I think there’s an opportunity for one last gasp of the arranger market. Yamaha are the de facto survivors but Korg and Roland have a solid code base (or at least, Korg’s PA4 OS does!), now might be the time to port their arranger engines and core ROM sounds to tablets.
The IPad Pro has MORE than enough horsepower to run an arranger and its sounds. For Roland, they wouldn’t even be competing with their own product. All but beginner arrangers are discontinued. Same for Korg, bar the announcement…
But an arranger on an iPad (good closed economy with the Apple Store so little chance of piracy) might make some significant money for Korg and Roland. Even an astronomical price of $250 (by iPad software standards) is a drop in the ocean compared to a hardware arranger, and the installed base of iPad musician users is in the millions…
Hardware arrangers may be going extinct, but tablet musicians are a fast growing new species, maybe it’s time to leverage those old arranger OS’s..?
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An arranger is just a tool. What matters is what you build with it..!