Its certain that in years to come, even the introductory models for arrangers such as PSR550 will have megavoices, a hundred or more MB of waveforms and plenty of flash storage. I think the future top end keyboards will boast gigabytes of waveform memory together with analog sound synthesis, virtual modelling and direct to flash memory sampling. Styles will incorporate a virtual band, where each instrument will generate virtual arrangements according to taste. Instead of preset styles, the "mood" and genre of music could be chosen and never would any bar sound exactly the same. The accompaniment will analyse how you play and adjust itself accordingly, there would be cubase quality song editing built in with a high resolution colour display, upgradeable OS and of course off line storage such as CDRW or even DVD RAM. The vocal harmoniser would transform your voice into any number of virtual performers, including famous vocalists!
Seriously though, the technology we have already seen in the megavoice guitars (actually its not really new technology, just new methods of using existing principles) will be put into further sounds. We will see megavoice piano, sax, brass, flutes, drums, you name them! Of course new sound compression methods and cheaper memory storage will make this possible. I also think arranger keyboards should consider employing new sound synthesis methods for creating "different" and original voices. On the subject of voices, maybe we will see more "human" vocal sounds in keyboards, not just oohs and ahhs but phrase synthesis and virtual singers! For those who dont want to play along with beats all the time, we could expect a virtual pianist to accompany your performance, or a virtual guitarist where the accompaniment consists of guitar or piano say with no fixed tempo or repetitive melodies. The player should be able to interact more with the accompaniment, touch buttons along the underside or above the keyboard (or pedals) could trigger changes in the arrangement, say causing the bass player to change a riff, the drums to change style, trigger a solo or whatever.
Digital effects would be available individually for every track of the sequencer, so you could record every voice in a multitrack arrangement without losing its quality. There would be heaps of polyphony, and in an attempt to create a more separated sound for the instruments in the keyboard, plenty of individual outputs.
For the portable fanatics, high density lightweight battery packs that are rechargeable (Li technology perhaps), higher quality internal speakers with high efficiency low power consumption amplification. Keyboards would be upgradeable aka PC, with plug in boards and interchangeable components!



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Simon G.K. Williams
simon@svpworld.com
Creative Music & Multimedia
http://www.svpworld.com
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