2016 will be the year of...

- Yamaha Montage
- Ketron Audya replacement
- Korg PA4x offspring and Kronos Rack
- roland TOTL something new, mix between workstation and arranger.
- Varranger making the next step
- Arranger app on Ipad
- casio's 88 key arranger (no px560 is not an arranger)
- new Wersi OaX arranger
- italian innovation making a breaktrough (crumar, viscount, former Roland EU)
- kurzweil new pc3k forte..

I think it will be a great year for keyboardplayers in general, tough not much news for arranger players..


( yes this thread is about gear)


So what do you expect to see in 2016? , NAMM is less then 3 weeks away, and we might actually see some new things there... And what instrument would be a definate buy for you in 2016?

Montage, Kronos rack, Roland TOTL - that's more than optimistic. Please tell me quickly if you KNOW these things, as the first thing I'll do is return my BK-9 to Thomann again (a few days left) and prepare myself financially for the Kronos rack.

It's 2016... It used to be called the future but I still don't have my flying or hovering car... I guess the tire and rubber lobby is very powerful in Washington DC.

I'd love one of the companies to give you more performance power to justify the high ticket prices! Also, build some uniqueness and the "I gotta get one of these" feelings of the current tech hungry consumer.

I'd love to see a keyboard with built in ambient lighting along the lines of the Phillips Hue Go concept. You could tie in the color that matches the mood of the song... The color that goes with the holiday. They could tie the keyboard's functions into color... The keyboard turns blue when you play a blues style. You could change the color to red to white during a hot solo.

I'd love it if you could record light changes during a sequence. Kind of like the TC Helicon Voice Live 3 Extreme does... Records fx changes during the playback of a WAV. Audimation on par with what MIDI is but with real world applications.

-Colors for the LED part of the board
-Blocks of text that sync with the music
-Sync pictures to be exported to a LED TV during song
-sync patch changes to WAV files

It could add a whole other level to performance of the smaller bands down to the solo acts. They design the possibilities and we create!!
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I'll just wait and see,...no sense speculating the unknown,......that said...
I'm very happy with what I'm playing for now,...it really gets the job done.
Nothing really excites me on the market at this time that is gonna really change my sound at the moment,...and there's probably more features inside the Kb I haven't even looked into yet to use...

Montage seems a pretty sure bet..

Korg needs something new, but dont have a Kronos replacement anywhere near ready, and some people have been hinting at a rack, it could just as well be a Kronos rack, tough its highly speculating... There however is another thing Korg needs to replace soon, thats the SV1 stage piano.

And seems Roland is in the works with a new workstation like instrument, they need to add some form of accomp to compete with motif arps and korg karma.. It could just as well be an arranger in disguise..


3 weeks till Namm and we will know more..

Here's what I'm looking forward to for 2016 - OH YEAH!



Enjoy those fantasy keyboards, and while you are fantasizing, I'll be playing my antiquated S-950 aboard the boat, or maybe just sipping a cold one while sailing down the Chesapeake.

Good luck on all those wishes,

Gary

Korg needs something new, but dont have a Kronos replacement anywhere near ready, and some people have been hinting at a rack, it could just as well be a Kronos rack, tough its highly speculating... There however is another thing Korg needs to replace soon, thats the SV1 stage piano.

How about the Korg Havian. I like having a piano keybed with arranger functions. Seriously thinking about getting one.

Havian is the only real stagepiano/arranger hybrid... Maybe a Havian 400, a havian with the pa4x inside... Now that would be tempting for me..


The arranger part of the havian 30 is equall to the pa300, which is still kind of the low end of the spectrum..

When looking at Yamaha's DGX 650, I considered the Havian 30, more keyboard than the Yamaha...but also twice the price.

The arranger part of the DGX 650 is very elementary compared to other arrangers..maybe on the level of a PSR E4xx.

Thing is, I want to have a weighted keyboard for trying to learn piano...and the DGX650 seems to hold up well for the price.

Since the DGX 650 won't be used for gigging, arranger capabilities were not a high priority for me. Besides, a person can midi from the DGX to another arranger, should that be desirable. That's what a piano playing friend does.

By far the best solution currently for a stagepiano arranger is adding A Ketron module or Varranger to a top of the line stagepiano (Kawai MP7 or ES8, Roland RD800, Korg Kronos, Kurzweil Forte, Nord Stage 2.... All are great stagpoano's tough some offer much more)

Its a pitty none of the big names has created a TOTL arranger/stagepiano solution.. Tough i need to admit, Kronos is a very TOTL instrument, the only thing it misses are arranger styles..

The DGX 650 still has no conventional MIDI ports. With the DGX 630 we have in church I haven't found any possibility yet to connect it to my Integra or any other instrument. You cannot just connect USB to USB, it won't work. I still have to try it with my iConnectMidi interface, which is said to have the Yamaha protocol loaded, but again it cannot be connected with normal USB cables as you need a USB cable with two identical ends (USB-B to USB-B).

Doing a midi with the DGX 650 is a bit complicated to be sure.

The 650 will also read additional styles via USB.