Just a few musings, but I have often been left scratching my head by seemingly obvious bad design about features on arrangers. There are times when I have to think that there isn’t a player of arrangers at the head (or close to it) of the design team.

I know we all got our long list of head scratching moments in every design team, all of us coming from a background of actually PLAYING them. How these obvious errors slip through the design path and QC process is hard to believe, if they are designed by actual players.

I suppose that a large degree of the problem comes about because product design and coding is a young person’s game, the vast majority of people working in the field are probably in their 20’s or 30’s. And that must cause problems, as that is not the generation that uses arrangers (on the whole) or grew up with them.

It’s hard to imagine a guitar being designed by someone who doesn’t play guitar, but more and more, we seem to face arrangers designed by people that obviously don’t play them.

The danger, as I see it, is that it’s a self oscillating feedback loop. A poorly designed arranger sells poorly, and attracts fewer and fewer people to the type. This reduces the budget for future designs, which means even less experienced designers, which means even more poorly designed future products.

I think this is what happened to Roland, and to be honest, I see the beginnings of it happening to Korg. I am not familiar enough with Yamaha’s to comment, but I’ve read some complaints about design decisions that probably a player wouldn’t have allowed to be designed in if they had any input.

So, what’s the remedy? Are arranger design teams so divorced from actual user input that they run the risk of alienating their already shrinking base? Should arranger design teams (not the PR or sales divisions) make greater efforts to reconnect with those who actually use arrangers?

Your thoughts?

you bring up some good questions. i recently heard two terms"making music" and "playing music. i think "making music" is the new norm in selling equipment by manufactures. its easier to get a finished product (by throwing together a few samples and add a vocal etc. ). im not discounting the talent in doing this. but im seeing a transition here over the years. the companies make a fortune with repetitive samples styles and such to recoup their investment with equipment that makes music for you with very little input as opposed to spending years to learn a musical instrument like guitar piano horn etc. with regard to design of equipment to "make music" using computer based design .this design is merging with traditional keyboards over the years and todays equipment and the way it is used (played as a keyboard or used as a DJ machine or combo of both is the result . i agree that there should be some input from both musicians and "music makers".

Diki
I have no doubts about the accuracy of your musings, but rectifying these design flaws is a lost cause in OMH. Considering that a relatively small number of arrangers make up their customer base, and the only hope of sales in the future would be designing something to appeal to the young, which sure ain't us, I don't see a turn around in the offing. Since Europe is a bigger market, perhaps I am too negative, but I believe I am somewhat representative, and never use the Korg KAOS, for one thing.

Diki, I realize you have a huge grasp of the workings of an arranger, and your view is from that position. I have to believe that the majority of us arranger users are in my category, and I am not hopeful.

Having said that, I am very satisfied with my cadre of arrangers as they are, as I can't think of any feature I don't have that I need.

I thought I was wrong once, but was mistaken.

Agree with Bernie 100%. Sounds like a solution looking for a problem. The biggest flaw for most arranger players is the sticker price.

chas

On my YouTube channel I puting a video that describes working with Yamaha arrangers. If I look at the age of the visitors in the statistics, more than 50% of them are under 45 years of age. This confirms that arrangers are not only played by people in their later years.
The second thing I would like to point out is that those who know the least are always dissatisfied. They are very loud so it just seems like there are a lot of them. I think that the new keyboards are good and that you should not be dissatisfied if some little thing that we are used to is missing.

My first Yamaha PSR60 from '88 year has only 30 Style and one sliding potentiometer of 4 centimeters to determine the tempo. My the guests didn't complain that something was wrong.

https://app.box.com/s/gea37in9xewqbehcmyrhtw78acft52jn

Hi Diki,
I think as far as Yamaha goes, a few of us were a bit bemused with the sx series, in the way they categorised some of the styles ie no actual Country section for instance , they were mixed in with other categories. In the earlier model I had, it was a bit more straight forward. Still on the whole the sx900 is a brilliant keyboard, so no complaints .
( still, it couldn’t have been a player that sorted what styles went into which catergory. Haha)

Don't be too hard on the engineers who create our little miracles. After all, even Laurens Hammond was reportedly tone-deaf!

+65% of the Engineers at KETRON are Engineers during the day, and musicians using these same instruments (and others) at night, hence some of their unique features.

Yes... Ketron users know their keyboards offer things the other brand have not.
I don't speak about sounds, styles, ... but about praticity, convenience...
Just one example : the whole set of functions available with a foot pedal .... foot pedal available on the next Event, as seen on the first pictures.

The arranger keyboard developed from the easy play features of the old home organ instruments, so are designed for the home hobby player. (Not the pro player)
While the hardware is designed by engineers, the software and layout is designed by players that know what the home hobby player wants. (The pro player is not really considered as the amount that are used out live are miniscule in comparison to the home hobby player)
Ketron is weird as they came from Solton which was more pro orientated and so tend to have features not used by home hobby players or pro players, (They try to combine the 2 which limits sales in both camps) thus people are confused as to what they stand for, even though they have some fantastic instruments with unique features. (Never miss them off your list though if you are looking for a new keyboard)

Bill