Hi Diki.

No promises on this one, but I'll be in the Studio on a job all day tomorrow and if I finish early I'll try setup a video camera and give you a quick tour around my V-Machine.

I'll jump between lots of different VSTi's with a single press of a button and also filp through factory sounds as if I was playing a closed workstation.

Again, no promises as the kids are on holidays this week, but I'll see what I can do.

Regards
James

The problem with having an open system added to a closed one is that you will run in to the laws of diminishing returns.

If you have a keyboard with perfect sounds, perfects styles and loops preloaded, what would be the benefit of having the open component of that keyboard when you are saying that persons are incapable of using open systems?

If I am spending a lot of money on a keyboard to get perfect sounds and styles preloaded, why would I spend extra money to have an open system included on that keyboard that I am incapable of using?

The market for the MS and like products is persons who do multiple task as a musician.

So you have some one who plays in a band, has a workstation, has a home studio, records originals, and does solo gigs.

What the MS does is help to INTEGRATE the studio, live band performances and live solo performances.

You can load only the sounds you need for your band and your solo performances. When you record your originals or your band’s originals using VSTs and the likes, you can have those specific sounds on stage.

In today’s market, you really have to be prepared for anything on a gig. And you have to not sound like everyone else.


[This message has been edited by to the genesys (edited 10-25-2009).]

Just to be clear, James, to those who are mainly into arrangers here on the General Arranger Forum, the V-Machine does not have any styles or arranger functions, am I correct?

I know the Mediastaion has an arranger section, but it is hardly worth mentioning, as the demos we've heard here on SZ are pretty dismal, and I am being kind.

So, the V-Machine is essentially a VST player?

Is it possible to add something to it, to allow it to play styles, like an arranger...maybe even some sort of "Band-In-the-Box" idea, but with "live" capability?

Ian



[This message has been edited by ianmcnll (edited 10-25-2009).]

The trouble is the price you pay in complexity, trying to cover ALL the bases in one go. This is compounded by the fact that each of those separate things has to be setup entirely by the user. I buy an arranger, it's styles and sounds and OS are already nicely integrated, it can gig out of the box, and its' OS is optimized for ease of live use. I buy a WS, its' sounds and arps/loops are already balanced, it's usually open enough to have a sampler and maybe a groovebox loop player too. I buy a stage keyboard (like S90XS or Nord Stage) it has perfectly balanced sounds on board, and an OS designed for live band usage.

I buy a completely open keyboard, I got to do ALL that myself, just to get as good as each of those keyboards. Let alone integrate all three so the arranger can run at the same time as the stage piano while the loop player is being triggered by front panel buttons... My life is complicated enough already!

For each individual task, there already is a better solution than an open keyboard. In the studio, I prefer the convenience of computers, which can be replaced and upgraded a lot easier and more frequently than hardware open keyboards. I don't need to take them out live, hardware live keyboard specialists already do what I need in a live keyboard and keep life simple.

I think the open keyboard's problem is keeping the front end as simple as hardware ones do. My main focus is still making MUSIC, not programming computers! The front ends of the specialist keyboards make doing each task the easiest that it CAN be. The front end of open keyboards makes all them look ridiculously easy. I always wished the MS had concentrated a LOT more on being a great ARRANGER rather than a half-assed arranger with a great VSTi player tacked on. But it's not like it couldn't be that IF Dom knuckled down and concentrated on that part of the keyboard's OS. But I guess it wasn't as sexy as all that Qranger nonsense

I'd MUCH rather have three separate systems than one system that did them all either half-assedly or incredibly complexly. Especially as some of the live arrangers and WS's can BOTH be had for little if anything more than an MS. It's rare you ever need all three (or even two) at the same time for the same job. Separate arrangers, WS's and VSTi setups simply WORK better at the moment.

I am sure, at some future date, the open keyboard WILL achieve total integration and ease of use. But that day, IMO, has not arrived yet...

Hi Diki
Why is it that when users compare products live, they choose the open product over the closed one?
Incidentally, most owners of Wersi instruments don’t even know it’s an open keyboard, as far as they are concerned it’s no different to a G70, PA2x etc, but just as the bonus that you can add Akai samples and VSTi. (Which as far as they are concerned is no different to buying sounds for other keyboards?)

Operation, well I can give you a 100% guarantee that apart from boot up and shut down, (And a Windows button on the settings page) no one could tell the difference between a Wersi or a G70, PA2x etc, as they look and operate exactly the same.

Sounds and styles: As I said users choose a Wersi over others with their ears and just because it doesn’t suit YOU it doesn’t make it worse then your G70.

You may disagree with some of the above, but as you have never seen one, you cannot make claims about how it operates in live use compared to others.

YOU don’t like the sounds and styles, and so as I said in a previous post, “GET OVER IT” as not everybody wants the same as “YOU”.

Regards

Bill

And, the unfounded assumption is that using an open keyboard is difficult to do.
With that premise, that is where the argument goes down hill.

Apparently, arranger players do not agree with the point of keeping things separate. Arranger players are not against Integration.
You never hear arranger players say I have a drum machine so I do not need drum sounds integrated on a keyboard.
You never hear arranger players say I have a B3 organ so I don’t need a simulation integrated on a keyboard.

Hi ianmcnll .



Out of the box no, it just comes preloaded with a number of Synths and about 400MB of samples. I know it's an open device and there's nothing stopping you from installing an arranger vsti on it, but with only 8 buttons on the front, you couldn't seriously use the V-Machine for anything other than a sound module. One look at it can you can see that's all it was design to be even though it is an open device.



That's not the fault of the keyboard though. It should have never been demonstrated as an arranger with a cheap and discontinued VSTi driving the styles. The Mediastation will only ever sound as good as the software you install on it.



Yep.



So long as what your trying to load runs as a VSTi and not just a standalone application, then yes. The V-Machine should run it. Truthfully though, I think that's asking a lot from the V-Machine. It's the perfect little sound module, but the lack of buttons on it would make it a pain in the ass to use as an arranger sound module.

It's REALLY tiny. About the size of a Video Tape but just a little fatter.

Regards
James

[This message has been edited by Irishacts (edited 10-26-2009).]

Yikes to those colors after spending a few hours actually having to work on a KB..seizures?

[This message has been edited by mr9000 (edited 10-28-2009).]

Hi James,
is there anyway of running just say, a gm or xg soundfont bank on the v machine??

I've used my little netbook for running OMB software with korg as a soundmodule, but I doubt netbook would run the (soundfont )softsynth/arranger setup I used to run on my dell.

best wishes
Rikki
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Irishacts:
[B]Hi ianmcnll .

So long as what your trying to load runs as a VSTi and not just a standalone application, then yes. The V-Machine should run it. Truthfully though, I think that's asking a lot from the V-Machine. It's the perfect little sound module, but the lack of buttons on it would make it a pain in the ass to use as an arranger sound module.