Just read the latest review (by Julian Colbeck) on the Yamaha 9000pro in the current issue (May 2002) of Electronic Musician . The topic of my posting here has less to do with Mr. Colbeck’s review of the 9000pro itself (very good – excellent overall), but more about the commentary he makes about us: arranger keyboard players. Being a professoinal arranger keyboard musician myself, I have to admit that many of Mr Colbeck’s views have also been expressed to me by some of my pro musician colleages as well, though I certainly don’t agree with many of them.

Please comment on the following quotes I extracted from Mr Colbeck’s review:

“Germany is the place where Styles rule supreme; whole aisles of the Frankfurt Musikmesse are taken up by companies that produce nothing but third party Style content for instruments from Yamaha, Roland, Technics, and others. Accordingly, among some reasonably hip and 'American-sounding' beats and grooves is an awful lot of oompah-ish material, appeal of which beyond the bierkellers of the Black Forest is questionable. The 9000 Pro is tailor-made for the German market.”

“ Yamaha isn’t marketing the 9000 Pro as a professional synthesizer, but the instrument offers several pro-level features.”

“Why it is that the concepts of auto-accompaniment is terminally un-hip, whereas the notion of retriggering backings that other people have produced (such as sample loops) has become totally cool, is one of life’s little imponderables. Auto-accompaniment began life in fox trot and beguine territory, of course, but styles have progressed tremendously since then, largely thanks to Korgs’s i-Series of instruments.”

“I’ve noticed the arranger-keyboard fraternity expects Style providers to trawl popular songs for inspiration. That fixation on existing song material is annoying and one of the reasons why such keybord have a bad rap among pro musicians. If arranger-type instruments provided feels and grooves that were fresh and free, their appeal would be broadened. Of course, my opinion is one of personal taste, if you play dinner sets in a hotel lounge, you’ll porbably be extremely happy with what the 9000pro has to offer”

“Yamaha is hoping that the omission of built-in speakers and the addition of some cool new sounds will help the 9000 Pro appeal to professional musicians ranging from working performers to budding film composers. It will do so to an extent, but I’m not entirely sure the specter of cheesiness has been eradicated for the average American pro player. If you you’ve long admired auto-accompaniment instruments but never quite had the guts to admit it, however, now is a great time to jump in.”

footnote: Julian Colbeck runs Keyfax Software, the company that produces TwiddlyBits midi sample loop libraries and the PhatBoy Midi performance controller. http://www.keyfax.com/

- Scott

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