Bachus, I think you just made Donny's point. If it ain't broke, why try to fix it?

The primary reason I agree with him about the sounds is that despite all the tuning and tweeking, the audiences don't seem to notice. Both Donny and I, and many others on this forum, are primarily entertainers. The sounds provided by the arranger keyboard manufacturers are more than adequate for our purposes. And, like Donny, Dave, Fran, DonM, and many others, we're it out there performing every day of the week for the most part, often more than once a day. We learned how to read our audiences, we interact with them daily, we often know many of the audience members on a first name basis, and for the most part the comments we hear are not about the keyboard's sounds, though TonyM seems to be an exception to this. The vast majority of the people I encounter tell me how much they love the song selections, and how much they love my vocals.

Like you, I own an older car, and it will only be replaced when it meets it's untimely demise, which is usually when I reach 300,000 miles or more. Additionally, I have a fairly extensive background in electronics, be it quite old. I'm one of the few individuals that have been through all the instruction manuals of every keyboard I've owned, I've repaired several for others, but never one of my own, I've designed and constructed my own circuit boards, and use lots of marine electronic devices. And, yes, I can even use a sextant, but not as accurately as I would like.

I enjoy reading your posts related to new devices, and I always try to investigate them to determine if they would be beneficial to myself and other entertainers in the field. I don't believe Donny is anti gadget or device in any way, shape or form. However, I think he is being realistic about his personal needs as an entertainer. And, his needs are not that much different than any other, live music entertainer that I know, both personally and on this and other forums. Please do not take this as an affront. It's just the opinion of an old codger that has been in this business for many, many years. And, please, continue to post your findings on other new gear and gadgets - it's good information.

All the best,

Gary

Thats one of the most important things we dont know untill we play it..
Akai indicates it will have a good professionall key quallity
However they said the same about the MPK series
Which action i dont like, it is just to stiff
So far the Novation SL2 has the best keybed of all the midi keys,( fatar)


If i dont like the keyaction i will send it back, key action is very very important..

In general from the custoemr perspective you are very right about this, why would i change stuff if i am happy with it? but from a salesperspective and buiseness that perspective that does not work...

My neighbour buys that new car every year because he just wants a new model with new things like brighter lights and bigger wheels, just because it makes him happy... I buy new music stuff because it has improved quallities. Which allows me to do things differently or enjoy a new saxsound.

Do we both need the improvements, well i guess not, but do we enjoy the new stuff, yes we realy do, it gives us sattisfaction.

This is the example i described above, so asume my neighbour also plays music and has a 30 year old piano which he plays daily and enjoys very much playing..

That is in general the difference between Donny, You and me... You are happy your old keyboard and sounds and enjoy playing it. And you will not replace it untill there is a new piano with improved functionallity.. While i love to explore new whistles..

So when it comes to if its not broke dont fixt it, that works very well for me for cars, but not for musicall instruments... Because if everyone would have that same attitude we woul all still be riding that old T-ford from 1900..



The biggest problem for arrangers these days is the fact that many arranger players that used to be like me in buying new and exciting stuff while their old instruments worked perfectly well, have reached a venerable age at which they are content with the lovely instruments they have. And prefer their money on other things, which shows certainly a form of wisdom.

On top of that, the current day instruments are not interesting enough for new people to buy and step into the arranger playing.. They are either happy with their old pianos or choose different models

so what those companies out there need to do to interest you and Donny in buying new stuff again. Or make my neighbour interested in buying an arranger. Is add functionallity to them that makes all of you decide to buy the new one..

For example i would buy a new car if it only used half the gass of my current one even if all the other features where exactly the same.. You know we all switched from organs to keyboards because they where small and light, and many bought a new keyboard because it had a vocalist in it.. Hey even guitar players bought keyboards because of using it with midi files and vocalists.. But for many it took more time to realise a vocalist would be actually usefull

And thats where they are currently failing, i dont buy new cars, you dont buy new new arrangers because the features they add do not interest you yet. And the sound quallity of the old only slightly less then the newer ones... But then for you an arranger is more like a tool to get the job done...

I will allways buy, because for me who does not make a living it is more like a new toy, that i like to play with

And thats where my biggest worry comes in, if not enough people buy arrangers anymore, they might stop creating arrangers all together.. So i am sharing the new bells and whistles overhere just to see if you guys are interested in it. Like the ensemble feature on the T5 which makes you rethink how to play your old songs, its one of the best things they added to arragers since they added the vocalist. Yet not enough to convince you and Donny yet to ipgrade...

So it might be easier for Yamaha and co to add features to arrangers that pull in new customers, like my neighbour. Then it is to add features to make you upgrade...

And if they fail at both... Arrangers as we know them will dissapear.


The people still buying stuff like me will keep comtinuing to do so, so we are not very interesting for those companies, but i am actually quite sure they come here regularly to find out what might convince you and Donny to uograde your instrumenst, .. And even harder, they need to figure out what would make my neighbour buy an arranger..




You see where the dont fix it as it works very much applies to you and Donny, it does not apply to me, i just love trying new gear/toys and find ways to make them usefull, where you are hapy with your tool because it works for me..


In the end we are all different..which is a blessing..

Now back on topic, VST integration with dedicated hardware controllers..

In this case the NI Komplete Kontroll combined with NI Maschine. It shows how you can use this setup when creating your own compositions. As said, this is also a very slick setup, however, it requires a computer screen and the Kontroll works only with NI Komplete plugins.





Its a very interesting video, because it really shows how they are trying to make the interface much more tranasparent then with the bigger DAWs... its just a matter of hours to grasp most of the basic interface and then you are off and on your way.