As a retailer, I am concerned with the current trend that Korg , Roland and Yamaha have taken with repackaging the "pro" workstation keyboards.

Evolution of Rolands top workstation over the last 4 to 5 years is the Fantom, later the Fantom S and now the Fantom Super S or whatever it's called .

Korg comes out with the Triton , Triton Le , Triton studio and now the Triton Extreme .

Yamaha comes out with the Motif , Motif ES etc......
So ... from a retailers perspective , over the last 5 years we have seen alot price adjustments on alot of these products.

Suppose you were the guy to buy a Fantom for $1999.99 and than 2 months later the price get's dropped to $1499.99 . The customer loses value and the dealer's lose because we can't give the trade in value if you want to upgrade to the newest workstation, because the MAP and wholesale price has been reduced by to 30%.

See what I'm getting at ? Any comments ?

One good thing about the arranger products, you don't see the fluctuation in price points quite as much.

Dan O'

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Ketron, Yamaha, Casio arranger keyboards. http://www.keyboardcity.net

1-866-348-8876

[This message has been edited by DanO1 (edited 02-08-2004).]

Dan O,

You are so right! I was so pissed to see the value of my almost new Motif just drop $600 - $700 in less than a year when Motif ES came out. I decided that I would never buy a Yamaha board again, but as you said ALL the major companies are doing the same thing.

Why don't they come out with completely new name for their new products?? Atleast it wouldn't make the resale value of our investment just drop right away.

The same thing will probably happen to the Tyros when the PSR 3000 hits the market. Why Yamaha wants to cut thier own throat is beyond me. Bob

That's the way all marketing is conducted these days--"Get em' while they're hot." Same holds true with cars, boats, motorhomes, singers, young performers, etc. The only exception to this rule is real-estate, which is a non-renewable commodity--they're not making any more land on this planet. If what you purchased today was worth the same amount this time next year, it must have been a new home or parcel of land--everything else depreciates (cept fer me--ah jest keep gittin' better! )

Cheers,

Gary

I can imagine what a Fantom S owner might feel about the revamped Fantom X. Of course, we can't really tell for sure from the demos, but the 'X' certainly seems like it is going to have a better sound palette than it's predecessors. The thing is, how long was the 'S' even out there. It seems to me it hasn't been a year yet.

The Motif ES is a worthy successor to the Motif for me, but maybe not everyone else. Just the additional polyphony makes it worth it. I'm very happy with the sounds and all, but it still has the most confounding OS of any board I've ever seen.

Not very experienced with the Triton stuff, but like Yamaha and Roland, another rehash, albeit a good one I think.

I'm kinda stuck with what I have hardware wise for now. Not that it's a bad thing, but I just don't see me going from the PA80 to the PA1x, or from the ES to a Fantom S, or whatever else may be the next great rompler out there. Not for the money it would take to do it. Not right now anyway.

The only piece of hardware that has me remotely excited right now is the Roland V synth

The more I see of this, the more I tend to gravitate toward soft synths. Upgrades ( which is really all the major hardware manufacturers are giving us in each succesive model ) don't cost hundreds or thousands of dollars with software.

I'd have liked to have seen a more open platform, so that I could have just made my Motif or PA80 become a Motif ES or PA1x. I'd be willing to spend good money to do it, but not the amount that I would have to put up to get a PA1x, even after selling my PA80. Until hardware manufacturers go more in this direction, I'm outta the game, unless of course something so radically different and hot comes out that I can't peel my fingers from it. So far, I don't see that at all.

AJ



[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 02-08-2004).]

Its funny that Roland keep the VA series for 5 years + and yet on the otherhand they replace the Fantom S in 5 months. lol

The new Fantom coming out is the Fantom X and like the Mo the huge improvement is polyphony, they have also gone to 128 poly. It too has a new sound palette added.

I of course agree with AJ about the MO's o/s. Like AJ I had the classic and now the ES. Great board except for the the worst of the worst IMO of GUI. The other thing is it needs a larger screen desperately.

I have to say that I am a serious candidate for the Fantom X when it hits the stores, because of the above on the Mo.

There are two ways to beat the amazing deflation that the new models of rehashed stuff.
1. Trade in the predecessor before the remake comes out. Or another board that comes out.

or

2. Just hang on to what one has for a much longer period of time to get the full value out of it.

I also am starting to bore of a few new features for alot more dollars and garbage trade in value on the old equipment.

They will have to come out with something much more radical value wise for me to trade my Tyros in, otherwise I too am out of that swap.

If I go to the Fantom X, Yamaha will have to do an entire revamp of the Motif before I will ever buy another one. It will have to be at least as user friendly as any other workstation out there and the screen will need to be 5x's as large with more dedicated buttons and logical (for me) to use.

I too am starting to think more along the lines of the open pc based systems, they make sense and can be upgraded to always stay current for a few hundred rather than a few thousand dollars. If the boards don't get there with a good product soon then I too will start looking more seriously at the soft synths.
Terry

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jam on,
Terry http://imjazzed.homestead.com/Index.html

Yep, that's it Terry. In a nutshell. I'm gravitating more toward option 2 I guess. The problem for me with option 1 is that I'd never really get out of a board what is "under the hood" if I have to trade it in every few months to get the next hot thing.

I think if I were going to replace something hardware here though, it would be the ES, possibly with the Fantom X. That would be better value on the dollar for me than trading my rather depreciated PA80 to get a PA1x or Tyros at this stage of the game, especially since I'm not all that interested in using an arranger here in the studio any more. The PA80 will still do a creditable job in a live setting for me, and that's my primary need in an arranger.

AJ

I agree with AJ - my arranger is only for stage use. But in my case using the 9000 Pro, which has been discontinued with no replacement or substitute in sight, it could be the exception to the "devaluation" rule. I could see them selling for a premium in the near future if Yamaha never comes out with another 76-note pro-level arranger.

Pro
I think you might be correct that the 9K pro may in fact become a sought after item for premium prices.

Expandability, 76 keys, scats, all of which were dropped on the Tyros could make the 9k pro a much sought after board.

I believe at least with my experience with Yamaha (who I am a big time fan of) they have the tendency to come out with the new with some very cool stuff, but at the expense of dropping some of the previous cool items off the predecessor model, rather than building further on what they have.

I see this very clearly with both the Tyros over the 9K & Pro and also with the MoES over the Mo classic.

This is really a bad habit of theirs that they should break IMO. The problem being one is not really upgrading fully on what they have, instead we are trading these features for those features and from a buyers point of view, it then becomes a bigger buying decision of do I want to give this up to get that.
Terry

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jam on,
Terry http://imjazzed.homestead.com/Index.html