Well, I thought Brooster was merely quoting, and was not out of line. But I'm not going to mention it.
DonM

I've kept the original packaging of my Roland BK-7m and found something interesting written on it: It says "Roland Europe SPA, Acquaviva Picenta", but underneath "Made in China".
So the BK-7m was only developed in Italy, but not manufactured there.

for whom can be interested, a facebook group has been created from Roland Europe employes

facebook group

just to understand better the situation from people who are directly involved

I always thought Roland arranger (and related products) were at least assembled in Italy, as well as developed there.

In any case, the situation does appear very serious, especially for the 150 workers.

Ian

in the last decade, only Prelude and GW8 were developed by Roland Japan R&D,
E-09 was developed in Italy and assembled by Roland Japan in China...

Yamaha have already moved much of their production to China. It didn't appear to put a crimp in THEIR sales or position (and I doubt you can find a post by me saying much at ALL about it).

Why should Roland doing the same thing worry anyone? These are huge multi-national corporations. And many of them have been pulling factories from all over Europe and offshoring the jobs to China.

Now, I've got an entirely different opinion about the whole thing if you put it in the larger picture of low end and middle end jobs being shipped wholesale to the Republic of Cheap Labor so that fat corporations can make products cheaper and try to sell them at low prices to people who no longer have a job to buy them, all to fatten up the dividends to the wealthy few who have shares in the company, but that's got nothing to do with whether its a keyboard company or a maker of bubble wrap...

Brooster's strange posts seem to be far more designed to bait than actually refer to what has happened. One only has to look at his juxtaposition of trying to equate one plant in Europe getting closed and moved offshore to Yamaha closing down entirely, and you realize how desperate (or uncomprehending) he is to start a fight.

Tell you what, Broo... When Yamaha actually DO close down, let's revisit this storm in a teacup. In the meantime, keep up those English lessons. Basic Comprehension 101 could do with a do-over.

That explains why the the sounds of the GW8 main presets are very different from the E/BK series as they are taken from the SonicCell (and thus mostly Fantom X). Obviously, the samples used by Roland Japan and Roland Europe were kept separated to a certain degree (e.g. good saxophones present in the Italian arrangers but missing in Fantom X, SonicCell, GW8). When I got the BK-7, I was really surprised about the good saxophones, which I had even missed in the SRX series.

Korg also has arranger operations in Italy...would they be considering off-shoring their factories/operations to China as well?

Ian

What company ISN'T considering offshoring to China these days... especially any in the electronics field..?

You know, on the whole, I am seeing more of a fair degree of 'glee' about the whole Roland issue from Yamaha owners than I ever recall from others when Yamaha closed down plants and shifted production to China.

But, given the bubble that they like to live in, I can see the reason. If legitimate criticism of failings in Yamaha products upsets you, why not chortle about a move you have already made yourselves? You know, should you want to distract from those legitimate complaints...

I honestly can't see where you see "glee" amongst the posts...it's very sad to see people lose jobs.

This isn't the first time Roland has been in a bit of a jam...they should be able to get out okay.

Ian