I had some comments about what James is doing with the MS but didn't want to hijack his very informative and mostly educational thread. In fact, some of my thoughts have as much to do with James' thread as with the MS itself. Here are some thoughts and conclusions (opinions, really) based solely on James' MS thread. Let's start with the premise that I had/was seriously considering buying one.

James undertaking, presumably on our behalf and for our benefit (admirable, BTW), could only be done by someone who thoroughly enjoys this type of thing, has the computer expertise, sound design background, synth background, and teaching/presentation skills to pull it off. Luckily for us, James has all of these attributes. That's the good news.

The bad news is that he has made it clear to me that I, at this age and stage of my life, will never, ever purchase a Mediastation or any similar 'open architecture' type keyboard. That is not to say that this is not a great machine, but more a statement of who should and who should not, buy it. Old codgers with limited patience, diminished technical skills, and an increasing demand for instant gratification, are definitely NOT the target market for this type of instrument. Even with the best GUI in the world, just the staggering number of options in itself would be more of an impediment than a help. Ol' folks don't like too many choices . I'm guessing a fair number of SZ'ers don't even understand the nature of the 'bugs' James is trying to point out, much less the workarounds.

I buy a lot of things that I KNOW are complex, overkill for my needs, and costing lots more than the scaled down version that WOULD fit my needs better. We just have a tendency to want TOTL. We always think that we'll delve into it's advanced capabilities at some future time, but that time, of course, never comes. I doubt if I'm alone in this pattern of behavior. I think one of the reasons I walk right pass a bunch of gear in my studio (including two TOTL arrangers and several pretty sophisticated workstations - Motif/Fantom G) and straight to my organ (Nord C1) is that I can just hit the power button and start playing. It's the only thing that seems to have any staying power in terms of interest. I think that is because the emphasis is on music and playing rather than on the technology. I think Vagro said pretty much the same thing.

Does this mean that I don't think that KB's such as the MS are the future? Absolutely not. Just not MY future. As I've always said, I'm really lazy.

Ok, those were just some of MY thoughts. In the words of Semi-live, "carry on".

chas