Originally posted by Diki:
Well, obviously at the moment Roland (and most of the majors) are developing styles for their existing customers. It's easy to see a bias towards, firstly, 'older' styles mostly usable by senior citizens, or players playing FOR senior citizens, and secondly, styles aimed squarely at European players, beer-hall and schlager, and european flavored 'pop' styles.
If arranger manufacturers want to get serious about the US market, they are going to have to make the styles FIRST, and then the sales will come. It's not going to happen the other way around, for sure....
As I've said many times, if arrangers (in the US, at least) had styles developed by the same teams that voice the arp patterns for workstations, you wouldn't be able to keep them in stock! Manipulating a style is FAR easier than trying to string a bunch of patterns together on the fly.
I tried a MotifXS recently, and while the patterns were to die for, hip, contemporary, VERY 'USA", it was a nightmare to try and trigger the patterns and fill patterns while I was still playing other parts...! An arranger is a FAR better tool for manipulating patterns, but until the majors stop giving ALL the good, contemporary patterns to the workstation line, and stop leaving the arrangers with mostly schlock and old folks home styles, this type of keyboard will never increase it's market (and slowly die out due to attrition!).
Diki, of course you're right (and a very good analysis of the arranger situation in the US, BTW), however it appears to be a vicious cycle; the smaller production creates artificially high prices which (for the most part) only older players can comfortably afford thus defining the market.
I haven't had a Roland arranger since the G1000 so can't comment on their newest TOTL arrangers but (in my mind) only Korg comes close to producing the kind of styles you're referring to (and sadly, not enough of them).
One thing we totally agree on; the styles must come first. No matter what some members say about things like sounds, navigation, harmonizers, etc., etc., in the end it's the STYLES that count most in buying decisions. There is a reason that you'll likely never (well, hardly ever) see a Ketron in the hands of a YOUNG, U.S., arranger player. For THAT market, the styles suck bigtime.
There is no reason that an arranger keyboard can't retain all of it's current (crappy) styles and just add the styles that would make it more acceptable to US markets. There's no law that says you have to play Schlager just because it's included in the style banks. Just bury it in submenus so that a young hiphop artist won't accidently stumble across it and go screaming out of the store. Come to think of it, a super-duper killer-style-producing company catering to all the major brands would be the most practical solution to the problem. We all know that such a company doesn't exist.
chas
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