Chas,

I don't really, I like others to have a good laugh, some do some don't, there is a lot to laugh at the moment at least until a new arranger comes out, then it's all dome and gloom again. If only Diki would get a scrap of paper draw up the perfect WS/ARR, do the PCB circuit boards, write the firmware, plan the company sales strategy and issue it to DoM,Ketron,Korg,Roland and Yamaha sit back and wait for the highest bidder, we will never get a decent product.

While most current users of arrangers are willing to be led by their noses and pocketbooks with their eyes shut by the arranger industry, happy to pay an ever escalating price for equipment of ever less increased capabilities, the arranger industry has no NEED to change.

The problem always comes when someone ELSE comes out with the arranger killer, and they are unwilling to face the future and adapt.

This is what killed home organs. Lowery weren't interested in synths, and didn't want to give up making $10,000 behemoths even when it was obvious no-one wanted to play them any more. Korg, Roland, Moog, ARP... none of these came form a heavy home organ background. They were the future.

But writing a white paper will never solve an issue that is denied by the very people it will most affect. In the boardroom, all pretense of working to promote a company's long-term growth has disappeared in the corporate culture of short term stock gains and a revolving door of uninvolved boards just doing what it takes to make their golden parachute as large as it can be, and to hell with the consequences, and in the home, well, the home organ players never WERE exactly crying out for synths, happy as sheep to the slaughterhouse that no-one could ever POSSIBLY need more than they currently have and that the scene would NEVER change!

But the change is coming. We have an almost uncrossable line with the younger generation that their music is almost unplayable on our equipment, and ours is almost unplayable on theirs. Sooner or later, some smart company is going to figure out that the money is in making something that does BOTH.

And then not screwing it up by doing both half-a$$ed!

The only arranger to be able to cross the divide is the Audya.

Because it has broken free of the restraints of midi drum kits, uses streaming technology and live audio, in the hands of the right producer and with additional loops and samples (like Sokrates great vintage synths - perfect for electro-pop) it is capable of producing anything currently in the charts; Ke$ha, Lady Gaga, LMFAO, Kylie, Rihanna, David Guetta, Adam Lambert, Katy Perry, Pitbull, Selena Gomez, The Black Eyed Peas, Usher....etc..etc. Any of the stuff recorded by these people can be replicated, but the problem is..who is going to perform these songs?? There are hardly any people young enough to be interested that have the ability to pull it off and those older have neither the inclination or knowledge of current chart material..plus they are gonna look a bit odd trying to perform. I am 43 and I wouldn't do it unless I had a 20 year old vocalist with me.

Making something that does both is not enough...it all comes back to educating younger people into the field.

But then....how do they afford it? A new live style and groove for the Audya can cost up to $20,000 to produce from scratch taking into account all of the people and gear involved.

If Ketron would make the tools for producing new groove styles easy to operate (think Ableton Live easy, or Garage Band), then I would expect a huge explosion in styles as the current crop of groove libraries available for PC get ported.

That's the issue, I think. Ketron don't really need to go into a studio with live players and produce live styles any more. That work has already been done, with MANY highly detailed (far more chord choices and strum alternatives than any Ketron factory style) VSTi programs out there.

But spend $20,000 on developing easy to use PC tools to convert these audio loops into the sliced, proprietary format that the Audya uses, and the users will do it for themselves. $20k one time, or $20k for each style? Obvious choice, really...

But the Audya needs a re-vamp. It's current architecture is obviously incapable of streaming enough at speeds that are usable, which is why it is crippled when used for polyphonic, chordal material. Sure, slice a drum groove up, and that's all it needs. But a guitar pattern is not only the rhythm slices, but the chord choices and the transitions...

Audya need to look closely at the Korg Kronos, and leverage the high speed RAM and SSHD streaming technology that make it possible for the Kronos to stream instead of using sample ROM. And, one of those isn't exactly up there in Fairlight (or Audya!) price territory. Only a few hundred more than a MoXF, if truth be told.

But Ketron have shot themselves in the foot, releasing the Audya as an unfinished 'work in progress' without the MOST important tool an arranger can have. An EASY style creator system. If styles are going to cost the factory five figures to produce EACH, no-one in their right mind is going to consider it unless it ALREADY does exactly what you want. And what has EVER done that (unless your needs are pretty basic)?

And no busy contemporary producer or artist is going to use it, if the tools for making new styles are so clunky, so unintuitive, and so inelegant that they will probably be able to achieve the same result faster, better and with less hassle on a computer in the first place.

If Ketron fix these two things, they stand a chance. But seeing the multi-year gap between its release and the still crippled capabilities it has now, what hope can we really hold?

It's a small company, yes. But so were Korg, and Moog, and yes, even Roland when they started. But they made the right product at the right time, at the right price.