I don't think they deliberately sabotage anything. I agree that most engineers are probably not players of the keyboard they are designing and most keyboards are not made with live, on-the-fly maneuvers in mind. Other than that, I think that Gary pretty much said it all for me.

Manufacturers do not sabotage us-they sabotage themselves.

Case in point. I was THIS close to picking up an MM8 but there were two things wrong.

One-You couldn't pan anything.

Two-NO Timpani patch,or ,so I initially thought. Imagine my surprise when,months later, I found out from someone that the timp patch WAS on the MM8 BUT it was filed under "organs".How stoopid is that?

Eventually it all worked out because I decided once and for all to jump into the computer-based world where,for slightly more $$ I plan on getting a complete(at least to me) rig.

BUT,that's still X amount of bucks that Yamaha never saw from me.

I'm afraid I said this a little earlier, but it seems apropos on this thread. I think that the arranger marketing teams spend too much time listening to their main customer base, and too little time listening to MUSICIANS...

And, if that sounds harsh, just consider where the bad rap that arrangers have really comes from... Arrangers are bought in huge numbers by people that have virtually NO musical ability or experience. But THOSE are the people that the companies poll. Most of those people never even use a fraction of their purchase's capabilities, so how would they even KNOW whether a light is needed for the VH section on/off, or which buttons are most used, or whether a Chord Sequencer is a valuable MUSICAL tool..?

If more attention was payed to the forum input (people that CARE enough about the bloody things that they bother to write about it) than to dilettantes that let them sit at home gathering dust and don't even PLAY well, these things MIGHT start to be practical again. But we have seen how the bean counters and MBA weenies have taken over most of the rest of our lives. Why should the arranger be any different?

Agree 100%.
I have actually heard that most feedback is gathered from the dealers (applies to YAMAHA specifically, but probably true for others),
who have their little clans during those input meetings. Now I heard this from a person who is a yamaha dealer in Europe and he said that most of his ideas were simply ignored. His guess is because he did not belong to any of those "clans" mentioned.

Everyone is saying that they design these for the hobby player who can't really play. I don't get that. Why would they put these extra 90% of the features on here that a hobby player who can barely play will NEVER even know what they even are, much less invoke them? Surely a big part of their consideration is people like us.

And to have a key feature on an arranger and then REMOVE it in the next model? And in anyone in their right mind would NOT remove it? I don't get it.

And as for a vocal harmony button light, wouldn't a hobby player, at home playing for his dear little wife, want to know whether the button is invoked or not?

You have R&D departments whose sole job is to design the best machine they can. You have all these gee whiz features and basic, KEY features are somehow overlooked or REVERSED model to model? It doesn't make sense. Except that the dollar always prevails... it surely has to do with dollars. Surely they can't be this stupid.

All the features that most home players won’t use are there to allow the demonstrators to wow the audiences with their use, and so spend their hard earned readies thinking that with a little practice they can do the same. (Remember the furore over the T3 piano which no one could get to sound like the demo)

Bill

Semi... ever worked for a club or restaurant that was just about perfect, then had a management change, and they went and changed everything, usually for the worse?

That's what happens in arranger design, I am convinced. New people come in, old people leave, and the things which one had learned from long experience get forgotten. As volatile as the industry is, as bottom line orientated as business has become, I rather doubt that any arranger R&D team remains intact, or even in the same charge, as it used to be. Lessons learned become forgotten, and new people need to change things to justify being there. Seldom for the better, it usually ends up...