Yes Diki, you are right!
Musician like you need to press one key, like Bossa nova and play..

For that we have inmplemented the PERFORMANCE system.
In the Mediastation:
Press CALL or LIST button
look and the desidered Group list ( or just inputs some character song) and the display will shown you what have found.
Press the desidered Performance
Press ENTER
The mediastation now will recall the all setup pannel saved before, includig Jpg, TXT, PDF, VST.....

If you need more simple, then just buy one CD song disk and play it with one 20$ CD player.
More easy, cheap and totally original sound that no one keyb can compete.
Why looking for more complex?

cheers

Ian, have you ever taken a look at the ratio between total arranger sales (in your area) and the number of people you do clinics and lessons for?

Let's be optimistic... Say about 10% (that's still a LOT of clients!).

You are basing your opinions on the dumbest 10% of the total sales figure, NOT all arranger buyers. It would be easy to slip into the assumption that MOST arranger users can't figure out or use any of the more advanced features, if the only people that come to see your clinics are precisely the people that COULDN'T figure these features out for themselves...

Maybe more than 10%, you say? OK, then... But until you give clinics and talk to over 50% of the total arranger sales in your area, you are still talking about the minority.

It's kind of like the remedial teacher who goes around thinking that kids are dumb. Rather than the gifted child teacher, that goes around thinking that kids are quite smart. You tend to assume the majority are like the minority that you actually deal with. The truth is, kids vary. Some are smart, some are dumb, most are average. Setting the world up for the benefit of the dumb ones penalizes the majority, not just the smart ones.
-----------------------------------------------

But to get back on topic, I just feel that, unlike Domenik's Linux version of the future, that the future as designed by musicians will have all the complex features we all want. But they will be designed to be totally transparent to the user...

Few of us ever think carefully about what is going on in the background in the arrangers we already have, things like different patterns for different chord types, how a fill smoothly flows from one variation to the next, etc.. It just happens. All of the ideas I posted earlier here should fall under the same category. While the technology behind them is quite fierce, we will be completely oblivious to it. All we will realize is that the auto accompaniment SOUNDS so much more realistic than it does now, more in tune with our musical intentions, but we will have no more knowledge of it's inner workings than we do of our current keyboards.

That is the way it SHOULD be. You don't have to know how to build a piano to play one. You just know that nearly a couple of centuries of skilled craftsmen and engineers have labored so you can sit down and just play. Domenik could learn from this. If you had to build a piano before you could play one, there would be few pianists!

So, to Domenik, and to all arranger designers, I say this; HIDE THE TECHNOLOGY.... but keep putting more and more in. Figure out how to make it automatic, transparent, invisible. And spend a LOT more of your time on ways to make the sounds play less repeating phrases than making the repeating phrases play better sounds. The sounds we have now are more than adequate, but the repeating small chunks of music (the styles) could be FAR more variable, even with today's technology, with little or no more complexity to the player.

THIS is the future of the arranger.... I hope!

JMO, yada yada yada.....

[This message has been edited by Diki (edited 10-13-2007).]

Sorry buddy if my post went over your head, but that's okay.

You obviously don't know how my job is set up, and quite frankly, my friend, I don't have the time, or feel the need to explain it to you.

Suffice to say, my opinion doesn't need your approval to be right, which it is in this case.

Now, time for more something more serious...a cuppa tea.

Cheers,

Ian

Domenik, you crack me up...!

The ONLY time I have ever hit Bossa Nova 1 and an OTS is to do an OOTB demo for the G70 for the folks here at SZ (that tend to like that kind of music)... Strangely enough, I am one of the few really technical players here that use VSTi's, Kurzweil's and modeled analog stuff on a daily basis in the studio. Along with networked and node'd computers for audio production, yada yada yada.

But I am also one who realizes that the truth about the arranger market IS more towards Ian's bleak assessment of arranger users, and their complete technophobia, than your 'as long as it CAN be done, it doesn't matter how complicated it looks' approach. I don't believe that either end of the spectrum is the real truth, but from working with JackOSX and Sunflower on the Mac, and the blank gaze I've got from otherwise VERY accomplished musicians when talking about networking computers and music apps and soundcards, I am led to believe that there IS a technology 'ceiling', above which you lose the majority of players.

Staying WELL UNDER that ceiling should be the prime goal for arranger designers, IMO. Workstations? No problem... Sky's the limit. But while I don't agree with Ian about exactly HOW dumb the average arranger user is (or even the not so average!), I think I DO know what the main upper limit is. And I think it is well under what the MS makes you deal with.

Diki..
maybe you don't know how much new money my company are investing now for one New Audio-Midi-GIGA-Vst Arragner engine.
If you there don't believe me, just ask around some my MS clients...

My developers and oher 3th party developers are working for full editing the Qtractor sequencer Audio-midi: http://qtractor.sourceforge.net/qtractor-index.html

Qtractor is one really SIMPLE realtime audio-midi sequencer with unlimited audio-midi tracks, including the all Free audio plugins for each audio track.

The work now is re-organize the traks under folder system, where each folder propiety can be one realtime pattern.
Each folder/pattern can be set the BARS length with automatic looping
In each Folder/pattern you are allowed to record/import tracks under Chords system ( Maj, Min, 7th, 7thDim...)
Each audio tracks can be set under Elastique ( zplane.com) engine for the BPM time scratch and Transpose scratch.

What this mean?
It mean that for each pattern you can record any type of midi or audio track and the engine then will automatic transpose for each chords that you have pressed.
Of course for the Min, 7th... tracks you have to record the relative audio traks under this chords too.

Other possibility is import some midifiles pattern and then you press Audio record and from the audio input you will record your Vocal, Guitar, sounds...riff...all under audio streaming!

This new arranger system then can be used like for a DJ system for ONLY audio parts: each pattern can have one different audio loops and when you change chords the audio loops will change too.

Under one Streaming Pattern Audio-Midi SEQ you will be able to play any type of realistic audio OR midi styles!

Do NOT foget that for one style like this, need a lot of Mb data: the HD streaming ( like gigastudio/kontakt) will be the best way for play the all styles in realtime.
This features you can TOTALLY forget from one embedded system, so... forget to waiting the big brand to offer you this new generation of styles because they have to pass under one PC system.

well, if you are happy to waiting 10-30 minute before one audio style is ready( look the T2, audya and others for the sampler..) then I don't have nothing to add here.

Enjoy what you have now.
cheers

Enter Wersi OAS, which in its latest version (OAS 7) makes the computer almost totally invisible to the user.
Each version of OAS gets rid of more and more of the computer, and the next version will probably banish the computer from the user completely. (This last statement is an educated guess, I have no inside knowledge)
The future certainly looks bright.

Lionstracs
You are correct about the Jack system for the Mac and Linux, which gives a lot more flexibility then Windows, however as the Jack system is also under development for Windows, the advantage may not be there for much longer. (Vista also has more advanced Audio drivers, even though in its current form the rest of the OS is a bit of a disaster)
We will have to wait and see what the future brings

Bill

Personally, I think that for anything other than drums, elastic audio is a HUGE step backwards for arranger users.

The main problem, as I see it, is that there needs to be an audio loop for every conceivable chord type you could possible play, which is just not currently available. Sure, Maj7ths, diminished, 7sus, etc. MAY be there, but what are you going to do when you play a chord that ISN'T in the set?

Currently, most TOTL arrangers are capable of recognizing and playing some pretty whacked out extensions, which if you play jazz (or just want to get weird!), you really need. Enter the 'live loop' player, and poof! There go all those delicious chords. Try playing some Gilberto, or Jobim and Stan Getz, and weep as the guitar track plays simple chords instead of what you tell it to...

And forget inversions, slash chords, passing chords, all those things that the arranger in it's current MIDI form CAN do, but elastic audio, that can only change the tempo or key of a chord recording CAN'T. And forget about editing the style, or creating your own.

Once again, we see an attempt to make the arranger SONICALLY better, but less responsive to the actual input of the musician. Not really what I was hoping for...

Where's the Guitar Mode? Where's the Bass Mode? Where's the Piano Mode? Having these kinds of tools, that make an algorithmical attempt to emulate REAL playing in response to where on the keyboard you play, how hard you hit the keys, what tempo you are playing at, how busy you are playing, will always give a more satisfying experience to the player and listener, than audio loops of pre-canned playing, that totally ignore what YOU are doing other than what chord you are playing (as long as it is in its' limited chord repertoire).

Guitar Mode on the Korg is revolutionary. It is one of the first things on arrangers to make an attempt at figuring out what a real player would play in a dynamic situation, not just one chord at a time. THIS is the technology that I wish arranger manufacturers and programmers would pursue.

Imagine a Piano Mode where you didn't get those weird jumps from one chord to another, as it simply figured out how to revoice the chord to blend smoothly with the previous chord (something we all do ourselves all the time). Imagine horn sections and string sections that did the same intelligent voice leading (something that some of them can already do on single note lines).

Revoicing chords to avoid unnatural jumps is something that could be achieved quite soon. But only if we stay away from seductive dead-end streets like 'live loop' technology, and concentrate more on making the auto players more life-like.

Guitar Mode from Korg is the start. Who will carry it on...

There's a reason that a TOTL arranger like the Tyros 2 has all those little "paint-by-numbers" graphics of all the drums painted under the keys. For a professional musician, that's like Artur Rubinstein playing with one of those note templates overlaying the keyboard of his Steinway. Sorry Diki, but MUSICALLY (and technically), the majority of arranger players ARE morons. Don't believe it? Just look at how many post music that THEY think actually sounds good.

The big three; given their target market, they're just playing the hand they're dealt.

As for the "PRO's" that use arrangers (and they are DAMN few in number), their needs are always going to be secondary to the needs of the great majority who buy these instruments. Get used to it. For the true "geeks" among us, get a Mediastation. The big three knows that you constitute only about 1% of it's customer base, so your needs and wants will go into the "circular file" (uh, that's trash can, in case you don't work in an office environment).

As much fun as an arranger is (there is nothing in my studio that I enjoy more) and as useful as it can be as a compositional tool and musical sketchpad, I just don't believe that they were ever intended or designed to be, professional instruments. I believe they are the modern-day Thomas's and Lowerys and Wersi's. You never (well, hardly ever) saw those things in the clubs....and it wasn't the weight either, as B3's or C3's or A100's could be spotted practically anywhere.

My prediction; ten years from now you will still be able to walk into the top 20 clubs in any major city and not find a single arranger keyboard. But I bet there'll be synths aplenty.

chas

There, I had my tea...mustn't rush these very serious posts.

Now...where was I?

Oh yes.

I agree with you, Chas.

Also, it's quite obvious that the Tyros2, the S900, the G70, the E-series the PA series are all HOME keyboards...they ALL have "easy play chords", "One Touch Settings", and "auto-accompaniment"...all features of HOME keyboards.

In my opinion, other than a VERY small percentage of pro users, the MAJORITY of arranger buyers just want to come after work, sit and play and get lost in some music...or have something to fill up their time after retirement....but, the main goal is to have FUN.

FUN sells...FUN is profit.

The big three know this and exploit it to the max...why wouldn't they?

Ian