James, you can put vArranger on a USB key who will work on every computer.

Hi Tony.



Far as I know the Mediastation was discontinued when the Groove Series of keyboards came out, and they never sold in any great numbers just like the Mediastation before it I would imagine.

The X-R (rack unit) never made it to the market at all and only exists as a few prototypes units at this stage. Which is a shame because the prototypes are running a far better OS than the keyboards ever had.



I'm quite sure that anyone who has a Mediastation is most certainly not embarrassed. They are extremely advanced workstations and mighty powerful musical instruments.

The concept behind the keyboards was without doubt a noble one. The problem in my opinion was that there were no musicians and sound designers hired from day one to create content and post professional demo's. Instead we saw a never ending flow of unbelievably armature efforts recorded with a banana instead of a video camera and direct line audio. Dom then spent most of his time defending those than doing what was needed.

If the X-R had of made it to the market, it would have been the first product that came with premium content and was backed by musicians. I believed that this would have been the turning point for Lionstracs but sadly, it wasn't meant to be.

Regards
James

And all those promises of continuous updates and free upgrades to those poor souls that purchased the media station have all vanished with it . What a waste

Hi Dan.

So it's a portable app ?
No install and no activation ?

Or are you saying it locks itself to that memory stick, meaning I cannot have a backup copy ready to go in the event that my wife decides to wash my trousers without checking my pockets....lol...

She's been known to do that from time to time, plus we all loose things and I'd hate to place all my faith in a single memory stick.

Also if it runs off a memory stick, how then is the SF2 data supposed to be stored because a memory stick is far too slow to load a large SF2 bank and certainly too slow to stream samples.

Does it even stream the samples or is all the data loaded to RAM.

Sorry for all the questions but with no demo version to even test, it's very hard to know what I'd even be buying into or how well it even works.

Thanks.
James

True.

What's worst for me is I have an X-6 here I can't even boot up properly because it's running a bloody awful beta version of OS 5.1 which makes the keyboard completely useless.

Whatever about updates, I can't even download and downgrade to a copy of the last stable “non beta” OS.

My 2 cents, anyone with a working Mediastation, clone your HDD and save an backup somewhere.

Regards
James

I am one of the SZ guys that still own the MS..It is far from being an embarassment..
The way I use the MS...it works flawlessly and performs better than any other on the market....namely..I use the interface with Native Instruments B4....and a Steinway Giga sample that covers piano as well as any other piano sound.. I also have some go to sounds like Lionstracs sampled saxes, and brass..there are also real drums for drum kits (for laying down tracks)..

The strength of the MS is Combo mode ..sets up 8 individual samples , VST's etc in any configuration with sliders that control the mix...
The media player is as good as it gets...dual player that performs well...

In a nutschell..these are the things I use on the MS...

The weakness is the arranger play that was never developed to compete with ..say a G70...not that the Qarranger could not do a great job...The VST bank of sounds needed to be developed..for arranger styles....and some bugs (quirks) like on other arrangers too..

OS stability was okay in the later releases...and to be honest.. good enough to set up the MS in the future the way you want...Linux is still moving ahead, and all these programs work well with the MS..

The quality keybed and hardware is high quality and durable..key feel one of the best..

Boot up time about a minute...probably better than Korg..

The short comings of the arranger play never bothered me...since I prefer a more limited use of style play than most here..

Resale value doesn't exist...There are not many candidates to buy a MS..It take computer litercy and musicianship to own and operate the MS...at a level that is not found easily on SZ...In fact I don't have a single friend that could handle the MS......Here on SZ, there was Richard,James and Lee....that is a short list..

When you think about how many master their arranger keyboard and use all the features...you can understand why there is no resale mrket for the MS....
I do test the waters to see if there is any interest, but it is so small..It is wiser to continue using the MS in a way that still tops most boards....My Way!!!

James I had to roll back to a previous OS, I do maintain two Hard drives with different OS's..

OS5..rev 2171-4 and rev 2171-6 are the HD's

Not as bad as it seems, as providing you have a copy of the keyboards OS (Or a cloned drive) you are good to go now and into the future.

The reason for this is that apart from the keyboard OS, all the rest of the software is by 3rd party companies who made them for computers in general and not just the Media station, thus they are still being updated.

Hardware wise the only stumbling block is the interface board (In-Out) which is specifically for the Media station, the rest is just standard PC hardware which can be picked up from computer parts supplier.

Contrast the above with a hardware arranger as if the manufacture goes out of business your stuffed, and have to hope that nothing goes wrong and you are happy to stay as is. (Just ask Technics & Gem owners)

Bill

Like i said, lionstracs is currently making parts for inhouse automation, like switches for garage ports that can be controlled over wifi.. They are out of the music buisness.

Last thing i heared from them was when Dom was in a fight with the owner of Live-styler, who added all the lionstracs mega samples libraries to the live styler withouth giving credit or any money to Dom..

I dont think however Sharps precious sample collection for the XR belonged to the leaked samples. Tough i would not be surprised if part of the XR modules samples are now available in the irishacts EXs products for the Kronos.


I saw a demo of the XR once at the musik messe, sounded good, but somehow it didnt feel reliable, knowing that it never got released, i feel sorry for those musicians that but a lot of effort, time and money in it trying to create something many people eagerly are wayting for.

Hello James,

Yes vArranger is a portable app.
You just need to install a small plugin for the audio features on the computer you will use

You don't need to run vArranger from your USB key. It's better (run faster) to copy the files in your computer hard drive.
Just plug the key on the computer.

Ask to your wife to not loose you usb key, as if it was a diamond

By the way, I am here to help my users not to bother too much about activations, but play music.

All the data are loaded into RAM.
For now, I don't like the idea of streaming from hd while giging For now, Max 4GB of samples

Feel free to ask any questions

Dan