As you know the US sales are only about 5% of the European market.
That already determines what will be in a KB for the most part.
Obviously they will listen to the Europeans before the US. Sad but true.

being european, i am not said.

but is only partially true. do you think yamaha, or roland or any other manufacutrer really have to talk with the musicians on the forums to realize what they should put into their arrangers?!
i am sure they have pretty good ideas! but they need to "listen" to the buyiers, so they do.
anyway, they'll never put all the best features, or the total of them into a single unit. that unit would then be their last model!!

what about us, people on the forums, trying to create a kind of styles data base. i am sure alot of us here have the ability and talent to actually create styles, right from scratch. if everyone who loves hip-hop for instance would contribute with one original style, soon, we would have several (different) hip hop styles. especially since you can do that pretty easily using a good soft seq like cubase, and with the arrangers that are now on the market - and the future models - couldn' t too hard.
and so on...

Squeak,

Your so right.. I wish the manufacturers would, especially Yamaha, would allow for more create style creation within their top arrangers. For me personally, the audience and the dance floor drives what I play. Some of the newer Alternative Rock and Hard rock and some hip hop is just not danceable. Therefore, It won't be played unless you are doing a show or concert.

With that said, we need an arranger keyboard that can adapt and be flexible enough to create and play any genre according to the player's needs instead of his location and wallet size. I would love to see a feature whereby you feed a midi file to the arranger style section and the keyboard then makes many variations; similar to the cover function on some keyboard but more powerful.

------------------
Al Giordano
www.al-giordano.com

Tyros 2, Yamaha P-250, Korg Triton Extreme 76, Roland VK8-M, DW Collectors Series Drums

I'd like to be able to bring a bunch of different styles from a given genre up on a computer screen at the same time and copy/paste different bits of them into new styles. I'd also like to be able to include real-time effects such as EQ and filter tweaks during playback. The same goes for sounds. In my opinion, you must have the capability of real-time tweaks for performing modern music.

Save all of my created styles and sounds on the computer in a library and transfer them onto the keyboard whenever needed.

XGWorks was headed in this direction but it never lasted, sadly.

Ide like to give my input on this topic.

I am nearly 23,

I have extensively played on a T2 and a G70 and alot of other top arranger boards from the past.

To me, the styles on the G70 and T2 are perfect, there is great variety, they are extremely traditional but also sound modern in a sence.

The instruments / voices are now at a point where they nearly cant get any better. i love playing synth dance techo and all that stuff as well as latin / spanish guitar, ballads, classical, jazz etc. its all possible nowdays.

For someone to own a T2 or a G70 and say "its not modern enough" I really think that statment is weak and gives a sense of either lazyness or being un-creative.

By saying Lazy I mean, an arranger workstation comes with a beat / style sequencer, there is no excuse now for not being able to have the right style u want. The manufacturers have thrown the best quality sounds and features at us to be able to make our music and customize what ever we want.

When you buy a keyboard ie, G70 or T2, the preset styles are not the end of the rd...
they are basically there as starting guides in a sense.

If I was some big shot at roland and created the G70 and I had customers saying "your keyboard isnt modern enough" ide say "go and explore and be creative, use the sounds given and put them together to make your style of music".

I love most styles of music modern and traditional, and I can garantee ANY beat or song that is available, I can produce on my cheap PSR 3000. It may not sound 100% right becuase of the quality of the sounds but with the G70 and T2 sounds you can get EXTREMELY close, in some cases even BETTER!

No offence at all to you squeek, im not taking a stab at anyone, I am mainly speaking in general to all owners of Arranger keyboards.

Cheers

Nick

[This message has been edited by Nick G (edited 07-28-2006).]

This is a little off thread.
I own a PSR550 and tried creating a style. This is my first attempt, so I need to dig a little deeper, but I found it very frustrating.
1) You have to use an existing style, but I want the style to have 4 measures not 1 or 2.
2) Since I am using an existing style, it would not let me change the voice.
3) I am creating this style for a specific song, with chord changes, but all the chords must be C major. So I have to convert every chord inversion I'm using to C. Phew.
Hey Squeak,
You mentioned a while back that your were using software (that was really good) to create sequences, what were you using?
Back on thread.
I'm an old guy too (58), but I rarely use the onboard styles. I play contemporary christian songs, which would use ballad, rock, and pop type styles. I don't play dance music.
To create a more modern arranger, the keyboard makers would have to create those Hip Hop, R & B, type styles. If they added a few more "modern" drum kits, they could satisfy both markets.
Starkeeper

Nick,
While I agree with some of your points--there are some I do not. With arrangers you "can" do more modern music--however, there are limitations, and even using current arrangers, there will be a noticable difference with modern styles done on a pro arranger and those done on modern synths.

when it comes to using acoustic voices--there were many times I felt the arranger department had the synth world beat "hands down". That's changed now because companies like Yamaha are putting the mega voices on the synths--and I wouldn't be surprised to find Super Articulation voices on the next MOtif That seems like the next logical step for Yamaha.

However, when it comes to "synth" sounds which are "huge" in modern music--well the synths take the cake here--they're synths, that's what they do. Also one part of modern music--be it dance, rap, hip hop, or whatever "absolutely must have" modern drum sounds. The drum sounds change "constantly" in these genres--as do the sounds.

I really wouldn't call it being lazy. Sure you can tweek the living crap out of an arranger, but you can only go so far with them because of the "sound set" and other limitations. Also these styles really work best in a "groove box" set up. The synths are working more like groove boxes now. Where you lay your killer tracks, then you start switching patterns live, change parts, grap a knob, and go nuts. Arrangers just aren't quite there yet for this.

Squeak

I've aleways found the midi2style conversion feature in the MZ2000 to be particularly good Squeak. I wonder how the style creation tools on the G70 and T2 compare. I'm sure they are a lot deeper in some aspects, but for actual midi to style conversion, the simplicity yet functionality of the MZ works very well for me.

I know there are definite advantages in having everything "inside a box" sometimes, especially playing live, but OTOH, I find doing this stuff in FL Studio to be a lot better organized and faster than in my Motif ES, especially when I start using external samples.

Another Q I have is .. why don't I hear the same drum kits and bass sounds in a top flight Yamaha arranger that I hear on the Motif ? The rest of the instruments sound very similar between the two, and perhaps better on the T2 in some cases.

AJ

Posted by Bluezplayer:

--------------------------------------------
Another Q I have is .. why don't I hear the same drum kits and bass sounds in a top flight Yamaha arranger that I hear on the Motif ? The rest of the instruments sound very similar between the two, and perhaps better on the T2 in some cases.
--------------------------------------------

AJ,
SPOT ON MY FRIEND! Exactly what I'm ALWAYS thinking. How hard would it be to put the same drums--both acoustic and electronic on the arrangers, as well as some of the good basses. Why do they choose to keep that separate? My goodness could you imagine if the PSR-3000 or the T2 had the Motif's drum kits, and some of its bass sounds? Holy Mary you could do some damage with that Wouldn't that be awsome to take a R&B type style on the PSR-3000 and use one of the R&B kits found on the MOtif--Whew smack my arse and call me Willy! I would have bought the PSR-3000 the day I demoed it, if those kits and some of the basses were there. Just the Motif's acoustic and electronic kits, plus a few of the synth basses would do wonders in bringing a more modern sound to the styles--especially when you start to re-voice them. Ahhhhh got me dreaming again. It's back off to La La Land.

I agree with you about the MZ too. That was a very useful feature. What I also really liked about the MZ was the voice editing. That puppy was deep--I had to take a step back for a minute when I started editing voices on it. I remember saying "holy sh--t" a lot, totally shocked at the results--especially when I made a flute sound on it comparable to Yammies Sweet Flute

Squeak


[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 07-28-2006).]

[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 07-28-2006).]

Another factor that I don't think anyone has touched on here is that for the most part, the younger players - 30's and even 40's - are playing with bands and don't need to have an arranger kb ... however, as age and time might dictate, many of the players in their 40's and older have given up on the band scene and all it entails and have gone solo ... now they find themselves playing to a more 'mature' audience and the music does not feature 'hip-hop' or 'techno' dance styles, but they do like more 'modern' versions of traditional styles ... I think this is evidenced also in recognizing how many of the older 'pop/rock' stars, (Manilow/Bolton/Stewart)in trying to continue or revitalize their careers have gone to recording standards from the "Great American Songbook", or music from the 'doo-wop' era of the 50's and early 60's ...

I have said before, that I think it would be easy for manufacturers to develop a 'menu-driven' kb, with styles and sounds, and even options (internal recording/sequencers/etc.) downloadable (at a fee of course) from the internet, so that we each could have our own 'personally designed' board ... BUT, that would no doubt have a negative affect on their ability to intruduce the "egg maker and drink holder" in their NEW model, and let's face it, manufacturers are all about sales (and rightfully so - they are not the Red Cross !!!) ...
I guess we have to live with the fact that only toilet paper serves the same purpose for all of us ... for everything else, we will have to live with compromise ...
t.

All top end arrangers have the capability to add new sounds or edit existing ones, a drum kit is just another sound to the keyboard, (The drum sound produced is determined by which key is depressed) so just load in another drum kit that you like the sound of.
The onboard drum editor allows you to alter the overall sound of the kit, each individual instrument or even change the instrument, (A good way is to mix and match, IE Standard kit replace bass drum with one from the jazz kit etc) although you will probably need to alter the attack, decay, reverb etc, to get the kit balanced.
If you have a sampler or you can load in samples, then there are plenty of free drum samples on magazine cover discs, which you can either use to make up your own drum kit or mix and match with an existing drum kit.
From the above you can see that you can achieve probably 95% of what a workstation can do, but it will just take longer and you will need to set it up before hand.
Workstations have the advantage of making things easy to edit, but take a considerable amount of time to set up, consequently your gig has to be predetermined. (Audience requests just aren’t on)
Top end arrangers also have style editors. (or allow you to export the style as a midi, allowing you to edit it in a sequencer, and then import it back into the keyboard as a style)

Bill