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

Hello.............I think this is the price of evolving technology. If you want an electronic instrument as soon as it's released you are going to pay full price. If the instrument's a sucess and it goes into increased production the price goes down as they sell more. Yamaha knows exactly what it's doing coming out with the PSR3000. They will sell 25 times as many of them than their higher priced Tyros............and THEY are the ones laughing all the way to the bank. The Tyros is fantastic, but I never thought it was worth 3 times what I paid for my PSR2000. I can't wait until the PSR3000 is out. I may even pay full price!!

I had a MoES6 for almost two weeks and then decided that I wasn't going to fight that awful OS so I took it back and got a Tyros instead. I wound up paying $2395 for it and am happy with that price.

I now have a Pa80 and a Tyros (along with a Trinity V3 and a Wavestation EX) and see NO reason to buy a new keyboard any time soon, if ever. I too am getting interested in using softsynths so I got a copy of Giga Studio and after loading it all in and starting to run it, it put up a screen saying that I didn't have a GSIF compatible sound card! It turns out that it won't run with my Extigy sound card so now I have to get an Echo Audio Indigo IO pcmcia cardbus card ($180) to go with my laptop. However, I will have to wait for a while before I have enough money to afford that since I just got the Tyros and have to get that and my taxes paid for before I can spend anymore on "toys" for myself.

It seems to come down to "never ending spending" LOL!

Tom

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Bigger is not always better

Perhaps the 9000 Pro is in a class by itself because of the additional options ( 76 keys, plug in expansion, sampling to name a few ) that aren't likely to be seen on other Yamaha arrangers again any time soon.

Then again sampling on a keyboard, whether it is an arranger or rompler is no big deal. I have freeware Vst and standalone samplers that are easier and more intuitive to use than the sampling functions of the ES. Also, the plug ins Yamaha has put out are very good, but there are far too few, when compared vs what Roland and Korg makes available. The plug ins don't always integrate all that well with the ES either, although from what I've seen here, it's probably worse with the 9000.

Still, I'd pick up a 9000 pro if the price was right. I agree with Jim and Terry, and think it may continue to command a top dollar resale value.

In the end, unless the Fantom X blows me away ( and it might ) I'll probably keep the ES because the soundset is magnificent and I can stumble my way around the OS, though not always comfortably. What may make the difference for me is if the 'X' has at least an equal soundset, a decent pattern funcion ,and better arp capabilities than the Es with user arps. I know the original didn't have user arps but did the "s"? I know the OS is better to navigate in the Fantom series. If it comes out soon enough, and I can still get top dollar value for the ES, then maybe .. just maybe.

Roland does get high marks from me for the V synth. If I was into spending the big bucks on a new analog modeled synth, the 'V' would be it. I'd have been very disappointed had I bought the Moog Voyager ( it was a consideration ), and then tried the 'V' afterward.

Instead though, I'm going with the Arturia Moog and the CSV80 vst's ( for a combined price of about 400 USd ), and I couldn't be happier. I'm going to add the RGC z3ta, which has some sounds I never dreamed of in an analog modeled synth. Software is the way for me for now, because I can spend "top dollar" ( which is usually in the 100-300 range ) to add the sounds I want, without having to spend and inordinate amount on a new board.

AJ



[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 02-09-2004).]

in Roland's defense, every iteration of the Fantom has been a clear step up. I agree the timing is bad, but after yrs playing a yamaha arranger (9kpro) and waiting for yammy to build a logical replacement, I find the fantom-s, which I got for 1275, to be a great keyboard. the sounds are really strong, the expansion is nice, and it's possible to use the pads for drums/rhythm loops (which are easy to sample in and then edit) in an almost arranger-like way. I'm more inclined to work with Roland going forward, if just because it's clear they're thinking about ease-of-use in the OS and trying to sincerely better an already good product. can't wait to try the fantomX!

AJ
I'm not sure how many arps the new X will have but the S had only 128 (I think I recall) plus 128 users. The big kicker though was the ease of making new ones or taking the existing ones and tweaking them. The S arps patterns were graphically visible and easily tweakable, much the same as on the Triton Rack.

When I posed that Q to bad mister as to whether or not there was a way to see them graphically or not, the reply I got was "why so you can steal them?" My answer was "if you mean like one can "steal" the voices and make them into user voices, then yes."

So I'm hoping the Fantom X has more arps, because the Mo has it beat, at least in #'s of arps, but in ease of redoing them, the Fantom wins.
Terry

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

Thanks for the info Terry. Yes, the ES has many arps, and some good ones. That's a big plus. Ease of editing, and the just fact that Fantom now allows user arps is another consideration though.

Quality is more important to me vs quantity. As I said, the Mo has some very good arps, but I have to go through the step of recording and saving each to a midi file if I want to edit the presets. I prefer to use an external sequencer, so more steps... Not particularly intuitive is it ?

Worse yet is trying to use the sampling function. I'd love to take some of those stunning Moog Modular /SV80 sounds and add them to the Motif soundset, to have available for live work. The Es, even with the AN150 plug in, can't closely imitate some of the sounds in those two Vsti's. I was able to add samples of one of the Moog patches and it sounds excellent played through the ES, but the time and effort it takes to do it just isn't worth the hassle.. not for me anyway. It would be a whole lot simpler to just bring along a laptop with a good soundcard and the appropriate software / softsynths lloaded in.

Yep, those Motifator guys are a different breed. Heaven help the poster who questions or offers constructive criticism for their "perfect" ( not ) machine....

One other feature that's important to me, if not a "must have", in any potential replacement for the ES, is the ability to use a breathe controller.

Tom,

Roland fell to the bottom of the pile for me with their recent offerings vs what the other major players have recently put out there. That changed instantly the day I tried the V synth out. I haven't been very inspired by Roland's "variphrase" technology either, until I saw it's application on the 'V'. Based on the demo's, and what I did like about the Fantom S, I think the Fantom 'X' may also be very much to my liking. That said, in the spirit of the original topic, I'd probably still be a little annoyed had I bought the 'S' a few months ago, and it was already being replaced. It's almost as if the 'S' was a failed experiment, doomed by Motif ES and TS II. Maybe that's totally inaccurate, but still how it looks and feels to me.


AJ




[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 02-09-2004).]

AJ
To the best of my knowledge and memory, The Fantom did not have a breath controller. I bought the one for the ES and just like so many other things Mo, can't get the hang of it.

You're dead on about the sampler as well. After about 2 dozen tries and 1 what I would call success (got lucky I think) I gave up on the Mo sampler as well. To edit the wav file in it is a "yeah right." The slice and dice function is a "huh?"

I'm really pretty disappointed overall, because I got off to a flying start with it then hit the Mo o/s brick wall. To me it's 99% too many sub menus to wade through to find something and non consistent logic as to where to find things.

A perfect example to me is to turn the arp send switch on. Where and why they put it where they did instead of on the arp page I do not get. Same goes for the sort direct....why on earth is taht on a different sub menu than the arp page.

Another huge thing for me is that the sounds do not have a natural sustain/decay. On the Tyros, if I play a note with the sustain pedal depressed it has a natural decay, with the Mo, the note stays at the same volume/dynamics until the pedal is released and then just cuts off abruptly. Too much tweaking and has to be done for every voice to counteract this.

Sorry for having taken this thread and turned it into a rag on the Mo thread, but it's all good info for all who may be considering one.
Terry
Terry

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

[This message has been edited by trtjazz (edited 02-10-2004).]