Genos vs. SX900 buttons

[tyrosman]

And what I assume almost everyone on this forum does not know is just how much money it costs to produce the outer case of a keyboard like a Tyros, Genos or PSR. I do, but I can't tell you because of an NDA. What I will tell you is that if you knew, you'd probably fall off your chair!

Design of the top and bottom pieces, design and tooling for the machinery that will make the pieces, production of said machinery and then the cost of materials for the pieces. I may well have forgotten something! That's why T3 and T4 shared the same outer parts.

Same thing applies to switches, sliders, knobs and buttons. You can make minor changes without humungous costs, but major changes like new cabinets have to be thought about very carefully! So I've fully expected Genos 2 to share most of its outer parts with Genos 1.

As yet, no-one on this forum has seen the finished article and, as seems to be usual, it's already getting flak!

very well said andy i wish they would just sit down and play the Genos that we have now and discover it in stead of moaning already a bout somthing that has not been seen in the flesh yet


Edit: Moved reply text out of the quoted text by overover

[maartenb]

how much money it costs to produce the outer case of a keyboard

I do know

Thank you, Andy, for bringing that up! And thanks for the confirmation, Mark.

It is 100% in line with what my father told me 40 years ago. He worked in engineering and told me the same. The number he gave me, if I recall correctly, was around 100,000 Dutch guilders (approx €50,000). Add to that 40 years of inflation and you might get the idea. It will be much, much more expensive now.

Once he coached a student who had the assignment to design a bicycle with a frame made out of plastic instead of metal. It worked (I cycled on the prototype). He also saw the calculations of the mould. While the mould is very expensive, the plastic things coming out of the mould are relatively cheap. So, the bicycle company would have to make a minimum number of bikes, before they could break even. In other words, it only is economical viable to make moulds if you sell the parts coming out of them many, many times.

The TOTL keyboard market is small. All Tyros models together (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) sold "only" 100,000+ times, according to Yamaha.

For the Genos 2 Yamaha seem to have kept the bottom case the same (I assume), and made modifications to the top case (visible in the teasers).

I am very happy with their decision to reuse the case as much as possible! I'd rather they spend the money on better sounds, usability improvements and new features, than on a new case.


Maarten