One thing I think we need to realize is that although we would like features that would be “musical”, that is not what would sell keyboards. Manufacturers are looking for features that would WOW keyboard lovers and would be easy to market and demonstrate and would cause keyboard lovers to buy.

Today, what some persons don’t seem to get is that the reality is integration is the name of the game with electronic products. If you look at many electronic products, you would see that they are being built to where a user can use it for multiple purposes, transfer and create data quickly and easily and in different ways. That is why the Lionstract, Korg Ketron and possibly Roland are integrating music and recording features on their keyboards.

There are lots of music lovers who don’t play for a living who don’t want to use there computer for doing a simple recording. They probably don’t have time nor the technical background to set-up or use a DAW. That is why keyboard manufacturers are including multi tract audio recorders, MP3 players audio loops and so on. They are making keyboards so that users do not have to go different places just to have some fun playing and recording to impress their friends.


If the feature is not easily marketable, then manufacturers may not want to spend RandD on it if it would not bring them extra revenue.
How many of us have “discovered” a feature on our keyboard after months of having the board? The feature was good but it was not marketed because it was not something that would have help sell the keyboard to lots of persons.
BTW, I find it strange that some persons now want to say that “arranger” players are competent users of keyboards when before they would always put “arranger” players down and insult their intelligence by saying having creative features on an “arranger” like style creation and sampling would be too much for them.