What happened to them...? & who is using one to gig?

http://www.generalmusic.com/html/prodotti.asp?cod=995217&lingua=eng&frame=ca



[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 10-28-2008).]

I'm not sure, but I think they went out of business. I haven't seen or heard from them in years. Last time anything came out of them is when they were now using the name Solton/General Music.

There dropping like files.

I found this online: http://bavasmusic.com.au/store/general-music-module-p-1345.html

They must be out of their minds......

[This message has been edited by mc (edited 10-28-2008).]

I don’t know if they are still in business but they have not released a TOTL arranger since 2002 in the Genesys.
The Genesys was truly ahead of its time with features that Yamaha, Roland and Korg are only now including.
For example, the Genesys has 6 live right hand parts and 2 live left hands parts. If you need to change the octave of any of those parts, once you have one of those sounds highlighted, you just press the up or down octave buttons.

I always get a chuckle when I hear Yamaha and Korg TOTL arranger users get excited over sliders. Gem has had sliders on their TOTL arrangers as far as I know since 1997.


With the sliders, you can use them to control the volume of each track for the parts of a style and press a button and they will control organ parts. On the Genesys they can also be used to control the overall volume of the style section, sequencer section, MP3 and wave section.

The Genesys was truly an arranger workstation for its time because in addition to arranger features, it also had extensive sound editing and creation tools. In addition, it has a full functional 32 track sequencer )that’s right 32).


Having said all of that, they messed up in several respects.
The original Genesys (2002) was 61 keys with speakers and had a 2 gig hard drive but allowed audio recording. And its weight makes the G70 feel like a feather. The next year, they came with the Genesys Pro which was the same as the original Genesys but no speaker and was lighter. It in creased the hard drive size from 2 to 4 gigs.
Two years later, they “improved” the Genesys line by releasing the Genesys S and the Genesys Pro S.
They were physically new boards. They had the Same features and sounds as the original Genesys and Genesys pro but with some additional features.
They increase the ram to 128 so you had more room to load and save samples, they increased the hard drive size to 20 gigs. They added some other features like a song search feature, a song book feature, and auto load feature where if you set up the keyboard the way you want with sounds, registrations, user styles, and you had to reset the keyboard for any reason, instead of having to reload every thing manually, when you turn the keyboard back on, it would automatically load the folder with your custom set-up.

The lay-out on the Genesys was really intuitive and easy to use. It was still on the heavy side.

When they released the Genesys S, they also expanded the line to include a Genesys oriental (a 61 key) and a 88 keyboard genesys (a stationary one).

The problem with Gem was that their prices were too high. Also, they just could not seem to find dealers or were unwilling to adhere to standard manufacturer/dealer practices.

Gem seemed as if they were only concerned with the high-end market and not the every-day player.

Now when they released the Genesys xp, I thought there was hope. The XP is the module version to the Genesys S. Feature and sound wise, it has everything the Genesys S has.

But I think they messed up here again. They made it a table top instead of a smaller standard size unit. Because of it being a module, they change the button layout which took away from its ease of use for live play. They did not have good midi implementation to where you could assign all of the arranger features to where you can use a dedicated controller keyboard (and that was a big down fall)

I would have thought that the XP would have been a way for gem to get their name out there by having the XP in the hands of lots of players. But Gem priced the XP out of reach and missed the boat. If they would have priced the XP to where persons could get it to supplement their other arranger or workstation, it would have provided Gem a way to infiltrate the keyboard market, get some cash, build brand loyalty, and get R and D funds for their new line. But now, due to bad business practices and pricing themselves out of the keyboard market they are unheard of and would have to have a hell of a marketing campaign to promote their new TOTL arranger. That is if they are going to continue with making TOTL arrangers.

P.S I use a Genesys XP with a controller keyboard and 6 switch pedal.

MusiciansFriend is still selling them.. http://www.musiciansfriend.com/navigation?q=GEM&st=

I've been half tempted to buy the GK_380 myself. There are a few vids on YouTube showcasing some styles, and they sound pretty good.

Generalmusic is coming with a new product very soon, my friend which is a dealer was able to see the prototype some time ago and told me it sounds great. It will be a 61 note arranger, and will be smaller than the Genesys, probably much like the WK series... The only think I know for sure is that it will have USB connectivity.

Didn't we have a General Music employee here in the forum? Dave? Is he still with them?

Gem i beleive are still in business. The new product talked about a product pitched around the yamaha psr900 price. It has a black case and has a full colour display with mp3 playback etc. the product all be it no where near completed was shown to a selected few me included at frankfurt 2008. the case look a little similar to the old WS2 keyboard black in colour.
Knowing Gem what they showed us will most likely change anyway.

Dave is no longer with GEM.
DonM