- - - - FLASH NEWS REPORT - - - -
- - - YAMAHA KEYBOARD GLOBAL MEMORY FAILURE - - -

Yamaha, one of the world's largest manufacturers of music keyboard and synthesizers is experiencing a GLOBAL MEMORY FAILURE affecting thousands of keyboards and is effectively reducing resale and trade-in values to ZERO. Concerned owners are warning consumers that now may not be the best time to buy a new music keyboard.

KEYBOARDS AFFECTED: The Yamaha 9000 Pro is currently the most affected Yamaha keyboard. However, there is an extremely high liklihood that Yamaha's flagship, a best seller called the "Tyros," will be likewise affected.

Well, have I got your attention? Don't go running to your keyboard to check your memory. It's not the keyboard's memory that's failing - it's the memories of Yamaha's corporate decision-makers.

You know, they're the guys that sit in the tower with the "bean counters" and try to prophesize how many keyboards they will sell at a given price. What have they forgotten? They've forgotten that they ever made a 9000 Pro keyboard and that they promised their customers continued support, upgrades, and additional features if they parted with their hard earned dollars and bought their keyboard.

Yeah, a mind is a terrible thing to waste but a wasting a good keyboard is even worse. There she sits (my 9000 Pro), looking at me from across the room. And she's wondering, "Where's that upgrade that my creator promised me?"

Gosh, there are tears in my eyes . . . how can I tell her that the Yamaha executives simply took my money but kissed her ass goodbye?

"Sorry honey, there won't be any new operating systems, no new voices, no voice editor, no new styles, and no new features ever." Oh my goodness, I felt her quiver as my hand passed over a few of the black keys.

If you want the full story . . . unabridged, in all its horror, then go to the link below. This tragic tale is being repeated throughout our land and its time to say, "NO MORE!"

Alright honey, I'm coming . . . just let me say goodbye to my friends on the zone.

Take care and God bless,
Steve

Don't forget to get the whole story:
http://arrangerworkstation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=186

BEWARE: You may have bought LESS than you think!

Steve, GOOD Post!. I have to concur. It's quickly becoming apparent that Yamaha is interested in putting all their money into pushing the next new keyboard and abandoning any further OS Update Support for existing keyboard owners. Even with the current model Tyros, there have been no new OS Updates (1.20) since April 2003. - Scott

Steve,

It's good to see that you are still hanging around. Do you still have the Allante? From time to time I wonder what you are doing.

Don't feel bad, Ketron promised us a keyboard that would not become obsolete. The last update for the X1 was so long ago I don't remember. We were promised a new OS update well over a year and a half ago. We are both old enough that we should know better.

Glad you checked in!

Tom

While I totally agree that a company any company should fully actively support their keyboards for a reasonable amount of time. For me reasonable would be no less than 5 years in this rapidly changing hi tech world. Which is a huge reason I dumped my PA80, because Korg did not. All companies should deliver what was promised period.

The fact that Yamaha has not delivered a simple o/s upgrade to Scott's pointing out of the fill to self hang mode with a standard pedal to me is inexcuseable.

I have since bought keyboards with a different mindset and that is I buy them for what they are, where they are and how they are now, not what they could be if.....I am allot less disappointed with them and the companies then.

I do take all that and the ludicrious replacement parts availability into consideration when considering buying anything else and at the prices they are now, I am much more discriminating about with who and on what I am going to spend that kind of money.

Also as has been mentioned before I think by bluezplayer.....I'm done upgrading for a couple of new features at a high price and loss of existing features.

I love to buy new equipment, but these guys are frying me out on it.
Terry

------------------
jam on,
Terry http://imjazzed.homestead.com/Index.html

Stevizard,
Excellent post! Now maybe Steve Deming could foward this on to Yamaha. I guess it would be different if you were dealing with a lower end keyboard, but damn! the 9000 Pro isn't by any means cheap.

Squeak

I think I will add my 2 cents worth to this also.
I lived 70 years, have had keyboards for 32 of them and Organs and Pianos before that. I had never owned a Yamaha anything other then a 250 motorcycle I took in on a car trade that I virtually could not give away. I guess that soured me on the name of Yamaha.
Well, about a year ago or so, I finally relented and bought the very first piece of Yamaha Equipment to ever arrive in this studio. The PSR 9000 had a list price of 3900 and It was offered at 2300, so I weakened and bought it. I don't like it. I don't play it, It just sits and depreciates. I added a hard drive, a Scsi cd player, three pedals and it was abandoned by Yamaha before the new wore off. It currenly has a value of maybe 1000 on a good day.
Now how many more Yamaha's do you thing this dude will buy
Yup, you get the message I sure did
Bebop

[This message has been edited by BEBOP (edited 03-09-2004).]

I guess we have to have one of these little "damn Yamaha" discussions now and then, but I'm altogether certain they are doing no good except to make us feel like we're having our say.

I get the impression that the 9000 Pro may have been something of a Yamaha market test to see how well a pro-level arranger would sell and if they could package their arranger technology in a way would appeal to pro users. Reportedly the 9000 Pro sold ok in the European markets but far fewer were sold in the US. Many Yamaha keyboard dealers didn't even stock or display it because they weren't sure how or who to sell it to. It became more of a specialty item, which is another term for "only used by a few weirdos".

IMHO Yamaha didn't really push the 9000 Pro at all, other than to send out some press releases and build a website for it. It got lukewarm reviews by studio musicians who weren't sure what to do with it, and it was never advertised in any major way that I ever saw (ie: no ads in Keyboard or Electronic Musician). Even today when I mention the 9000 Pro to other keyboardists or if they see it on stage with me I usually get a "wtf is that?" response. I've also noticed that 9000 Pro's have been struggling price-wise on eBay both new and used... so there isn't a great demand for these keyboards even now. That all adds up to a failed product in the marketing sense.

The biggest tragedy may be that Yamaha seems to have accepted the failure of the 9000 Pro as a failure of the pro-level arranger concept in general. 9000 Pro owners and potential owners of a replacement model are such a small minority of keyboard owners that we've probably fallen between the cracks of Yamaha's marketing vision. They figure we'll either go with the Tyros or the Motif in the near future. But I think we've made our point and Yamaha's rep have gotten the message that 9000 Pro owners are angry at being disenfranchised... and that's as far as the subject will likely ever go. I predict we'll never see another upgrade or any other acknowledgement from Yamaha that the 9000 Pro ever existed - in fact, I think Yamaha wishes this market segment they've created would just go away.

Hello............Is keyboard technology much different than computer technology in general?? This is just my thoughts............I'm not supporting or not supporting Yamaha on it's marketing decisions. $1000 (or $2500??) buys way more of a keybord than it did 5 or 10 years ago. And I expect the same to hold true in the future. I see Yamaha making a TON of money off their upcoming PSR1500 and PSR3000. Sure.......They will continue with the Tyros or its replacement, but the quantity of PSR1500/3000's sold will be a hundred times as many. I wonder if or how much past loyalty figures into any corporate decisions anymore?? I also wonder if Yamaha ever expected so many people to be using PSR1000's and 2000's for gigs? Not having bought a new arranger for over 5 years I am still impressed with how my PSR2000 sounds. Last week I heard a Casio WK-3500 played thru some amplified speakers. It sounded excellent even though it only has 2 style variations, but look what you can get for less than $400!! After hearing that $400 "toy" now I have even more expectations if I'm going to spend $1800 on a PSR3000.
As far as promised upgrades........Those promises aren't worth the paper they are printed on. Any upgrade I have seen has been nothing radical............Nothing to make an older board have equal features to what's new. The technology is just changing to fast. Even a 3 year old computer that was claimed to be upgradable cannot be upgraded to processor speeds equal to what's sold today. I believe the same holds true for electronic instruments.
Today, I feel better spending under $2000 for a keyboard and just replacing it every 2 years with the newest technology than spending more and having something "outdated" 3 or 4 years later. I have always gotten good resale value on 2 year old gear too.......which certainly offsets the total replacement costs to keep things new. Besides......I get bored too quickly. I need and WANT something new more often. -charley

Here we go again. Read my lips. There aren't enough pro players of arranger keyboards to affect the market either way.

They make money selling these things to amatuers and hobbist at home. Not to people playing at a night club or VFW dance somewhere.

Man I'm getting tired of saying this. It's scary but true.

Scott, you're so right . . . sales drives development. Yamaha isn't interested in supporting their products but only in selling as many as possible. Maybe we're all better off buying a good "used" model. Hey, did you ever get started on that book? Sounded like a great idea to me.

Tom, thanks . . . it's nice to be missed. The Allante had some front end problems and the Cadillac garage wanted $5,000.00 to fix it. Way too much. I took it to a local mechanic I've known for 20 years. He thought it could be fixed for $3,000 to $4,000. Still seemed too much. So, I traded it in on an Eldorado ETC (Black). A real nice ride. Good hearing from you.

Trtjazz, how right you are! Upgrading for a few trivial tech-gadgets is out of the question. Those doing this have either too little brains or too much money. And as far as Yamaha's plugins . . . have you ever priced them? They cost as much as a low-end keyboard, and they're only CARDS . . . AND YAMAHA DOESN'T EVEN TELL YOU HOW TO USE THEM WITH THE 9000 PRO! (Not all of them are compatible as well). Thanks for your input, Trtjazz.

Squeak_D, I think Steve Demming is very aware of what's going on, and so are his bosses over him at Yamaha. You're right about the 9000 Pro costing too much for Yamaha to give buyers this kind of treatment. Maybe Synthzone will act as a catalyst to stop this kind of corporate thinking . . . at least, we can hope.

Bebop, I'm with you 100%. Yamaha will have to make a 180 degree turn in their customer service and support before they'll pry another dime out of me.

ThePro, I don't know if Yamaha was "testing" when it introduced the 9000 Pro. It cost a lot of money to develop and market a high-end keyboard. But you're right about it being an attempt to enter the PRO market. I believe that the reason this keyboard failed was that Yamaha failed to understand the true nature of the "barriers" they had to conquer.

Most pro keyboard players consider an arranger as either a toy or a cheat created for people that can't really play keyboard. Although we know that this is completely false, it's still a prevalent notion. Arranger players get very little respect in the keyboard world. Yamaha's marketing didn't counter this notion effectively or often enough in the "right" places (magazines/websites/big name keyboard players/etc.). Yeah, Yamaha would definitely like to forget about the 9000 series forever.

Rattley, Yamaha's promises are about as good as sucking a monkey.

Brickboo, it's been a long time since I heard from you my friend. I hope all is well at the Brickboo Ranch. I've never been good a lip reading but I do get your drift.

- - - THERE IS A SOLUTION - - -

There is a solution to this, and you all know what it is . . . an open-source operating system or a MS Windows/Linux OS built into the keyboard. Yeah, I've heard about the mediastation but until I can see one, I'm not buying one. However, it is moving keyboarding in the right direction.

What we need isn't a full-fledged keyboard. We only need the arranger section but it must be built on a par with a computer. That is, it needs to have a removeable (therefore upgradable) motherboard, hard drive, scsi port, cdrom, slots for high-end memory, pci slots, USB, etc. We then simply midi it to our favorite keyboard. When better OS from any company arrive, we download and install them. Well, that may not sound very likely but its the direction we must go to avoid being taken hostage by the proprietary hardware and software of the keyboard manufacturers.

What do others think?

Steve




[This message has been edited by Stevizard (edited 03-10-2004).]

Just to touch on rattley's question because I don't think some people understand what we're angry about - yes, technology marches forward and in fact if there was such a thing as a 76-note pro version of the Tyros or even the PSR3000, I'd stop bitching about the demise of the 9000 Pro right here and now. Let me say this clearly and hope it'll go all the way to Japan:

I WILL NEVER OWN A 61-NOTE KEYBOARD !!!

Nothing against you guys who have a Tyros and have managed to make it work for you, but ANY keyboard with less than 76-notes is a non-starter for me. Besides the number of keys I also liked the feel of the 9000 Pro, it's ability to take the PLG expansion cards, the LittlLites, the lo-z mic input, the sampling capability and the internal hard drive. These things are not on the Tyros. So while the technology certainly improved when the Tyros came out, the feature set declined unacceptably for those of us used to the pro-level instruments. And the support for the 9000 Pro never came close to what the cheaper Tyros always had. That's what we're angry about.

Hi Steve, I believe Joe Water's excellent, and ever expanding , PSR Tutorial website: http://psrtutorial.com/
covers most of the topics I would have included in my book. Highy recommended to all. - Scott

Stevizard said, "What we need isn't a full-fledged keyboard. We only need the arranger section but it must be built on a par with a computer. That is, it needs to have a removeable (therefore upgradable) motherboard, hard drive, scsi port, cdrom, slots for high-end memory, pci slots, USB, etc. We then simply midi it to our favorite keyboard. When better OS from any company arrive, we download and install them. Well, that may not sound very likely but its the direction we must go to avoid being taken hostage by the proprietary hardware and software of the keyboard manufacturers.

What do others think?"

Absolutely right on.
The new Roland EXR-5 has 10 watts per channel. Oooooooo.
The PSR2100 has 12 watts per channel. Wow!!
I can buy an 80 watt YSTMS50 powered speakers for $100.00 bucks and it's made by Yamaha!! Obviously, that is not Yamaha's cost. They could install a YSTMS50 in every keyboard as standard equipment. So should I purchase a new keyboard because it has a little more power, a few extra voices, a usb port? NO. I'm not going to play that game.
Starkeeper

I pursued this with my "Gigstation" concept and realized that it would currently cost more to build a non-propriety VSTi-based arranger workstation than it would to buy used 9000 Pro's and just maintain them until somebody builds what we really need. Used 9k Pro's are selling well under $2k currently. But I think you're on the right track and we will see eKo-type instruments and controllers with replaceable CPU's/motherboards coming in the next couple of years. Frankly Yamaha and it's competitors may see this coming too and that may be why they're focusing more on building home-user instruments and servicing their core markets.

You're totally right. You guys play on products designed to please the hobbyist. Also true that arrangers now include lots of advanced features. Guess what? From my experience as a rep, and through surveys, 99.9% of arrangers users don't use so called advanced features such as Style editing, Style programming, Sound Edit. You have your answer.

Also, no mix of the 2 genres (home and pro features) have ever been succesful on the market. EX: years ago Yamaha introduced the DSR series. Was a flop. Technics brought the AX series. Was a flop. Why? You can't please everybody by implementing "partial" features to address either clientele.