lets make this go viral and expect a keyboard that aligns with the current tech

[Mendel]

https://youtu.be/LFDdjbfvrZE

lets make this go viral so hopefully the right people will see this and expect to see some changes in the arranger industry. akai just beat everyone in the workstation market!

lets see if yamaha and korg execs will wake up to reality or miss the boat like blackberry!

[mikf]

I would have zero interest in an arranger with this kind of capability. It's being addressed in the workstation market, but it would do nothing for me, or I expect most people buying arrangers. I think the execs at Yamaha and Korg already understand the market segmentation very well.
Mike

[Fred Smith]

If it was such a good idea, they would be building and selling the keyboards themselves. The fact they're not willing to take the risk tells you even they don't believe the market is there.

Cheers,
Fref

[Teknoss]

Looks like someone is trying to get more views to his YouTube video lol
(Same post on Korg forum)

[mikf]

One of Mendel"s earlier posts is about installing a Raspberry Pi inside an arranger.  Not exactly your typical arranger requirement.
I get it that there are some people who want to use an arranger for advanced music production, just like there are some people who want to soup up the average family car to perform like a Ferrari. But they are not typical, and there are already products out there that address this market.
I have said many times that the typical arranger buyer just wants an instrument that is simple to use, and makes them sound nice when they play. I don't mean this in a disparaging way, but in the same way the average family car buyer just wants to be able to reliably and comfortably drive it to work every day, not to enter it in the Monte Carlo rally.
To be honest, I don't think its the Korg and Yamaha execs that aren't grasping reality. It's the geek users who believe that everyone must want what they want, and that even if they don't it does no harm to provide it for them. But it does, it makes the keyboard way more complicated than it needs to be for most people, more expensive and limits appeal which in turn has further effect on price. 
Mike

[danand]

The "VST Host" Keyboard - Workstation idea, is not new.
I know at least two companies who did it in the past, but unfortunately without commercial success.
On was the "V-Machine" from SM Pro Audio. This was actually en "expander" with MIDI connection capable to host VST plugins.
There was also another attempt from another company (I think 6 to 7 years ago) which unfortunately I don't remember the product name.
It was a full keyboard (workstation) running Linux as OS capable to host VST plugins.
The only I remember was that both machines was extremely costly.
"VST Host" 500-600 USD and the other keyboard - workstation more than 2500 USD.
Both without commercial success.
It looks that buyers aren't satisfy with this solution, at least at this price...

If you offer a keyboard - workstation with VST host capability for 1000 USD then yes, there is a market especially if you are a respected brand name (like AKAI).
In any case I think arrangers is a different market. VST host is not a great priority for arranger users.

   

[Dnj]

imo things go viral on their own.........that said with 3 or 4 years now with nothing new in arrangers being officered at a regular pace as in the past, players are getting yancey and are yearning for some new models TOTL, MOTL etc, to come to market for us to explore play & have fun as we always had. Yes covid & shortages have been a big factor. They say patience is a virtue and it is certainly being tested worldwide. We will just have to see what happens next in the arranger KB world as the manufacturers have to balance a financial tightrope & what the customers can afford in these hard times. Now we all wait.

[mikf]

Maybe the fun should be just learning to play the one you have better
New voices, features, styles on these keyboards are in my experience, mostly a short lived gratification. Traditional instruments have often not changed in hundreds of years, but people still love them. I have been playing piano for 70 years and have upgraded my instrument a few times. When I did it was to get something that looked better, sounded better and felt better. But still just a piano. I upgraded my PSR to a CVP for much the same reason, something which looked better, sounded a bit better and felt better.
Some people buy arrangers for the fun of exploring the features and technology, but I believe that most just want something that makes it easier to play nice music.
Mike

[SciNote]

In my opinion, back in the 1980's and 1990's, the technology was still evolving, so that each new model did bring a significant increase in sound quality and features.  But now, we're at a point where CD-quality (and beyond) sampling capabilities have become dirt cheap, so that any improvement in the sampling rate or number of bits sampled would be essentially inaudible to the human ear.  It's kind of like adding more colors to a graphics card in a computer.  I once read that the human eye can distinguish between 8 and 10 million different colors, so if we already have graphics cards with 24-bit resolution (equating to over 16.7 million colors), how much can we gain by increasing the number of colors, even if it is technologically possible?

When you're talking about $5000 keyboards that are already loaded with features, it's hard to imagine what more can be done at this point to significantly improve the sound.  And new tones and styles can easily be added to existing keyboards.  I'm not saying that nothing can be done, but I don't think we'll see the leaps in improvements that we used to see.

With lower cost keyboards, such as the PSR-E473, it's a little bit different, because these keyboards don't have "everything" in them due to their price, so it's always interesting to see what previously out-of-reach features now get incorporated into the new lower-priced models.  Back in 1990, it would've been unheard of for a $370 keyboard to have over 600 tones, synth features like filter and envelope generator, dozens of digital effects, and sampling -- all at or better than CD quality.

[pjd]

Maybe the fun should be just learning to play the one you have better

Amen! Wish I could buy talent in a bottle... 

BTW, I didn't see anything in that video which is new or needs to be made viral. Yamaha, Korg, etc. are well-aware of AKAI and everything else under the sun.

-- pj

P.S. Just recovering from COVID. That's enough virus for me.