Its becomming more and more obvious, it plummeted in the crisis and is still deep below the sea of the living..

Its not only arranger sales, but also synth and synth/workstation sales, espescially the expensive ones... There is a reason we have seen Fa06, Krome and MOXF at under €1000 as the only new instruments in the last few years.

There is a reason we havent seen a new Motif or Fantom for so long.. Not enough people are currently willing to play those amounts of money for something that does not substantially improve the way they make music. And they have obviously no clue how to make a new workstation that will be an instant succes and will make everyone spend their good dollars on it....

Yes there are still people upgrading, but not enough, and the synth market has the same problem as the arranger market, there is almost no new younger people wanting to spend huge amounts of time in learning to play an instrument. And if they do, they choose a guitar or the drums, as they are much more popular. But not key instruments..

And while Tyros 5 was a huge succes, the dealers currently have no clue how to improve it further to apeal to the good old buyers group and make them upgrade another time.. Sure they are still wondering why the t5 never got the double midiplayer they begged for, but for the rest, they have no real ideas how to improve things, a touchscreen would not be appreciated by most of the current buyers, as that would change to much the Interface they grow used too, and they dont care for good synthsounds or real time controll..


In the end, the big tree seem to have a problem in choosing a direction, Roland left the TOTL market and has no plans to return to it. Korg feels its the most technically advanced and sees no reason to produce new top instruments. And Yamaha is clueless..


If they want to pull in new and pull back old custumors, it seems a time for change ....

I agree now people can concentrate on playing the kb instead of worrying about the latest and greatest.

Common Donny, we all need our yearly dose of boystoys....

people are getting wise to their game and pockets tighten big time in years to come....if they don't make significant changes the downward spiral will continue.I think T4 to T5 was a big wakening call to buyers and they won't be fooled again with minuscule changes.

It was the biggest changes in the series we have seen since the T1...

However many of those new features never connected with the playerbase, they dont hear the quallity of the new DsP, they don't have the playing capabilities to make use of the ensemble features, they dont play classical churchorgan, and the audio drums, well thats just not what it promissed to be..

As i said before, getting a new T every 3 years was the same as getting a new iphone every year... But now people have found that their ipads last a few years, and soon will realise that they dont need a new phone every year

The biggest thing driving the lust for the 'latest/greatest' is the notion that the new gear is going to instantly make you sound better (with no additional effort on your part)....it isn't. Marco Parisi with a ten year old arranger is going to sound better than 99% of Synthzoners with the latest state-of-the-art TOTL Arranger. There are no free rides. If you want to sound like a pro, then develop pro-level playing skills. Practice, boys, practice. It's cheaper than buying new (and largely unused) technology every year or so.

Bachus is right. At a certain age, most of us don't have the patience, desire, or cognitive abilities (left) to take full advantage of the technological features available on modern keyboards. Don't believe me? Check out the way your kids and/or grandkids use their smartphones and the way you use yours.

One thing you can do though, at any age, is improve your playing through study and practice. Use your arranger kb's to study how styles are constructed; play (mimic) the style parts manually; manually play familiar tunes in different styles just as your arranger would do; you'd be supprised how much you'll learn (and how much fun you'll have). Lastly, if appropriate, try to mix some acoustic piano (or organ) playing into your practice regimen. Just some thoughts.

chas

All luxury goods take a hit in a down turned economy . This is not rocket science . As soon as folks have money back in their pockets and some sense of confidence for the future they will start spending their money again

Normally yes, however on the luxury organ side (Most entertainment organs have always been a luxury) it hasn’t panned out that way.

Bohm (Keyswerk) has stabilised its position and has expanded its market, (Not forgetting the development of a brand new sound engine) Lowrey is still selling nicely, (The top models sell out quick) Roland with its revised range has continued with updates, (Although the management buyout may change this) Wersi has had to expand its production facilities twice since being bought buy Music Store, (Not forgetting the development of the brand new Sonic organ and the move back into the US & Australian markets) and a new manufacture (Bemore) will be entering the market next year. (In Asia Yamaha has also upgraded its organ range)

The entertainment organ market is (In spite of the recession) is probably in its strongest position it has been in years, which hopefully bodes well for the future.

Arrangers sales are on the slide, (Plus dealers are having problems selling traded in models) but this I think is more due to saturation being reached rather than anything else. (Plus users have cottoned on to the fact that (As has been mentioned previously) upgrading to the latest model will not make you play any better, so are holding onto their cash.

I think this decade is definitely a decade of change for the keyboard world, and it will be interesting to see how it pans out.

Bill