closed, the musician on the whole needs a palette of sounds to work with that will cover most music, and many of the TOTL closed models have that covered VERY well, already. If you think in terms of playing the vast majority of music that most arranger players do, a T3 or PA2X can do most of it without even going to the sampler, and that can cover most other needs.

I said from day one that all the MS was was a blank slate, and have tried to point out from day one also that making styles and soundsets as good as, let alone better than a closed arranger was beyond the skill of any of us. Time has born me out. I haven't heard a user style on the MS yet that gave even my G70 a run for its' money. But Dom constantly dissed closed arrangers as passé, but never acknowledged that the CONTENT is what makes arranger players buy arrangers, and his keyboard had NONE worth talking about.

An open keyboard IS technically unlimited, but it takes a player with prodigious technical skills to create something on it that a child with a T3 could do in his sleep! Let's face it, arrangers are bought by people that DON'T want the already better soundsets that modern WS have. They are bought by people that don't want the techno and hiphop loops that come with modern WS's. They are bought by people that want familiar sounds and styles of yesteryear, and no WS, open or closed, caters to their taste.

Sure, someone COULD make an open keyboard geared to the older player. But he would first have to stock it with what a great closed arranger already has. He would have to make an OS that provides the live player all the conveniences that a great arranger already has... And in this area in particular, Dom failed miserably. You mentioned that only the content needs to be provided, IF the OS of an arranger is provided. And here as well, the MS failed badly. You only have to read Dennis's post about his real life experience with the MS to see that, OK, maybe it's all right to expect the user to provide all his own content, but you shouldn't expect him to write the OS too! For Pete's sake! No Bass inversions, let alone chord inversions (for just one example)... A Casio can do that!

For the MS to be competitive as an arranger, it not only needs content equal to the best of the closed arrangers, but an OS that is their equal too. The list of OS features geared to the arranger player that are missing on the MS is formidable. Not to mention that many things it DID implement, it did so in a very clumsy, inelegant manner. Dom needed FAR more than just a few styles and a soundset to make it work.

Didn't stop him constantly telling us it WAS better than any closed arranger, though. It would take more than you doing a few demos to get this off the ground. Look at the Audya. Incredible demos. Doesn't stop it being a dog, though, as iffy as the OS is at the moment. An arranger is the whole package. Content, OS, hardware, ergonomics and features. Hardware alone isn't even close. And that's all Dom ever provided.

To be honest, I am not sure it's even going to fly in the WS world, if the content is as bad as it was as an arranger. Even closed WS's like the MoXS and M3 and the Oasys (c'mon, man! That's no more open than an Audya. It only ran proprietary add ons. You could add virtual modeling boards to a MotifES. Did that make it an 'open' WS? ) have awesome content in them when you buy them. Great sounds, great arps, great loops. Add in the sampler, they aren't anywhere near as closed as all that! Dom tries to sell this with content as poor as the MS had, he's still got an uphill battle. Or is he selling it completely empty and finally acknowledging that the user WILL have to do everything themselves? That would be a nice change!

As I have said ad nauseam, the only people that could make an open arranger as good as a closed one are the very people making sounds and styles for the closed market. No-one out in the real world has ever accomplished this task, and if they could, they would already BE working for Korg or Yamaha or Roland. What would you estimate, James? Be honest... how many people do you know capable of turning an open VSTi player into a full on arranger capable of blowing the T3 out of the water?

And of those tiny few (if any), how many would even WANT to? Players good enough to make TOTL styles got WAY better things to do with their time!

Theoretically, you COULD build a rocket to the moon. All the parts are available. But who actually has? Open keyboards are the same thing. You COULD turn them into something better than a T3. But first you would need the skills to make a T3. No-one expects you to be able to build a piano before you can play it. It's considered OK to leave that to the piano builders. And expecting you to build a TOTL arranger out of a Frankenstein's monster of different pieces parts is as equally dumb, IMO. Leave it to the experts.

Plenty of expansion 'openness' on even arrangers like the T3 or PA2X if they have a sampler. Enough for 99% of the arranger playing demographic, anyway. The MS was a product for the 1%. Even Dom can't make a living on that margin, despite eschewing making any decent content for the MS while he WAS calling it an arranger

Give it a rest Diki
Lionstracs has realised its mistake and moved on, (The workstation market) and to keep repeating the “I’m right you’re wrong” rhetoric ad nauseam, serves no useful purpose. (You are only doing the same as you criticised Lionstracs for doing)
Move on

Bill

Hi Diki.



You can call it whatever you want, it's primary function is as a VST HOST which clearly means it can do whatever you want. How well it sounds doing that is the end users problem.



lol.... No chances in hell mate, that's a pretty ridiculous comparison. A sample library is simply more PCM data. Where an open keyboard can install completely new Sequencers, Synth Engines, Modelling Technology, heck you can even watch your XXX collection of DVD's while your gigging with it



Come on man, it's me your talking to here. You know very well that your stuck what you have on your keyboard where an open keyboard will run any B3 or any of the thousands of VSTi synth in the world.



Maybe so since there are plenty poor VSTi's out there, but your G70 wouldn't stand a chance against a premium VSTi.

Something like Quantum Leap Goliath for example would destroy the G70 hands down in a sound by sound comparison.



I don't get your point because the second the next model is out with new improved sounds, the old keyboards will be up for sale. Where using something like Goliath on an open keyboard would shoot you instantly years beyond the sound of any closed keyboard.



I haven't heard a style playing back of any good quality either but the keyboard is not to blame. The choice of VSTi's that were used as the sound engine to drive the Arranger are in my opinion very poor quality. The Yamaha XG70 and the Roland Sound Canvas are cheap sound engines that don't stand up to stock sounds on a closed keyboard.

If a premium VSTi was used, then it would instantly sound a million times better than anything we have hear so far.

However, since there is also no such thing as a VSTi Arranger that comes with it's own sound engine, the end user will have to pair the arranger with an engine and then adjust levels and so on to get the most from the arranger functions.

Again, none of that has anything to do with Lionstracs though. It's not their problem nobody develops a VSTi Arranger that comes with it's own quality sound engine and ready to go content like the thousands of VSTi synth you can buy do.

So if you want to use an OPEN keyboard as an arranger and have it sounding a million times better than anything on the market right now, then be prepaid to do some work and to buy a sound engine to go with the arranger software.



Yeah imagine having to do all the work yourself to create something and not depend on others to hold your hand. Diki, I've covered all this already. An open keyboard is not for everyone. If you don't have the ability to use what is in front of you, then you have the wrong keyboard.

This is why some people buy a T3 over a Pa2X when the PA2X is far more advanced in all functions. It's too much machine for some, and so they go with the one they can use and that matches their abilities.



Your barking up the wrong tree entirely because you trying to push the blame of how the VSTi Arranger software sounds back on Lionstracs when the function of the keyboard is a VST HOST.

For example..... if I buy and install Pianoteq on the Mediastation I'm not going to turn around to Lionstracs and say well done guys, the Piano sounds fantastic. How it sounds has feck all to do with Lionstracs because they didn't write the Pianoteq.

Remember what defines and open keyboard is it's ability to act as a VST HOST and its custom OS that makes managing third party software a seamless.



No comment on that because feature requests are fine by me and can be found on any product support forum for every keyboard going. I could write a book on the things I'd like to see KORG add to my OASYS.



Hmmm.... Better yes, but better for everyone, no. I can't stress how important that is. There is no such thing as a universally better keyboard for everyone because not everyone has the ability to control such a complex machine. Those who do though have the opportunity to take it and far exceed the ability of a close arranger.



Ooooh it will. Lionstracs have already secured the future of this keyboard. There's another thread on the forum that explains this.



lol.... What does OASYS stand for and how many closed keyboard do you know of which can have receive multiply new sound engines from software updates. The OASYS has 7 Synth engines.



Making sounds and writing styles has nothing to do with building a keyboard, be it open or closed. For Roland, Yamaha or KORG to turn around and build an open arranger, sound designers and style programmers would be at the bottom of a very long list of things needed to make it happen. The programmers are the ones who write the systems.



Probably the majority of workstation user I know, but very few arranger users. You also ask this question as if it's the only goal everyone should try to achieve with the OPEN keyboard.

Most of my friends who could do what you ask wouldn't even want to because to them the T3 suck just as much as every other home arranger keyboard.



1% of what, the Arranger users who can make use it ? Again you automatically assume that the only goal here is for people to use it as an arranger. Sorry mate, but that's by far the least interesting part about the keyboards. The majority of keyboard players are workstation and DAW users. Arrangers are in the minority by a long shot.

So this is indeed marketed at the biggest section of the keyboard market there is and not your 1%.

Regards
James.

Sorry James, but I just don't think you get the main point of what I have been saying...

IN THEORY, yes, the MS ought to be everything that you say it is. It is in the actual practice that reality comes crashing in. Personally, I don't think that even YOU could make the MS as good as a T3. Why do I think this? Because you HAVEN'T. And, trust me, if anyone could, they would have the world beating a path to their door to buy the styles and sounds to turn the MS into what it promised it was going to be. Why haven't YOU bought Goliath, and created a few hundred styles as good as the T3's or PA2X's or E80's? You could make a fortune doing that...

Or could you? Only a handful of MS's out there. No copy protection (so your styles would be pirated the minute you sold ONE set). Very few sales to people that WANT to use it as an arranger (bet you 90% or more are just doing duty as a VSTi player)...

You see, it's all well and good to say you COULD do this or that. Trouble comes when reality rears it's ugly head. You say people COULD make the MS into a great arranger. OK, be honest. What percentage of the players here at SZ (OK, let's widen the field - what percentage of ALL players you personally know) have the skills to make even ONE style as good as a T3? Now scale that up to the hundreds you actually need... Personally, I haven't heard ONE user style that approaches the ROM ones for live feel, great flow between variations, cool fills and Intro/Endings, and general all around usefulness. NOT ONE.

You see, were I to actually believe you, there would be hundreds. Thousands. All as good as the T3's ROM styles (or insert your favorite closed arranger here). BUT THEIR AIN'T. How can you keep shouting the open party line, with such a complete lack of evidence? Let's be honest. It is exactly the SAME job to create styles for a closed arranger as it is for an open one (maybe easier, because you already have a well balanced and cohesive soundset to work with). No easier, no harder. So... let's take this fact as a starter. If people can't create their own styles in any number or quality, what on earth makes you think they can do it once they get an open arranger? All of a sudden, they are going to turn into style making virtuosi because they made a purchase? Don't be ridiculous..

The truth is, it's one of the hardest tasks in programming to make a style that rivals the best the closed boys do. All evidence backs me up. I'm afraid that theoretically just doesn't cut it. As I said, 'theoretically' you could make a space rocket. Who has actually succeeded? One guy (Burt Rattan)..? Out of how many billions on this planet?

Where are YOUR styles posted, James? Can I listen to how well you have achieved what you claim is so easy for everyone else to do? Got some jazz styles, some disco or R&B, some alt rock stuff that comes close to Y, R & K's best ROM styles? No? Perhaps you could show me up wrong by demonstrating for us how easy it is all to do. Or admit that theory isn't quite the same as practice.

A piano is a piano. No-one makes the ridiculous suggestion that owning a piano is all you need to be a virtuoso. It takes skill, it takes practice, it takes genes, it takes a lifetime of work to be a virtuoso. And few that even PUT that lifetime in become one. But apparently, we ALL could become virtuoso style creators and soundset designers, just with the purchase of a magical bean... sorry, I meant an open keyboard.

I don't believe in fairy tales, and you shouldn't spread them as if they were true.

Their are gaping holes in much of the rest of your post, I don't have time to address them all, maybe just to say that Dom DID design the arranger OS for the MS. And it couldn't do bass inversions. You can't blame the VSTi makers for something that is NOT what they designed. That one squarely rests on Lionstracs. Take a look at much of the rest of my post without so much defensiveness, and you'll see that, in PRACTICAL terms, much is right. Yes, in THEORY, things OUGHT to be on the side of the open arranger. But once the real world intrudes on the theory, they simply don't.

And please, for the last time, don't equate an arranger with a WS. Two different tools, to do two different things. Yes, I believe the Lionstracs is an awesome WS/Groovebox, perfect for making music that WS/Groovebox's excel at. Might even get one, one day. But, for all my playing and programming skill (modestly, please take this!) even I wouldn't touch one with a barge pole with a view to turning it into a practical, day to day gigging arranger. You haven't, either. Maybe there's a little voice at the back of your head kind of agreeing with me on this one. I don't see you dumping your Korg PA and moving wholesale to this. And, let's face it, if you took yourself seriously, you would...