Agreed, that is what arrangers are great for-live play and creation on the spot.

On the arranger boards, I went from a Yamaha PSR-3000 to a PSR-SX900, and a lot has changed in those 10 years, yet a lot has remained the same.

More styles to pick from, and yes they sound "richer", "fuller" and drums are better, yet it's almost like a "been there done that" with quite of few of the styles that seem to be on every Yamaha arranger forever. On a side note, I do not like how they downsized style category. THAT they should have left alone, having more styles in less category's makes no sense. And whatever happened to audio styles? For whatever reason, Yamaha kinda just let that die.

Voices are much improved, again definitely more "richer and fuller" . Guitars on a Yamaha sound just awesome, I can't imagine any arranger sounding better. Piano's and Organs are also top notch and a big step up from the 3000. Adding a 3rd right hand voice was long overdue on Yamaha MOTL arrangers, makes a huge difference in layering voices. I find myself using OTS less often, and just wing it with my own setup.

Pads are better, chord looper (finally) is a nice feature, touchscreen (finally) is something that once you have, you'll never go back, and Bluetooth is a nice added addition.

Lot's of upgrade improvements in 10 years, Yamaha has kept some of it's tried and true stuff, and perhaps that's good, and they seem slow to change, but with the SX-900 vs any previous PSR line, it's a huge step forward that was long over due.

Sorry, didn't mean to go off on a review of the SX-900, so to Diki's main point in how we use these new advances to sound more human? I like to edit styles, many times minimize or eliminate parts of the style, increase drum and bass volume, and use less OTS, and stick to a simple "more human" simple approach. But these are arrangers, and it's also fun to just use everything full blast as pre-loaded by Yamaha. It may sound less human, but isn't that what's great about Arrangers, the ability to sound simple, or to simply sound out!

The problem with arrangers is nothing ever changes... at least not in the last 2 decades..

Altough, there is one highlight, thats Ketron’s launchpads feature

Some good stuff here. Thanks for participating...

I think that lately, there have been some promising steps forward, strangely enough mostly from Yamaha, who stagnated for a decade or so until the Genos and SX series.

I’m also surprised about the complete about face regarding keyboard size. When I was last here, the hardcore opinion was that the Tyros would NEVER get a 76, and who needed one as an option anyway?! Now you can’t get a Genos 61... 🤯

Chord sequencers were the exclusive province of Roland’s, and nobody generally thought they had any practical use. Now Korg got one, and Yamaha up the ante with one that can have up to eight named sections! And all tied to Registrations, so select your song, there are the chords, ready to go! You all probably know me as one of the strongest supporters of this feature, it’s the perfect tool to allow you style play, but freedom from the tyranny of tying your LH up with rote chord input. For those of us that started in bands, it’s almost the perfect substitute! It’s gratifying that almost the entire arranger industry has adopted the one thing I think a professional arranger should never be without! You wait by the river long enough... 😎

There’s a few things that also push the art further, IMHO, many of them gradually adapted from computer software. I’m a huge fan of the Yamaha Ensemble Mode thing. Brass and string ensemble sounds sound great when playing one note. A brass trio, trumpet, sax and ‘bone all playing together. But in real life, when they play a chord, they split up and each one only plays ONE of the notes in a chord. Same with woodwinds, same with string ensembles, you get the picture. Computer software has done this for well over a decade. It’s wonderful that it finally makes it to an arranger. Takes a tad of skill to get the best out of it, but an eye opener when you do...

We are also starting to get more realistic drums, with round robin triggering, heck, Yamaha finally made drum kits that don’t suck! They also contain loads of new hi hat articulations, and stuff like that. Unfortunately, it comes at the price of less compatibility with older styles. It’s a shame there’s no built in routine for automatically adding the extra articulations. You can tell those new styles from the old ones! But there’s quite a way to go to match the better VSTi drums. Eight way velocity splits with round robins at least! You don’t need that many kits when they kick butt!

Guitars have made leaps and bounds in styles, Korg and Yamaha’s both get strumming and picking much better than they used to. I’d still like to see a feature where the chord would be played further up the neck if you played higher up the keyboard (Roland’s guitar mode could do that) but still, all in all, nice progress.

And lead guitar sounds? Wow! Effects sections have adopted some of the best guitar amp simulators, and the sound of a clean guitar run into a proper amp, cranked up and slathered in echo is pure Pink Floyd heaven! No sampled distortion comes even close... voice it right, use the a SA2 articulation stuff, or the Roland SuperNatural articulations and it’s possible to fool guitarists! Never been able to do that before!

And, although it’s not my bag, I have heard some pretty good EDM stuff out of Yamaha’s and Korg’s, but then again, I probably wouldn’t know the difference between good EDM and bad EDM if my life depended on it! 🤩

But... and it’s a big butt 😉 What’s changed fundamentally in the style engine in years? 3-4 Intros. 4 Variations. 4 Fills. 3-4 Endings. Rinse and repeat. This wasn’t great a decade ago. Even sadder now. Styles still lurch uncomfortably from section to section, rarely transitioning well. No half time and double time options (a staple of many software drum machines), no variable swing factor, and that used to be a staple on older arrangers. The strange thing is, it’s actually EASIER to write styles yourself if you don’t struggle trying to write one fill that transitions well between two or three quite different sections. Eight fills should be base, more as options. I mean, what is it other than a clip of MIDI played from a source to a destination..? Why have we been mired in 4 Fills, or 4 Variations for decades?

So... glass half full, glass half empty. Or glass twice as big as it needs to be?! 🥃

Thing is arrangers are made for (And always have been) home hobby players who no longer have room for an organ, (Pro use is miniscule even in Europe) and adding a lot of features scares them off (Just look how Yamaha got burned with the T5 as users s*** themselves when trying to use the more advanced features, with many downgrading to a T4) hurting the manufactures bottom line.

Ketron is one of the most innovative when it comes to arrangers, but speak to the home hobby players and they will say that they don’t consider Ketron because they are too difficult, and have features they just do not understand.

The Genos from Yamaha plays older styles pretty well and can also use older pre-sets, with the newer features well-hidden or merged with more familiar features, and has been selling like hot cakes, (At the start they just could not make enough of them) which when you consider how poor the sales were of the T5 (Only the 76 note keyboard saved it) compared to previous generations, they had to do something out of the ordinary that the home hobby player could understand.

The latest organs from Wersi (The OAX range (The previous OAS range have long gone but a 14 year lifespan isn’t bad) now has a VST3 host on-board that is relatively easy to use, however most owners shy away from it because they are scared of it, likewise Bohm which has their cloud studio option (A PC is built into the organ) is also shunned by most users (Although personally I think Bohm overcharge for it) even though it has a big 17” touch screen built into the music rest. (You can also add a 2nd screen to the Wersi if the 13” built into the organ is too small)

Arranger manufactures are stuck between a rock and a hard place as they know their traditional users are dying off, but cannot add too many new features yet to entice the young, which is why I believe this decade will be last for arrangers, with them becoming really niche products just like the organs they replaced.

Let’s face it if it can’t be done on a phone with a press of a button the modern generation just aren’t interested.

Bill

Where do the sales figures come from?

I mean, is there a reliable source with actual numbers (please post the link) everybody can check and verify (this is the base of science since its inception)?

Or can someone say the exact opposite or any random number in between?


I do not know how well or how bad it sells, what *I* can say is that in a very BIG store I recently visited, they do not even carry the Genos (or the Montage), because it is too much money into a very slowly rotating stock.

If you want one you have to pay it in full, they place the order to Yamaha, and sometimes later you return to pick it.

And the ONLY place where Yamaha in Europe keeps some stock is in Germany, and from there they deliver the requested unit(s) directly to the store in every EU country. Not exactly a piece of hardware sold like hot cakes.....

No manufacture puts out sales numbers so as not to give things away to the competition, however those in the know can get insider information (Just like in any industry) as to what is going on. (If it is made official then you would have to sign an NDA so that it couldn’t get out)

As to selling them faster than they could make them when the Genos was first introduced, just ask any dealer, as Yamaha could not meet the demand and as soon as they were delivered they went straight out the door to the customers. (From memory I think initially there was a 3 month waiting list after the first batch) Things have now stabilised as the Genos has been out for quite some time.

Remember keep your eyes and ears open when it comes to technology as details come out unofficial than through official channels. (If you want to know what is going on get friendly with the various dealers and distributers (It takes time) and you will eventually become part of the loop)

Finally just look how many people are using them to see how popular they are in comparison to other boards. ((Your post seems to indicate that you are relatively young so you wont fully understand until you have gained more experience)

Bill

According to the Thomann sales ranking. the Genos does quite well, but Korg PA 4X and PA1000 seem to have more sales.

https://www.thomann.de/de/cat_rank.html?ar=422200

Thing with arranger keyboards is that most are bought from smaller dealers as people like to try them out first.

Here is an observation if you dig a bit, Korg do extremely well in the Eastern part of Europe whereas as Yamaha do better in the western part of Europe. (This may have something to do with the fact that most of the content for Yamaha arranger keyboards are done in the UK with input from Germany for the European sounds)

Bill

Yeah, Korg have always had a bit of an edge for ethnic musics, non-equal tempered things, sampled ethnic percussion and instruments.

Yamaha have always taken their older Western players seriously, lots of ballroom and oldies styles, and have almost cornered the worship music sector with the free play styles.

But once again, that’s still mostly a content thing. Yamaha CAN do sampled ethnic stuff, Korg can go softer and more oldies and free tempo worship stuff. But there’s not much of that type of content included. So it’s kind of self-reinforcing. The content attracts the player, then the player determines the content!

With a skilled and dedicated content creation team, I think just about any modern arranger can get the job done. But where each manufacturer prioritizes that content differs quite a bit