This is a very good and important topic.

I think that everyone’s suggestions are needed to increase the U.S arranger market.

It can not be just one approach but the combination of different approaches.

It is very very important that the sales person in the major music stores 1. Have the major keyboard arrangers and not just the $2 and 300 Yamahas and Casio (I hope that doesn’t offend any one). 2. The sales persons need to know about the capabilities of the arrangers they have and be able to demonstrate them well. They must be able to show how an arranger can be used in a one man band setting, as part of a band, as a composition and production tool and just for home. They must be able to show how you can use an arranger to create and perform original songs using styles on an arranger.

Some time last year I was in GC I was asking about arrangers but they did not have any there. The sales person however said that someone had walked in with a Tyros and could not figure out how to use it. The sales person said that since he was familiar with the Yamaha way of doing things, and he knew how to use the Motif, he was able to show the person how to use the Tyros. The sales person and the other person were amazed with the ease of the Tyros and the number of features and the quality of the sounds. He said they don’t have an arranger on display because “there is not any one around here that would buy them”.

It would also help to have major celebrities endorse and also do demonstrations playing a top-end arranger.

But I think that the manufacturers have to start making their top-end arranger products looking more professional and with the professional gigging musician in mind. Quite a few gigging musicians like toseparate themselves from the at home players. Whether right or wrong, some gigging musicians do not want to know that they are gigging with a keyboard that is an everyday consumer product. You can give the gigging musician the same thing that a home player would get but you can not let it look as if you are doing so.

Also, the manufacturers should think about working on the price. If it is not affordable to the masses all the promotion in the world is not going to increase sales drastically. It will just take one manufacturer to take that risk to develop a good top-end arranger for the gigging and production musician in mind, price it reasonably and market it as such. They may not make as much with one of those reasonably priced top-end arrangers as they would with a regularly priced arranger, but what they would have done is penitrate the market, build brand loyalty and have the ears of persons for other like products they have or will have. One of the ways this could have been done is by arranger modules. Gem and Ketron could have done it but Gem with the Genesys xp did not have the right price and was not willing to sell in the U.S and Ketron with the midjay did not have all the important arranger features on them. And whether for financial or philosophical reasons, they both do not have an aggressive marketing strategy.



[This message has been edited by to the genesys (edited 01-27-2006).]