Hi Fran,

Why yes it does. Although with one big difference. I'm not talking about something that runs virtual instruments. I'm referring to a dedicated instrument like most other workstations out there. The difference would be in that the manufacturer would offer a choice of operating systems based on the feature set desired. This is nothing new. One company I worked for used the same mainboard in several different instruments and it was the operating system that turned the instrument into a particular model. The trick is designing the necessary I/O's into the board layout in order to allow access from various front panel designs, different displays, audio ins and outs, etc.

The idea of the MediaStation, and the Open Labs instruments is very cool. But as seen in a multitude of posts throughout this forum, the average arranger player is not going to spend the time installing and configuring the necessary software to make one of these instruments suit their needs. No, these type of instruments lend themselves more to the tech-heads, tinkerers and pro studio types. I certainly don't mean that as a slam, I happen to consider myself as at least two of those types. And a few other words that I shouldn't say in public.

I really think dedicated hardware with a choice of O/S's would be a great idea. Maybe I just need to start my own keyboard company and do it the right way. Yeah, I'll get right on that.

Dave

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Wm. David McMahan
LearnMyKeyboard
JazzItUp Band
The Modulators