Here's the thing. People on the forum IMO too often assume that modern music is all about SYNTh type voices and that's NOT true. Acoustic instruments are HUGE in modern music. Hip Hop thrives on orchestral samples. It's not at all uncommon to hear the same type of brass, strings, woodwind, and acoustic pianos patches found on current arrangers in modern music.

Look at it like this. With these modern styles you gotta "bump it". It's in the beat. All these arrangers today (even some on the lower end) already have the good quality acoustic instruments needed for those styles. What they DON'T have is the drums. Lets not even take styles into consideration at the moment. Modern players typically write the majority of their work from scratch.., but will also take advantage of patterns and arps.., but the thing that really gives their tracks Ummph on these workstations is DRUMS.

The PSR-S900 could EASILY make a modern style just by adding ONE let me say that again ONE good quality hip hop kit. One hip hop kit that had better samples than what you find now. Hip Hop kits aren't typically played in the same fashion we see done with acoustic kits on arrangers. There's 61 keys there just waiting for a few good samples. All Yamaha would have to do is assign some good bass drums to one section of keys, snares to the next, rim shots, and IMPORTANTLY.., GOOD CLAPS, and a few other one shot samples. There's 61 keys.., I'm sure using a few of those keys for some better quality modern kits wouldn't be so hard.

Just ONE decent modern kit would open up a whole world of modern style creation to the buyer who wants an arranger to use to create modern styles on something like an S-900. A few kits would be great..., but just ONE well sampled kit would make a huge difference. The S-900 ALREADY has a KILLER set of acoustic samples that would sound AMAZING in modern styles. It just doesn't have ONE kit worthy of modern style production.

Arrangers CAN make modern music..., and do it well. The makers just have to get over themselves.., allow their divisions to break bread at the same table every so often and either hire a few new styles writers.., OR allow some writers from the workstation division to play in the same ball pit.

It wouldn't take a major overhaul on the current arranger either. Hell 15 good and well programed modern styles (that use just ONE good quality hip hop kit) would make a huge difference.

The keyboard makers just have to be willing to let go of this age old business practice of theirs. You can only milk a cow so much.., she'll eventually dry up.

[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 05-21-2009).]