Maybe15 years ago or more, arrangers fell into the keyboard/organ category, but at least since my G800 (some would say earlier than that, for sure) these things have been ANYTHING but in those categories.
However, this hasn't stopped the manufacturers from still trying to market them that way, which is perhaps where the general malaise is coming from. Apart from certain organ derived arrangers, these things are about as far from that old school approach as you can probably get, capable of sounding pretty darn contemporary. But you still see them primarily in mom and pop organ and piano stores, where the only customers are leftovers from the sixties home organ period.
And because a few key sounds and OS features are left off (possibly deliberately, but little arranger strategy seems deliberate in my opinion, more just bumbling around
) they still don't attract the younger player, leaving some VERY capable keyboards in this hell-hole between potential and market.
We have to face it, but we refugees from the sixties and seventies are not enough to keep this segment of the keyboard industry vital by ourselves. There just aren't enough of us compared to WS users. This keeps prices high, and innovation and competition low.
IMO, the manufacturers have to start adding WS loopstation features and sounds to modern arrangers WITHOUT dropping the old school stuff, and possibly alienating us old farts too
It's a great system of control, even for hiphop stuff, but needs the sounds and OS brought forward a decade or so. Without attracting more youngsters to the instrument, it's going to go the way of the 'home organ'.
Even if Yamaha DO train up the youngsters, trust me, at least in the Western part of the world, as soon as they DO learn to play, they drop these things like hotcakes and head over to the WS world (sales figures don't lie
)
Be honest, gents (and ladies)... is there ANYTHING in that new T3 teaser that would make anyone under 30 listen and go 'I sure could use one of those!'?
THAT'S the demographic that is driving WS sales and development. Not fans of 20's jazz, or Irish new age...
Possibly in more traditional music parts of the world, this Music School approach might work, but can anyone of you take a young kid into a mom and pop music store, and get him interested in a keyboard primarily set up for latin and bigband stuff? As soon as you give him the money for a keyboard of his own, he's off to Motif-land! They don't care if an arranger is easier to operate, they care that it sounds like their grandparent's home keyboard!
And not in a good way!
Yamaha MIGHT have started out in the home keyboard market as a joke, but they (and the entire industry, don't get me wrong, this is NOT a Yamaha bash!) are rapidly returning to being a joke. You can't continue to grow and innovate when you are selling to a dwindling market. None of us are getting any younger, and probably the average age on this forum is in the upper fifties to sixties, I would hazard a guess. That, gents, is not a good sign...
For the same price as a TOTL arranger from the Big 3, you can buy a WS with audio multitrack recording, advanced looping capabilities, contemporary sounds to die for (and most of the old school stuff too), effects capabilities better than most studios of twenty years ago, and bult like a Mercedes, with a georgeous 88 note piano keyboard. For way less you can get a Mercedes with a 61
Time for the arranger to make the great leap forward without adding the cost and complexity of a computer based 'open' system. Or we will ALL soon be in Wersi-land, with overpriced, over complex, dated sounding keyboards with next to no distribution, or cheap Wal-Mart toy arrangers meant for the kiddies.
Audya is going to be around $5500
How is this supposed to advance the industry..? T3 what, around $4500? The industry has got it all backwards... Appeal is supposed to GROW, and prices are supposed to FALL. Not the other way around!
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