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#263521 - 05/15/09 07:51 PM Re: is there a youthful arranger market
ianmcnll Offline
Senior Member

Registered: 07/27/05
Posts: 10606
Loc: Cape Breton Island, Canada
Quote:
Originally posted by Kingfrog:
Younger SERIOUS players are workstation oriented. Very young beginners seem to prefer the less expensive 413 and PSR550.



When it comes right down to it, here in Cape Breton, we sell more 88 note digital pianos and/or 88 note workstations to the younger experienced players, than workstations or arrangers.

Lots of Celtic and Scotch fiddle music, and lot of Jazz, so there is a rather large demand for piano players.
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#263522 - 05/15/09 07:53 PM Re: is there a youthful arranger market
squeak_D Offline
Senior Member

Registered: 10/08/00
Posts: 4715
Loc: West Virginia
Couldn't agree with you more cassp. Problem is you got a lot of workstation owners wanting more modern sounding styles on arrangers.., but the di-hard arranger playes screamin no modern styles.., no way not on my arranger. There's gotta be a halfway meeting point here.

I still say makers need to treat it exactly how Roland treats the GW-8 line. There's several models.., all having the same base styles but each having a special area of styles specific to their region. The same thing can be done but make it an entire set of modern style rather than a region specific board. When I say modern I also mean modern styles based on that styles PLACE OF ORIGIN TOO.., and styles written by people who actually know what they are and are well seasoned in those style areas too.

[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 05-15-2009).]
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#263523 - 05/15/09 08:00 PM Re: is there a youthful arranger market
ianmcnll Offline
Senior Member

Registered: 07/27/05
Posts: 10606
Loc: Cape Breton Island, Canada
It would be pretty simple for a company or a third party style maker, to make a batch of region specific styles on a flashdrive and just load them in (or play direct)....it would be a piece of cake for PSR instruments.

Will the GW-8 load/play styles from a flashdrive?

Of course, then we are dealing with style swapping/theft, unless there is a way to protect the drive itself.

Ian
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Yamaha Tyros4, Yamaha MS-60S Powered Monitors(2), Yamaha CS-01, Yamaha TQ-5, Yamaha PSR-S775.

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#263524 - 05/16/09 01:16 AM Re: is there a youthful arranger market
Diki Offline


Registered: 04/25/05
Posts: 14182
Loc: NW Florida
We've got to key the style to the hardware itself of the arranger. How do Yamaha protect the IDG stuff and sound packs?

Until the styles can be protected, and yet still allow a certain amount of user editing and tweaking, any appreciable style development is basically confined to new models (the hardware to play the styles acts like a kind of dongle - you can't play T3 styles on a T2 if they use the newer features without a LOT of work). If Yamaha, Roland, Ketron, Korg, whoever don't work on a way to protect new styles, they will never put much effort into it (or third party style houses either).

And, I'm sorry, but basically, user styles are a pale shadow of the factory ones, by and large. Little Mega voiced parts, stiff drums, no feel...

I almost feel this is the #1 thing we should call for from our manufacturers. Having to buy a new model to get fresh new styles because the factory can't even break even on style packs for older models is insane...
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#263525 - 05/16/09 02:47 AM Re: is there a youthful arranger market
ianmcnll Offline
Senior Member

Registered: 07/27/05
Posts: 10606
Loc: Cape Breton Island, Canada
Actually I have quite a few 3rd party Tyros/PSR styles that are excellent and make very good use of mega voices, but they are not really contemporary enough to appeal to a lot of the younger arranger players.

That shouldn't be too hard to correct.

What is rather enlightening, is that the CVP owners I've sold to, ask for more classical styles, I guess to suit the nature of the 88 note keybed and to create appropriate backing tracks for the budding Mozarts out there.

The biggest failing I've found for both Yamaha and Roland arrangers is their jazz ballad styles, Roland's being the worse off.

I haven't yet had the pleasure of playing the Korg, so I can't comment directly on their styles at all....the conversions I have are not tweaked enough yet to pass any real opinion on them either.

Ian

[This message has been edited by ianmcnll (edited 05-16-2009).]
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#263526 - 05/16/09 09:21 AM Re: is there a youthful arranger market
keybplayer Offline
Senior Member

Registered: 10/27/03
Posts: 2417
Loc: CA
Working with a material 10 times lighter than steel - but 250 times stronger - would be a dream come true for any engineer, right? If this material also had amazing properties that made it highly conductive of heat and electricity, it would start to sound like something out of a science fiction novel wouldn't it? Yet here it is: >>

Buckypaper is made from carbon nanotubes - amazingly strong fibers about 1/50,000th the diameter of a human hair that were first developed in the early 1990s. Buckypaper owes its name to Buckminsterfullerene, or Carbon 60 - a type of carbon molecule whose powerful atomic bonds make it twice as hard as a diamond. Sir Harold Kroto, now a professor and scientist with Florida State University's department of chemistry and biochemistry, and two other scientists shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery of Buckminsterfullerene, nicknamed "buckyballs" for the molecules' spherical shape. Their discovery has led to a revolution in the fields of chemistry and materials science - and directly contributed to the development of buckypaper.

Among the possible uses for buckypaper are:

… If exposed to an electric charge, buckypaper could be used to illuminate computer and television screens. It would be more energy-efficient, lighter, and would allow for a more uniform level of brightness than current cathode ray tube (CRT) and liquid crystal display (LCD) technology.

As one of the most thermally conductive materials known, buckypaper lends itself to the development of heat sinks that would allow computers and other electronic equipment to disperse heat more efficiently than is currently possible. This, in turn, could lead to even greater advances in electronic miniaturization.

… Because it has an unusually high current-carrying capacity, a film made from buckypaper could be applied to the exteriors of airplanes. Lightning strikes then would flow around the plane and dissipate without causing damage.

… Films also could protect electronic circuits and devices within airplanes from electromagnetic interference, which can damage equipment and alter settings. Similarly, such films could allow military aircraft to shield their electromagnetic "signatures," which can be detected via radar.

"The potential applications are mind-boggling."

Although, even though cost is a huge obstacle at the moment, it nevertheless demonstrates that "composite" materials are out there that don't have to have the negative connotation that "plastic" seems to imply i.e. lighter composites like certain plastic(s) = equals cheap and/or flimsy'. That is not necessarily so and the near future could prove a massive migration "away" from steel or metal in the construction of certain products, and be replaced with "lighter" and "stronger" composites like buckypaper.

For instance, the Motif XS8 weighs 63 lbs. If buckypaper were used instead, the XS8 would probably weigh under 30 lbs or so, since the majority of the XS8 weight is its metal casing. As an example, if indeed 100% of the XS8 weight were its metal casing i.e. the total 63 lbs, replacing it instead with buckypaper the weight of the XS8 would then be 6.6 lbs. i.e. 10x lighter. PS: I allowed a 20 plus poundage difference to take into account the innards of the XS like the Motherboard, Amplifier(s), power supply, the weighted key bed, and all the other parts inside the casing to come up with the guestimate of "under 30 lbs" figure if buckypaper were used instead of its current metal casing.

Lighter/Stronger composites are the wave of the future in my humble opinion, and since they will be lighter/stronger than "steel" they will replace many of the heavy metal fabricated products that are currently on the market. Hopefully in the future that will include the ultra heavy fully weighted 88 key workstation keyboards too huh? You could then, theoretically speaking, carry around an 88 key Motif XS8 (or some other 88 key Workstation) under one arm like you can now do with e.g. a PSR S900 etc. - that is, one of the 'many' "plastic" Yamaha keyboards currently produced. See, we're laughing at Yamaha's "plastic" keyboards, no? But if they were made of e.g. buckypaper, etc., then there wouldn't be a need to laugh anymore. But since Yamaha still continues to make these flimsy cheaply made plastic keyboards like the S900 or T2/T3 etc., we can still laugh right? lol..

>> Although down the road, the ultra heavy METAL workstations will be the thing that young hip hoppers will avoid like the plague and instead will aquire and vouch for the much lighter and stronger 'composite' constructed keyboards and wondering all the while how they EVER got along with the ultra heavy "metal" ones to begin with. Much like how they now avoid the current crop of plastic arrangers, etc. But if they were made with the "lighter/stronger" composites there would definitely be a greater market for young people getting Arrangers too if you ask me. [img]http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/cool.gif[/img]

All the best,
Mike
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#263527 - 05/16/09 10:02 AM Re: is there a youthful arranger market
squeak_D Offline
Senior Member

Registered: 10/08/00
Posts: 4715
Loc: West Virginia
Yamaha would get my money for an S-900 if they changed 3 things about it.

1. Make the panel metal. It doesn't have to be some heavy piece either.., just something stronger than the plastic on it now. They could even keep the end caps plastic.., just put a half decent metal panel on it.

2. BETTER QUALITY PITCH/MOD WHEELS!!! Anyone else think it's pretty shotty that Yamaha gives the MM6 far superior wheels?

3. More durable button contacts..., that aren't so prone to wearing out.

If Yamaha changed those three things they'll get my money on the next S-900 replacemnt. Seriously.., take away the request for a metal upper.., really.., how much more would it increase their production cost to give the S-900 the same pitch/mod wheels found on the VERY VERY LOW budget MM6.., and give it better button contacts?
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GEAR: Yamaha MOXF-6, Casio MZX-500, Roland Juno-Di, M-Audio Venom, Roland RS-70, Yamaha PSR S700, M-Audio Axiom Pro-61 (Midi Controller). SOFTWARE: Mixcraft-7, PowerTracks Pro Audio 2013, Beat Thang Virtual, Dimension Le.

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#263528 - 05/16/09 10:20 AM Re: is there a youthful arranger market
ianmcnll Offline
Senior Member

Registered: 07/27/05
Posts: 10606
Loc: Cape Breton Island, Canada
Mike,

Interesting post, Mike.

No doubt the materials like buckypaper, new plastic composites, and even carbon fiber will be the wave of the future for electronic enclosures.

Think about...how many TV cabinets are made of metal anymore...very very few.

Same will be with keyboards...there probably will be some parts of the casing that will be metal, but these will only grace the higher end workstations, and digital pianos.

Wouldn't surprise me one bit if Roland's (and Korg's) next batch of arrangers are all plastic, with maybe a metal panel on the TOTL model, but somehow, I think they will be all plastic.

Cheaper, no need of painting, as well as strong as needed for the intended application....plastic, or some form of composite will be what we'll get in the near future.

Ian
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Yamaha Tyros4, Yamaha MS-60S Powered Monitors(2), Yamaha CS-01, Yamaha TQ-5, Yamaha PSR-S775.

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#263529 - 05/20/09 05:02 PM Re: is there a youthful arranger market
spalding Offline
Member

Registered: 09/29/04
Posts: 582
Loc: Birmingham
have a look at this you tube clip of the Korg M50 using 'templates' to write songs.

What struck me is that i could reproduce what the demonstrator did in half the time using the PA1X by simply using an existing style drum pattern, muting the other voices and then over dubbing my own original chords , instruments etc either using the style to get the chord structure of the song done or simply using the drum track and then recording all the other parts myself. This is precisely why the youthfull arranger market is ripe , all that needs to be done is to show the complete flexibility of a totl arranger like the Korg range.

anyway here the clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6023Hs-vVs

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#263530 - 05/20/09 08:21 PM Re: is there a youthful arranger market
Diki Offline


Registered: 04/25/05
Posts: 14182
Loc: NW Florida
This looked much more like a demo for making a style, than making a piece of music... Little eight bar chunks are not a song... (but they are a style!).

This is SO primitive compared to what you can do with the arpeggiators, loops and samples in a modern WS. This stuff goes all the way back to the Triton and before. Templates are an OLD idea.

The thing is, you are STILL hampered by the non-contemporary sound of most arrangers in making anything remotely modern sounding. I keep saying this (and have no idea why it isn't obvious to the manufacturers) that it isn't the OS and the word 'arranger' that puts kids off. It's the largely dated sounds and styles in them. Especially drums. I know even the drum grooves in my ancient Triton sound phatter and more radio ready than anything in a contemporary arranger's ROM.

Until this changes, the kids are going after M3's, M50's, Fantom's and Motif's, despite song creation being harder than an arranger. But what's the POINT of easy song creation, if what you create sounds like your Dad's music?
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