Hmmmmmmm? I love my 1996 Chevy Tahoe 4x4..

The G-70 was discontinued, as were all Roland's high-end and mid-range arrangers...now, a new Roland is not only not needed (according to Roland), but it ain't available either...what a neat idea.

Somehow, I'm betting the GEM Genesys is discontinued as well...what new GEM arrangers are available?

Yes, Yamaha wants to keep making and selling new arrangers...it's called "staying in the arranger business".

There are probably more styles available for Yamaha arranger owners than for anyone else.

Ian

It's called HAPPY CUSTOMERS........
& YES more styles then anyones else !

I am glad you saw where I was coming from.
Roland and Gem are not making arrangers any more because they did not have the business practices like Yamaha.
Allowing persons to be satisfied with their arrangers and keeping their arrangers for 10 years is not going to keep you in business. Like Yamaha, you must make sure they buy a new arranger every 2-3 years.

I am glad you understand where I was coming from.

Not everyone who has a Roland or GEM arranger wants to keep it for 10 years...it would be nice to have a choice whether to buy a new one or not.

Their instruments aren't classics like Hammond B-3's and Rhodes pianos, and never will be. Hammond and Rhodes are still made, but I just can't see Roland or GEM come out with a "new generation" G-70 or Genesys....they couldn't sell the old ones.

There are plenty of PSR-8000 owners and PSR-3000 users, just for two examples, Gary D being one of the latter, who are totally content with their arrangers...but, at least Yamaha's clients have a choice to stay with the great instruments they have, or move on to a newer and more technologically advanced instrument that will still use the styles from the previous generations.

You may or may not agree with Yamaha's business practises, but there is no denying the company still flourishes, and still continues to satisfy present, past and future users.

Ian

Dnj,

What matters is QUALITY not QUANTITY

Actually, I agree with Yamaha business practices. They are doing what is good for the business.
Whether it is good musically and good for the customer’s pocket is of secondary concern.
That is what Roland and Gem did wrong they were looking out for the best interest of customers’ pockets and for music development. Giving free OS upgrades that significantly changes the instrument was not in their best interest. They should have done like Yamaha and induce their customers in to buying a new hardware instrument.
Ketron seems to be going down that wrong path.

Yes, Roland and Gem should have followed Yamaha's path...if they had, you'd be playing a new Gem instrument today.

Free OS upgrades are nice, but why wasn't the instrument introduced with them in the first place, rather than playing catch up, and sowing the seeds of doubt in their client's minds?

Yamaha's method seems to have proved better for both musicality, and their customers pockets...clients could choose to keep the fine instrument they already had, or, buy a new more advanced model.

Ian

I simply don't see the need, in ANY area of keyboard production, to keep constantly current with whatever the latest model is. Same with cars. You don't buy the NEXT model of whatever you are driving the minute it comes out, do you? The car you bought still gets you from A to B the same way it did last year... This year's model is going to change in only a few minor details...

Same with arrangers. To be honest, I don't imagine that Yamaha or anybody EXPECTS their entire customer base to upgrade EVERY model change. I am pretty sure they never have. Every new model that comes out is more likely to be picked up by someone that is a couple or three models behind it, as changes are usually so incremental, it hardly makes it worth anyone's while to simply go from one to the next.

And, whether Roland are in the arranger business or not (personally, as dwindling as the high end market for arrangers is becoming, I can't fault anyone for getting out of the segment), I never found the need to incrementally upgrade even when they WERE bringing a new model out every three years or so. I did an incremental upgrade just the once, from G800 to G1000, because of the incredible superiority of loading instantaneously from Zip rather than glacially from floppy, and I actually MADE money on the swap (worked in a music store at the time), but after I got the G1000, that was IT until the G70... well over ten years later.

To be honest, if anyone even now looks long and hard at what they are getting for their upgrade cost, waiting at least TWO (or better, three!) models down the line will get you something REALLY noticeably superior to what they currently have, not something you have to strain to hear a difference.

And, I believe that for all but the diehard few (like some here), manufacturers don't EXPECT us to upgrade constantly. They make their money from customers of a few generations ago. And new customers, and migrants from other manufacturers. Roland's business model was no different to anyone else's. I have said, many times, I truly believe that the G70 was an underselling performer because they moved the selling of it from MI stores to CK Mom and Pop stores that had no interest in it, no established customer base for it, and few salesmen capable of demo-ing it. But the fact that, sonically, it STILL holds water compared to models at least one product cycle newer shows that there was nothing intrinsically wrong with it. Bad marketing can kill a product as effectively as bad design... But prior to this model, Roland were pumping them out every three years or so, with incremental upgrades no differently than Yamaha were.

I simply think that Roland are ahead of the curve... The writing has been on the wall for ages, few players younger than fifty, especially in the US, are using arrangers at all, WS's with loop capabilities are the dominant form of live keyboard and studio keyboard, nobody even MAKES an arranger capable of sounding remotely contemporary (unless you count the über-expensive, über-complicated VSTi based arrangers), and how can a market segment grow when its' users are aging and dying off, slowly? I simply find too many parallels to what happened to the 'home organ' market in the seventies. They stopped being the dominant form of keyboard, got more and more expensive as fewer and fewer got sold, and eventually turned into a niche product you virtually can't find in most music stores. Sound familiar?

Yamaha are consolidating the market, almost monopolizing it, and with HUGE low end sales, still able to produce MOTL and TOTL models that don't NEED to be huge hits just to carry the division. Roland have gone low-end almost completely, and perhaps their strategy is to see if they can compete at the high volume, low end before they gamble a fortune on another high-end product that might be rejected by all but a few connoisseurs of great sound unconcerned about 'me too' features or light weight.

If Roland go quietly into that long dark night, at least they left on a high note, at least IMO. At this point, even five years after its' release, I see nothing on the market that clearly and across the board dominates the G70, especially sonically. And no-one is pursuing a course I think reflects MY needs in an arranger (I always prefer sonic and MUSICAL upgrades rather than mp3 fluff and features for the amateur player), so I can't honestly see anyone bringing out anything I think to myself 'I GOT to have one of these!' in the foreseeable future.

In the meantime, WS's like the MoXF slowly (but too slowly for me!) add more and more arranger-like functionality, while few if any of their good features migrate to arrangers, so it is pretty obvious where we are heading.

Goodbye, arranger...

Yep, that sums it up quite well Diki...very few of my clients upgrade from one new model to the next one in sequence...very few.

In fact, that why the strategy of incremental (and some not so incremental) changes in the high and mid-range arrangers work so well.

A company has to sell arrangers to make money.

Casio does the same thing with their keyboards/arrangers...they are very successful as well.

Ian

PS...Yes, Roland did go out on a high note with the G-70, and are pursuing the home market with arranger-like products, because that's where the big bucks are right now.