Yeah I hear you. Most young people in their 20's and 30's will opt for a digital piano or a workstation keyboard. There's still a stigma attached to arrangers. The biggest one being they compare them to toys. The stigma was instilled in the formative years of arranger production and it still lingers today unfortunately. I can imagine many young people won't take the time to play the current crop of arrangers and it's a real shame. Because if they did play a mid or high-end arranger they would realize the "toy" designation is long gone. Ingrained perceptions are hard to break and dismissing them outright doesn't help matters. In other words, they don't realize what they're missing.


The question posed by Deane was a simple one. If you can get by with lower cost gear that sounds great then why bother buying an ultra expensive high-end arranger? Makes sense to me. Hence the possibility the Big Three (and Ketron) might discontinue their high-end arrangers in favor of great sounding MOTL arrangers that won't break the bank. I think the Roland BK-9 is a prime example of that.

I haven't played the Korg microArranger but if Deane says it sounds good that's good enough for me. I still think there's a market for ultra expensive high-end arrangers e.g. Tyros5/6/7/8/9 etc., but that market is rapidly shrinking in my opinion. Although if the world economy recovers to pre-recession levels then they could roll out the "big guns" at a later date. Time will tell. Hopefully they'll reduce the prices to 'pre-greed' levels once they do. Or rather, if they do. Again, time will tell.

All the best, Mike