Dave, I believe the main problem that comes trying to sell arrangers to the younger players comes from the preponderance of styles aimed squarely at the 'older' market.

You may be right that a FEW arrangers are able in hardware and software to get close to workstation features, and even sound (if you are not TOO picky) but the sad fact is, 95% of the styles in the arranger (the very thing that the manufacturers are telling us why they are SO much more expensive than better featured workstations) are of NO conceivable use to anyone thirty and under (OK, let's be honest and just say the vast majority of under 30 players!).

Add to that the soundset is geared to acoustic and older sounds, samplers don't load fast enough to be a feasible replacement, and nothing so far integrates arpeggiation with conventional arranger operation, and while you CAN do a quick demo to impress a salesman, try taking your arranger to a rave and using it there.

Without a complete re-tooling of the styles (the manufacturers refuse to let their arpeggiation voicing teams work on arrangers) and soundsets, OOTB these current arrangers would be an embarrassment to anyone doing modern music.

Sure, you COULD spend months writing your own techno and Hiphop beats into it (and sampling more contemporary beatboxes) but as you know well, the vast majority of workstations sold don't ever have their internal ROM arpeggiators messed with, much. Most don't get sold to record producers or beat factories. People use them just the way they use arrangers (the vast majority of arranger users don't write their own styles, either) as something to mess around with at home, or with a few friends.

So why would ANY youngster want to pay 30% or more MORE than a workstation, to get a piece of kit that only had maybe 5% of the styles he could use...?

This is what I've been saying all along... Arranger manufacturers don't have to re-invent the wheel. SOME of them already have hardware and OSs that can cope with modern music. The rest only have to make minor OS changes to allow for modern styles, and allow a few more realtime voice controls.

But ALL OF THEM have to make a determined effort to pack the arranger with modern sounding styles and sounds. And this, so far, they refuse to do, DESPITE having voicing teams that do exactly this for their workstations. And then, they sit around scratching their heads, going 'Why are arranger sales so sluggish?'

Sadly, most modern arrangers are capable of having their entire ROM styles easily replaced. Why not take the hardware they already have, replace ALL the older styles with modern ones, and re-label the arranger? 'The Rave Machine', the 'Hood Party Blaster', the 'Alternative Arranger', whatever...

As long as some young hiphop guy doesn't accidentally hit 'Waltz 3' or 'Sunny Bossa', there's a pretty good chance you'll make the sale. But the minute he gets into that Ballroom Bank, or the Polka styles, he's outta there!

Why don't the arranger manufacturers realize this? Take ALL the older styles out (have them on a card that the dealer only puts in to show to the few older customers still alive!) and they will fly off the shelves...