Again I ask what direction will the Arranger KB manufacturers go in the near future to compensate for what we are talking about regarding the "NEW YOUNGER MUSICAL GENERATION"?

If it continues the way its going it's not going to endure longevity as in the past. These small increment upgrades model release after model release to pick away at peoples pocketbooks is frustrating and pretty soon players will just have had enough & will want some MAJOR CHANGES!

I personally saw it all coming as a Pro player and made the necessary changes I needeed to continue to perform mixing it ALL Up one way or another with Styles, Live playing, Backing tracks, Mp3's, DJ'ing, etc, ....they are all in my Tool Box ready to use combined with great Vocals and Backup Harmonies. Jump on board the new generation train people, adapt and make changes now, or your gonna miss the ride very soon & be left at the station.

Every time Donny fires up this topic, he gets the same response from mostly the same individuals. This is not the first time this type of post has appeared here on the Synthzone.

What I find amazing is that he is always talking about playing for the "younger crowds", when in reality, when you look at the photos and videos he posts, everyone seems to be older than me - and I'm really an old fart!

Now, I talked with my son about this and he put it in perspective. His old band gets together once or twice a year, plays one of the more popular Baltimore club venues, draw crowds of 400 to 500 people in their late 30s to late 40s, and his band rocks the place for three hours without taking more than 10-minutes break each hour. It's a high energy heavy-metal rock band and all of these individuals are extremely talented musicians.

At the clubs where he performs, there's a cover charge, usually $8 to $10 per person, and that's what the club owner uses to pay the band. The band never gets the entire amount, but usually about $400 to $500 for the night - big deal! That works out to about $100 to $125 per band member for three hectic, high level hours, dealing with druggies and drunks, and hoping to get out of Baltimore alive and well. That's one of the reasons he only does this once a year. Donny, you are not going to do this kind of stuff, regardless of what new gear you purchase.

Most of us, at least on this particular forum, are not performers or entertainers. Most are home players and really have no reservations about the limitations of their arranger keyboards. So lets take a good look at the future. This should be fairly easy. Our audiences, primarily, are our age, or up to a decade older. They want to hear and dance to the music they enjoyed when they were 15 to 35 years of age, which is what we play best with our arranger keyboards. I'm playing primarily for folks that are my age, which will be 74 in two months, and individuals ranging to 80 years of age. They tend to enjoy the same music I enjoyed when I was young. Donny is just over a decade younger than myself, so if he comes up a decade with his music selection, he will have all the work he can handle, and at wages far superior to those currently paid in the clubs - even the high end clubs. And, those high-end clubs rarely hire OMB entertainers - they tend to hire full bands, thus translating to lower pay. Hell, everyone knows that - we've all been there and done that. We've all come home with barely enough money to cover the travel expenses to and from the job - is that REALLY what you want to do?

Now, if there were a lot of young people out there clamoring for bands to play for them, don't you think there were be a deluge of clubs around catering exclusively to those individuals? We don't have them in my neck of the woods. What we do have is places that cater to the folks that have money to spend on food and entertainment - the kind of food and entertainment they enjoy. Guess what? That's the same folks that our current arranger keyboards seem to be best suited for.

Now, I only play two restaurant jobs, both of which I do for a friend who is having worse health problems than myself. I pack the house every night I perform, and the owner(s) have tried all the younger crowd groups in hopes of increasing business by attracting the younger set. They have told me that the only thing the younger, rock bands did was cause them more trouble, headaches and expenses than they could have ever anticipated. Now, the older crowds don't spend loads of money on booze, which is a big money maker for the clubs, but they will buy the more expensive meals and stay around the entire time there is music playing. Consequently, the owners claim their bottom line is far better with the older folks and they never cause problems.

Now, I don't know a damned thing about Central New Jersey's club business, but other than the Jersey Shore, I don't think it's any different than any other part of the U.S.. Maybe Donny knows something that will make him a small fortune in the entertainment biz. Maybe he should sell me his PSR-S950 to me for half what he paid for it - I'll make good use of it. Maybe Donny will become a big-buck DJ or KJ and never talk to us again. You know, the ones I keep hearing about with the light shows, a truck load of big speakers, fireworks, etc... For some strange reason, we don't seem to have those in my part of the world. They must all be working north of the Mason/Dixon Line.

Personally, I sincerely believe arranger keyboards will be around longer than we will, and I for one, love all the features I have on my S-950. It does more than I could ever have dreamed and then some.

Bill, I started out playing bars and clubs with a 6-string guitar, a pawn shop amp and mic, and later on, a Roland drum machine. Then I switched to a Yamaha 12-string guitar, mainly because of the fuller sound it provided. It was an incredible guitar. Then I ran across a duo, Norm & Carlos. Norm played the PSR-500 and Carlos played a six-string electric guitar. They really sounded great, and both of them were outstanding singers and entertainers. They made $150 for a 4-hour job. Yep, $75 each and they had to pay all their expenses out of that. They were booked solid, performed every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, then went to work Monday through Friday at their day jobs so they could make enough money to support their families.

I see Norm once in a while - he and I play the same NH circuit north of Baltimore. Norm said he really loved playing the clubs, but he never made enough money to support his family. Now that he works the NH and senior center circuits, he can support them and has money to spare.

So, maybe Donny has a lot of younger venues in his part of the world, places where he can haul in much more money as he does on the NH circuit and work the same number of hours. I've never encountered those venues, personally, so I guess I'll have to continue along the same OLD track that I have traveled for all these years, playing for those OLD FOLKS.

Sorry about the rant guys and gals, but I'm old and cantankerous so please forgive me for not accepting the younger generation stuff as gospel - it just doesn't fly!

Gary

Gary stop harping on being old its depressing 74 today aint nuttin!....enjoy life buddy you only get one.

In my miniscule part of the world, I can usually make $100 for a one hour NH gig, make $150 as a OMB doing three sets, or make anywhere from $75 - 200 playing with a trio/quartet for four sets doing one nighters. You do the math. I am happier, healthier and more content playing my retirement/NH jobs. They usually take place in the afternoon and are near home.

As for arrangers, I confess I have never become proficient in using all of those styles. Once I moved from those rickety drum machines on the home organs to playing out with an arranger, I've found it easier to use midi files. How many times do you actually play a song differently? If you hardly change your style and length of the song, why not record it as a SMF or mp3 and then use any frickin' keyboard you want.

The up and coming OMBs may use a standard arranger, but they'll also have a huge armory of other audio choices to help them make music and entertain. If these young folks attack the arrangers as they do other electronica, they may expose sonic possibilities within our arrangers that we never knew existed.

Actually I hope they do. It would open another world of possibilities.

all i want is an updated Audya with modern specs, 16gb ram, 512GB SSD, new OS,
that will allow us to use VST's, and easily edit our styles, add/use our own audio guitars
all this while keeping the kick @ss Audya real deal sound

bring it !!!

I dont think you will see that anytime soon but you can dream

I have heard they are working on it...... Really they are..

They know they need so ething huge to beat Their own audya, and since they dont make a lot of money by selling their own new sounds and styles, they will not cut their profit by allowing 3rd party vsts or user created styles .....

On top of that they are also adding physical moddeling voices based on the former Gem drake engine, and something comparable to Yamahas ensemble voices and organ section...

I did my Hot Dog Cart thingy from around 9 til 2 AM at the biggest club in Mesa County. Dig this, in New Orleans it's always been 18 for boos. Here it is 21, but this club had a stamp for those under 21. They were in one side, and the 21 and older to 50's maybe some 60's on the other side of the club, but they shared the dance floor. Packed 400 to 500 people a night on weekends. This place was huge.

I had to go in to check it out for 10 minutes, which was 9 minutes and 50 seconds too long for me. The volume was really ridiculous and of course it was a DJ. God I hate DJ's! They don't know a Zb from a Q# for the most part. Oh there might be 2 exceptions.

People here don't know what a OMB is in Clubs, only the Farmer's Market and a night thingy gig from time to time in a City Park.

I did one club gig with my sax a year or two back and couldn't hear myself through the sound system. It was miserable. I can't stand it. In my day the bands who played loud were the guys who really couldn't play well. They used wrong chords and tried to cover it up with volume. I've always considered it pathetic.

The club closed last year after a gunfight and death outside. You should have seen this place poppin. I mean Blacks, Mexicans, Whites, Orientals you name it. We have a pretty large university here for such a small town. We have exchange students from every country on earth probably. What I mean is it's amazing with all of the people in the world who hate other people because of their race or religion, I'm surprised there was only one killing in the place with all of the different cultures and the boos etc. There were fights often. This club had 10 or more 250 to 300 lb bouncers. I gave them all free Hot Dogs. No one was going to mess with me. Ha ha.

Anyway if they closed all the clubs in America up it wouldn't bother me a bit, as long as they leave Taco Bell, McDucks, Wendy's and Burger King open, (that's all I can barely afford.)

This is Gary's damn fault. He got me going on the loud music and DJ's. Man I hate DJ's.

The reason we went to an arranger as part of our gig, is that our crowds like the styles..and most are over 60.

That said, the last three mini concerts we went to, the groups used karoke backup and no one cared. Again the audience were seniors. I think in one of those karoke concerts, the tickets were $15 apiece and 250 folks showed up.

After that last Karoke concert, my wife asked me why we are even bothering to haul a keyboard...given the crowds we play for.

The other thing that I quite haven't figured out....

We went to an outdoor concert earlier this summer. The guy singing was good but all he had was a guitar and he entertained for two hours. Now, I'm an acoustic guitar player first and foremost but I was bored out of my mind after the first 15 minutes just listening to guitar. But the crowd there seemed to be contented?

Sometimes I think it's only the musicians themselves that appreciate what goes into good music. The audience, well, if there's a live body...that's good enough...