Zuki take some pics & videos of the party performance for us

Zuki, send me some of your money. It's clear to me that you've got too much of it .

chas

Let's face it, if the G70 WERE a '10', there'd be more than me and Fran still using them.

The G70's shortcomings are WELL documented, both here and at Roland-arranger.com, and enough people have bought them and dropped them for you to be able to infer that they are no Yamaha beater for the general user. The G70 is about SOUND, and pretty much sound alone.

I use as little of the arranger as I possibly can, and play most everything if at all possible. I want to wow my audience with what I'M doing, not the arranger. So the sound is the main thing. But anyone doing an arranger (not SMF) based show that is used to the ease that Yamaha make this is going to have a hard time on a G70.

I believe it is the best keyboard (not just arranger) for general use for a true PLAYER, but not the best choice for the OMB, LH chord, RH solos type of player. Ease of use is that player's mantra. The PLAYER is generally only concerned with the sound... I can play round most OS shortcomings. But when the sound isn't anywhere near as important as MFD's and familiar navigation and the support that all those arranger parts give you, it's just a different set of priorities to me. The sound, the sound, the sound. The rest is just fluff. But that's just me.

But don't say we didn't warn you, Zuki (and you haven't! )...

Look, you rarely see a Yamaha long time user move to Roland. And you rarely see Roland guys do the opposite. Both companies have radically different ideas about what an arranger player needs, what type of sound he'll be happy with, and how to lay out the overall 'flow' of the OS. It's like English and Japanese. One is written with letters, the other with pictograms, one written left to right horizontally, the other right to left vertically, and both have virtually no words in common. But they both do exactly the same thing. Convey information to the reader or speaker.

Well, that's Roland and Yamaha in a nutshell.

I realize that the G70 acquisition was just so that you have something easier to sell than the Ketron, but in all fairness, I'd have held on to it just a little longer, and investigated the OS a little deeper. NOBODY can play something for as little time as you have, and make an INFORMED decision. First impressions are not always the most accurate. That's kind of like me playing the S900 for a half a day, and telling you it is utter rubbish!

YOU know it isn't... but only because you have spent a lot more than a few hours on one. Anyway, no big wup, play what you want to. Familiarity trumps sound for most players.

But I keep asking myself... Is anyone EVER going to learn from this arranger roulette that's been going on lately? DON'T BUY AN ARRANGER SIGHT UNSEEN.

Or maybe you'd be interested in this bridge I have for sale... Great views of Manhattan and Brooklyn. One careful owner. What have you got to lose?

I agree with most of what you said except the above. You're dead wrong on that statement - please don't make me out to be that way. I had many inquiries on the Ketron, believe me.

Every board I anticipate, I do with intentions of it being really good. I was overly excited awaiting its home.

I won't mention what I don't like about the G70 because it seems too painful for some people.

Let's just say I at least try different things until I exhaust all avenues. Then I'm comfortable with my final decision.

Look, I never tried the PA800 / SD / G70 and had my chance at a reasonable cost. Is that a sin? Shake it all down and I can rest knowing that the Yamaha (what I've been playing with all along - just like you and the 70) cannot be beat for me.

What's wrong with that? You voice your opinions all the time, so it's free game..

Remember - I am unqualified as a professional reviewer. I carefully offer a disclaimer when I voice my opinion.

zuki

zuki

Oh, no problem at all with what you have done. That's entirely your choice. I guess I'm just more old school - You know, where you went down to a store, tried a keyboard for as long as they'd let you play it. Leave. Come back a few days later, try it again, see if I still got the same impression, try a few other things out on it. Leave. Coma back a few MORE days later, and play it again, by which time I'm 'reasonably' sure that I either GOT to have it, or it's not for me.

THEN, I buy it.

Personally, I think it's a great marketing tool by the manufacturers and the stores, to refuse to actually STOCK any of these things, so the only way to find out if they are any good is to BUY one! Sight unseen! Brilliant! (for the stores!)

But by doing things this way, we are only playing into their hands. I refuse to buy anything sight unseen... If they can't be bothered to stock them, I can't be bothered to buy them.

And, as Donny keeps pointing out, it's not going to make any difference to my earnings to hold on to my old gear. I'm already doing quite nicely, and a new arranger won't make much of a difference.... Only to me.

But at least going through this process, Zuki, will probably have sharpened your awareness about WHAT, in an arranger, you DO feel is the main things it MUST have. That should at least minimize your chances of making a hasty purchasing decision in the future

Maybe we need to be a bit more upfront when we buy new things just to try them out. Someone's announcement that they just bought a ModelX arranger is usually taken at face value. They decided to BUY it. That usually implies they want it. But nowadays, with as hard as they make it to even find one to audition, perhaps we need to announce that we are 'AUDITIONING' a new arranger. That way, the users of said gear don't get as confused when you drop something faster than a hot potato! Truth is, you NEVER 'bought' it. You just rented it for a few days to try out!

But even so, kudos to the manufacturers and their dealers, for getting us to start PAYING for something we used to get for free...

Greedy SOB's...

With respect to Zuki, its up to him how he spends his money. He seems like s fairly astute businessman. The following comments are not aimed at anyone in particular but i understand i will still probably get some flack for say them.

Buying instruments and selling them a wek later is the right of the purchaser but in terms of the forum and how newbies who perhaps dont know the characters on this forum might perceive things, this constant swapping of keyboards every five minutes does no good to the credibility of the forum.

I dont care who you are, there is no way after a week that you can give a qualified opinion about what a mid to top of the range instrument is capable of or not. These are not casio toys. They are mid to top of the range very sophisticated keyboards and sometimes i just bite my tongue at some of the very trite comments that i have heard about an instruments capabilities that a 'user' has made about their brand new purchase.

It has discouraged me from assisting some members with thier queries because just as i type up a page or two of detailed information to help them over the initial learning curve of the instrument , they are selling it !! I wont waste my time like that again and thats a shame.

I simply wont waste my time helpng individuals with their queries if they cant be bothered to crack the manual and dig into the instrument before they have made up their mind that they are moving on to greener grass that in fact is no more green than the stuff they ate before.

Like i said this was not aimed at anyone in particular.

Spalding

It is understandable that you take this position, and it certainly would be a loss to the forum should you stop offering your help. Hopefully, we will not see that much of what you describe.
Bernie

I think there's a lot of judging of people's decisions going on here, and they all seem to be based on our own personal criteria. Why on earth does Zuki have to conform to someone else's type of behavior when he's spending his own money? First of all, there are many factors that account for the frequent buying and selling of (especially) arranger-type keyboards. We all know what they are.

1. The general unavailability of arranger keyboards in local stores for auditioning.

2. The very nature of arrangers means that the music produced by them is going to get boring (stale, repetitive, predictable, uninspiring, etc.) in a very short period of time, especially when playing the same venues a lot.

3. Musicians are fickle by nature (why do guitar players have to have so many guitars?).

4. The grass is always greener.........

I also don't buy the argument that a working pro can't tell in a week that a board isn't right for them. Frankly, I think they have a pretty good idea in about an hour. Note, I said 'working pro'. That implies that they already have a working knowledge of the way arrangers work, several good frames of reference via prior arranger ownership, are able to zero in on (and evaluate) the specific types of styles that they will be using 'on the gig', and how intuitive the board is for real-time navigation (small learning curve). I believe Don when he says he can accomplish this in a week. So can I, given full-time access to the board. Why? Because I (and probably Don and Zuki and Capt Russ, and Donny) don't really give a darn what the board IS CAPABLE OF, only "what can it do for me right now? (for the type of music that I play)". I don't think most working pro's want to feel compelled to be a member of the geek squad to get the required utility out of a new board. Of course this doesn't apply to everybody, but we shouldn't be so judgemental about those that it does apply to. To say that you're not going to help on the board anymore because someone whom you supplied information to, sold there board to quickly, is....well....???

Another thing, everything about a TOTL arranger is subjective. I, personally, would never buy an arranger based on it's Ballroom styles. Simply because I'd never use them and consequently, don't really care if they're good or bad. With all due respect to DonM, Russ, AJ, and others who like the Ketron sound, I couldn't find a single style on the SD5 that I liked; not because they weren't good (subjective), but because the overall sound of the keyboard was very "European" to me, you know, kind of "Schlagerish". Not bad, just not what I'm into. I can understand Zuki, looking for something 'new', immediately rejecting it, especially if he were looking for something "Yamaha-ish" but better.

Me, I relish the flurry of buying and selling activity. You never know when you might be able to pick up a bargain. Long live free enterprise.

chas

AMEN! I totally Agree!

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God Bless,
Mikey

www.mikeymaestro.com
www.balloonanimal.com
www.1000colorcards.com

Chas -

Wow! My sentiments too A sure way to get popular here is to buy and sell keyboards and simply answer questions on why you did so

zuki