Thing is arrangers are made for (And always have been) home hobby players who no longer have room for an organ, (Pro use is miniscule even in Europe) and adding a lot of features scares them off (Just look how Yamaha got burned with the T5 as users s*** themselves when trying to use the more advanced features, with many downgrading to a T4) hurting the manufactures bottom line.

Ketron is one of the most innovative when it comes to arrangers, but speak to the home hobby players and they will say that they don’t consider Ketron because they are too difficult, and have features they just do not understand.

The Genos from Yamaha plays older styles pretty well and can also use older pre-sets, with the newer features well-hidden or merged with more familiar features, and has been selling like hot cakes, (At the start they just could not make enough of them) which when you consider how poor the sales were of the T5 (Only the 76 note keyboard saved it) compared to previous generations, they had to do something out of the ordinary that the home hobby player could understand.

The latest organs from Wersi (The OAX range (The previous OAS range have long gone but a 14 year lifespan isn’t bad) now has a VST3 host on-board that is relatively easy to use, however most owners shy away from it because they are scared of it, likewise Bohm which has their cloud studio option (A PC is built into the organ) is also shunned by most users (Although personally I think Bohm overcharge for it) even though it has a big 17” touch screen built into the music rest. (You can also add a 2nd screen to the Wersi if the 13” built into the organ is too small)

Arranger manufactures are stuck between a rock and a hard place as they know their traditional users are dying off, but cannot add too many new features yet to entice the young, which is why I believe this decade will be last for arrangers, with them becoming really niche products just like the organs they replaced.

Let’s face it if it can’t be done on a phone with a press of a button the modern generation just aren’t interested.

Bill