I think the economy of scale accounts for the price difference between workstations and arrangers a lot more than the content. Workstations probably sell 100:1 compared to arrangers, and exist in a far more populated and competitive environment.
If you sell 100X more of a product, you can sell them cheaper. And if you have more competition, you NEED to sell them cheaper!
Certainly, content is a factor. But not THAT much...
Excellent observation. We are in complete agreement here.
I agree the economy of scale plays a big part on why manufacturers can afford to sell Workstations at a lower price point.
Arranger Players are few and far in between.
There are also alternative solutions to Arrangers which can be more cost effective under certain use cases.Let me expand on this topic comparing:
The Yamaha GENOS and PG Music's Band-in-a-BoxThe Yamaha GENOS is the top Arranger Keyboard in the world.
In the hands of a classically trained pianist, it can replace an entire band with convincing results.
It is mesmerizing to watch Peter Baartmans play the GENOS:
https://youtu.be/XGHp5bAlPqc?t=392https://youtu.be/ArNJ8NtPcas?t=118https://youtu.be/Cc7fht_2Sxs?t=222Peter even sings along in this demo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArNJ8NtPcas&t=502sNothing can replace an Arranger for its immediacy, the ability to trigger chords on the fly, change styles, add fills, initiate vocal clips with the use of multi-pads, all the while interacting with your audience.
On the other hand, what if you are not a trained keyboard player but rather a talented singer who just wants to go on stage to charm the audience?
You can hire a 5 piece band to play the Guitar, Bass, Organ, Horns and Drums to accompany your Vocals. That will cost money.
You can ask a friend who has a GENOS to provide the accompaniment.
Or, you can have Band-in-a-Box to create complete backing arrangements for you just by entering the Chord Names in a grid with a suitable style. It is the cheapest solution available to a Singer.
Band-in-a-Box customers have created a library of demo songs.
The quality of the production may surprise you:
https://www.pgmusic.com/bbradio.htm?pl=countryfolk1The company has been in existence for 40 years with stellar Customer Support.
They sent me the Band-in-a-Box 2021 UltraPAK edition in a USB 3.0 external HD in less than 24 hours after placing the order online.
https://www.pgmusic.com/bbwin.packages.htmIt comes with 3 programs:
- Band-in-a-Box (32-bit)
- Band-in-a-Box (64-bit)
- RealBand (64-bit)
The installation takes 130GB of HD space. It is best to install this on an Internal SSD like a Samsung SSD 850 PRO (256GB), or you may simply run this off your external USB 3.0 HD.
Band-in-a-Box can be run strictly in MIDI mode where your sound source is an external sound module or keyboard.
However, the results will not be optimal. The reason being Band-in-a-Box can only handle GM voices. It just sounds ok through a Roland SD-90 Sound Canvas.
You can use a GENOS or a Clavinova as your Sound Source. You will need to remap the GM voices to make the Band-in-a-Box styles sound better. However, that is a silly exercise. The built-in styles on the Yamaha arrangers outshine these MIDI styles
To get the best use of Band-in-a-Box you need to run
RealBand 64.
This is a 64-bit application. All the tracks use live studio recordings of session players – Horns, Pedal Steel Guitars, Organs, Pianos, Drums, etc. There is no MIDI involved here. This allows every nuance of a live band to shine through.
The UltraPAK comes with a massive collection of 3,300 Real Tracks Styles.
It has an exhaustive collection of Ballads, Country, Folk, Blues and Jazz Styles – all recorded by professional musicians.
None of these Styles can be played in real time with Chord changes from a keyboard. You must enter the Chords beforehand to allow the program to render the tracks. This takes a few seconds.
All these Real Tracks are compressed to WMA files in the UltraPAK edition to save space. The compression ratio is 1:11.
Compression artifacts show up when you transpose these recordings to a different key or simply play them back through good quality speakers or headphones.
A better approach is to buy the
Audiophile Edition which ships with the original CD Quality 16-bit 44.1kHz WAV files.
Sweetwater has the Audiophile Edition for $559.
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/...r-windows-boxedThe size of the program is 1.5TB. It comes in a USB 3.0 external Hard Drive ready to play.
The best time to buy Band-in-a-Box is Dec 31st when they go on sale online.
If you are a Singer, the Band-in-a-Box Audiophile Edition is your best companion. You could take your PC or Mac Laptop along with this External HD on stage and mimic the backing of a live band recorded by professional session players.
They do sound more authentic and organic than the built-in styles on an arranger. It is more cost-effective as well.
Woody Piano Shack has posted two videos on YouTube comparing Band-in-a-Box styles with the Yamaha PSR SX900 styles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK8p1p2KLmQhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzjQualAEowBand-in-a-Box has narrowly focused their market on these Country/Folk/Jazz singers.
If you are into electronic dance music, you are better served using a GENOS or an AKAI Force, or MPC One.
If you are a keyboard player, the GENOS is the best choice to express your creativity with its professionally programmed Styles covering all genres of music along with its stellar set of Super Articulation 1 and 2 voices.
Band-in-a-Box by PG Music has evolved a lot over the past 40 years. I purchased my first Band-in-a-Box Version 7 UltraPAK edition along with Power Tracks Pro Audio at Winter NAMM 1998 (LA Convention Center) at a show special price of $100.
The size of the installation was only 14.5MB. It came in one CDROM with no serial number.
The size of the Audiophile Edition 2021 today has expanded to 1.5TB!
RealBand is the program to look out for. This has a lot of potential and far reaching ramifications on how singers and songwriters create music in their home studios.
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