Personally I think it is great that a manufacturer is making an extremely portable product like this available. You can treat it as a sound module but at least has keys for the times that is all you want to cart it around alone. I have played a CZ101 onstage so the keys arent a problem for me. Personally for the price I think it is a winner and fills a niche that no other manufacturers are filling. I would like one because I can't fit another fullsize keyboard in my car but this I could and MIDI it up to my main keyboard. Anyone comparing it with a cheap fullsize keyboard are simply missing the point of it being so compact and arent the market it is being aimed at.

Nigel, it is a great little product, and you're right, it is filling a niche that no other company cares to bother with, and it's a heck of a lot better than that nasty little module by Roland (and cheaper too) in that it has a keyboard that you can play in a pinch, and it also has a really good sequencer on board, something that was overlooked on the BK-7M (to the dismay of many an owner).

I can't see the microARRANGER's appeal being so strong that Roland (or Yamaha) start making their own versions...I think (if) it's a rather small piece of the pie, the others aren't going to tool up to get a piece of a piece. Then again, I could be wrong, and in a few years, we'll all have to play mini keys...ha ha!

On a more serious note, did you get yourself a Kronos yet? I thought maybe Santa might have put one under the Spencer's tree.

Ian

Lol ... not yet but it is still looking very attractive to me to replace my Motif 6 .... but until then the Motif 6 still does the job. It's just that the classic Motif sounds are sounding a bit long in the tooth nowadays. But in a live rock lineup I doubt if anyone other than me really notices that.

Nice demo of this new arranger. It sounds very good for the price. The keys may not be for everyone but then hey... it had to cut corners somewhere. But must say, Korg has a winner in this one, especially for the segment of users who are looking for compact, light weight arrangers with decent bread and butter sounds.

Where have all the arranger modules gone, long time passing...
Old or young whatever the age, my take is people would like to see more compact stuff. Roland Bk-7m was a good move from Roland interms of portability, Ketron has Audya 4(not many videos/audios on this), Korg has comeup with a Pa50 in a compact package. Now what next ? Yamaha S950 in keys or module option(I think the last arranger module from Yammie was the QY-100.. If Yamaha can do it for synth module racks ... why not arrangers;)so its about time now !!
By the way, A Very Happy and Musical New Year to all !!

My friend John Smies has posted some resources that will make life with the Micro easier.
Here:
http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=68579
DonM

Here's what I think.

They should (or should have already) made an optional full-size keyboard that's custom made (and sync's perfectly via USB) for the MicroARRANGER...similar to attaching an optional full size keyboard to the Netbook computers and similar devices.

That would please everyone.......but then we'd have come up with something else about the unit to bash.

Mark

No Mark,

If it had full size keys that would be fine, I did say those Demos that Donny played on the fly and recorded for us when he had only had the board a day before tells me two things, First Donny is a genius on the keys, and secondly he made it sound awesome, in fact his demos are better than anything I have heard so far, I would suggest he sends the demos to Korg and tells them that's how it should be done, they were brilliant, I thought he might have hit at least one note wrong with those tiny keys, I had seen Donny in an old camo photo and he looks like a BIG BOY, he will have big spanner for hands. No Mark I would moan if it had full size keys at all. I would love to see a video of him playing, can you arrange it Donny on the arranger.

Tony

Two more things i'm lovin about the Micro arranger..

1-Speaker ON/OFF switch

2- Unlike my Yamaha you can extensively edit every "individual" piece of drum kit within a style..this is VERY useful in tweaking the overall sound of a style....& you can do this for all sounds also.

3- You can make on the fly edits & write/save them
"while your playing in real time" WITHOUT ANY GLITCHES to the overall sound Yea!...

Tony,

You've got a long way to go to convince me that DNJ did those demo's "live" within a day of taking the unit out of the box. I'm also a professional accordionist. The French musette part of that demo sounds suspiciously like a MIDI file. It takes me hours to adjust my fingering from the full size piano keys to the smaller accordion keys to play that French music. More power to DNJ if that's what he did on the spot....I just won't believe it until I see it with my own eyes.

Mark