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Sort of OT: Are prices on New Keyboards, etc , too high ?


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I believe we were already heading in that direction. Even the price Roland are charging for their new Fantom is an anachronism.

Soon enough, we'll see the most expensive of them sell for not more than $2500.

After all, it's more and more about software, not about hardware.

Even Apple will budge (and already does as the iPhone SE shows).

Let's just hope the special ones (like Sequential) will survive.

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good you also mentioned the Apple SE.

 

I mentioned the $399 iPhone earlier. Apple is a smart co

and they have re-evaluated the market- it was due for a value iPhone at a 'fair ' price.

 

I also agree that the fantom $4000 [ its incomplete] is an example of an obvious ' too high price' .

 

If the economy slumps over the next 2-4 months, we might see the high prices decrease significantly.

Its unfortunate that we live in such difficult times.

Why fit in, when you were born to stand out ?

My Soundcloud with many originals:

[70's Songwriter]

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My hunch is that coming out the other side of this, business will learn some hard lessons about the infancy of supply chain globalization. I think companies have generally approached supply chain decisions in a very 1.0 kind of perspective driven primarily by unit cost, and that the next shift to 2.0 will be toward risk mitigation through diversification and redundancies.

 

Couple that with the possibility that big ticket discretionary spending may be cratered for a few years coming out of recession, and it's possible the "high price flagship / then trickle down" model used by a lot of manufacturers becomes less-welcome in the marketplace.

 

Unknown how they'll respond, but I'm guessing several will.

 

I believe there's a reasonable chance (although, perhaps not a short-odds chance yet) that many sectors, including music technology, will be forced to innovate and change. And whenever a business sector is forced to innovate, respond, react and change, there will be winners and there will be losers.

 

Personally, my answer is unequivocally, "Prices are too high for me." But that because almost all of my desire for new music gear purchases has evaporated. My thinking has been influenced by some of the threads here (like the Neon Vines threads), asking me to reconsider what's necessary to make music and why I want to make music in the first place. Couple that with the reminder how quickly external factors can affect income, cash position and liquidity, and hold that up against the retail price of new keyboards, and the desire for yet another piece of music equipment is exposed to the bright light of perspective.

..
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TimWat makes some good points about globalization 2.0, but it triggered reactions from having seen so many dystopian sci-fi shows that quite often postulate that a major shift happens in this century, within 20-60 years. Whether it's climate catastrophy, big companies / oligarchs taking over government or whatnot- my point is that we may well be in a golden age and we don't know it. Technology has matured to the point where we have somewhat-affordable music tools / toys that are miraculous and a total bargain compared to even just 50 years ago. From this perspective, it's not whether the +$3k boards are affordable, it's how much time we have left in this bubble, this era.

Numa Piano X73 /// Kawai ES920 /// Casio CT-X5000 /// Yamaha EW425

Yamaha Melodica and Alto Recorder

QSC K8.2 // JBL Eon One Compact // Soundcore Motion Boom Plus 

Win10 laptop i7 8GB // iPad Pro 9.7" 32GB

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My guess is that in the next 5 years we'll see more high end controllers that are seamlessly integrated with either a laptop or an ipad, and that'll be more than half of the high end market, but coming in at closer to $1,500-$2,500.

 

Companies like Korg and Roland who already have lots of apps, will develop a platform for the iPad. Only apps that meet a particular standard that Korg / Roland dictates will work with the controller, and the integation will be flawless, hopefully to the same reliability as high end boards have now. No need for AUM or Camelot Pro to make individual apps work together. And hopefully not just with Korg / Roland apps, it'd need to be open to any music making app that meets the standard.

 

With my limited experience, at this point I'm not eager to develop a controller/computer system. I want something that comes close to the integrated hardware/screen size/advanced sound engine of todays top boards.

 

 

Personally I'd love such a development. For example, there'd no longer be so many compromises in keyboard action, you'd find a controller that fits your needs, for $1,000- $1,500 less than todays top boards, and be more capable and future expandable than anything on offer now.

Numa Piano X73 /// Kawai ES920 /// Casio CT-X5000 /// Yamaha EW425

Yamaha Melodica and Alto Recorder

QSC K8.2 // JBL Eon One Compact // Soundcore Motion Boom Plus 

Win10 laptop i7 8GB // iPad Pro 9.7" 32GB

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I believe we were already heading in that direction. Even the price Roland are charging for their new Fantom is an anachronism.

Soon enough, we'll see the most expensive of them sell for not more than $2500.

After all, it's more and more about software, not about hardware.

Even Apple will budge (and already does as the iPhone SE shows).

Let's just hope the special ones (like Sequential) will survive.

Yes, and for all the people burned by Roland with the Fantom G, etc., making parts unavailable for older boards, etc., many people would not be inclined to trust Roland to have follow-thru, even with a top-of-the-line board

Numa Piano X73 /// Kawai ES920 /// Casio CT-X5000 /// Yamaha EW425

Yamaha Melodica and Alto Recorder

QSC K8.2 // JBL Eon One Compact // Soundcore Motion Boom Plus 

Win10 laptop i7 8GB // iPad Pro 9.7" 32GB

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I am cautious about 'predicting the future ' because I am not directly aware of anyone who has that ability

or has a large degree of accuracy.

I agree it could be all about software and platform integration.

 

FWIW, I suck at predicting the stock market, for example.

 

Anyway, I think its difficult enough to predict the next 2- 6 months.

 

That was part of my focus in my O/p,

what is lining up , economically, and the impact that might

have on Roland [ $4000 Fantom ], Korg [ $3700 ] Kronos,

Yamaha Montage [$3999].

 

2 folks did respond to that part in my O/p.

 

If anyone else has an opinion, on the next 2-6 months, I am interested.

Why fit in, when you were born to stand out ?

My Soundcloud with many originals:

[70's Songwriter]

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Synths are cheap. It's the real estate to use & store them that gets expensive! A Kronos 88 at $4k is still a good value - assuming you need that kind of capability. The difference between 9 years ago and now is the mid range stuff has gotten better. So if you don't need the kitchen sink, you can spend less. Just because K has been around for 9 years doesn't mean Korg should just drop the price.

 

That is a fair point about asking price vs selling price, but I've seen sales well above 50% of retail. I just did a quick Ebay search and found a used Mojo Dual with the trolley bag that sold for $1800 plus shipping in February. You can get both new at Sweetwater for under $2700 delivered (when they start receiving stock again).

 

Edit: Looks like that sale fell through because the seller re-listed it - or listed another one just like it. This may not be the best example, but I've been looking for a used Mojo 61 and they seem to consistently sell for $1100 or more ($1499 retail), but the only sale in the Ebay history I see now is an open box for $1295 plus shipping from a music shop in NYC.

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First off, I"m not going to do another take of 'Once upon a time we were all grateful to pay $4k in early 1980s dollars for a Prophet or an OB we then lugged to the gig barefoot in the snow uphill both ways and on good days it actually stayed in tune so don"t complain about a Kronos that's $4k in today's dollars now get off my lawn.'

 

It"s certainly true that in real dollars, hardware synths, stage pianos, workstations, organs, and other keyboards are giving us more functionality than ever before. It"s also true that on the customer end, it can be frustrating to see a product line in the $3-4k range squeezing everything it can out of roughly the same development platform for five, seven, or more years. I don"t really have an argument about whether or not modern keyboards are too expensive, but I present a few factoids that should factor into defining what 'too expensive' means.

 

Over the past let"s say three decades, our expectations about what any technology product should do for the money have shifted to being set by the pace of mainstream consumer devices: computers, smartphones, etc. This was not the case in the first golden age of synthesizers, when we tended to evaluate products sui generis and by what they would enable us to do. The pace of consumer R&D is in turn driven by sales that are exponentially greater than any product in the music instrument and pro audio industries.

 

For example, the Korg M1 is widely recognized as the best-selling synth in history. It sold approximately 250,000 units new. A quarter million. That"s it, and it"s a milestone that"s still part of the corporate culture if you work at Korg. Before that the Yamaha DX7 held the title at around 140,000 units. By contrast, Apple shipped roughly 36.4 million iPhones in the first quarter of 2019. This enables sourcing parts at volume discounts the M.I. industry can"t even begin to dream of.

 

Hardware keyboards have tight profit margins. To account for the entire chain â from sourcing parts to engineering to manufacturing to distribution to marketing to retail fulfillment â the rule of thumb for determining the price of a new instrument is 4x to 5x the bill of materials. If M.I. companies came out with new-and-improved models at the pace of iPhones or Samsung Galaxies, keyboards would be significantly more expensive. (Love "em or hate "em, Behringer is an outlier that seems to be trying to rewrite this equation. I don"t want to get into a debate about their business ethics here, but I would guess that their prices aren"t solely due to appropriating existing I.P. Something about supply chain and manufacturing efficiencies is definitely going on.)

 

Music software that runs on consumer devices has also raised our expectations, and is a less involved to develop because there is no bill of materials. Some instrument hardware makers have turned this into an advantage to give us more for our buck. Most rackmount digital mixers, for example rely on an iPad or Android tablet as the control surface, and while pianos like the Casio Privia PX-S3000 don"t require a connected app, one is available that makes controlling the thing a lot deeper and more convenient. The Yamaha Clavinova CSP is designed around the assumption you"ll plop an iPad on the music rack as the control panel. Why transfer the cost of a touchscreen to your customers (again, at 4x to 5x) when tons of them already own one?

 

Okay, that"s a bit of an aside, but the point is that there is a disconnect between our current expectations and the realities of manufacturing hardware for a comparatively small market. It may sound like I"m just shilling for the manufacturers here, but that"s not my intention. I would also caution that if sales slumped, yes, we might see blowout prices on existing gear, but R&D of newer, shinier, more powerful stuff would decrease.

 

Don"t get me wrong. 'Too expensive' is a perfectly legitimate description of the frustration of a talented, aspiring gigster looking at a flagship instrument whose price is more than the credit limit of all their plastic combined. I was that guy well into my 20s, and when I got a $1,500 loan in 1995 to buy a used Kurzweil K2000 â my first real upgrade since my DX7 â it was a BIG deal. To them I"d say that a company's mid-market offerings, e.g. MODX vs Montage, offer most of what matters about the flagship version for half the price or less. In the case of Yamaha I say this with particular confidence as I reviewed one, then the other.

 

If there"s anything resembling a takeaway from all my rambling, it"s that musicians on a budget should begin with what they want to do and what sounds they want to make. Whether it"s a slab workstation or a MIDI controller and the instruments that came with the iPad version of GarageBand, something exists within your purchasing power that will be realistic, expressive, and impressive across multiple sound categories (synth, organ, orchestral, piano, Rhodes, etc.). And I don't think that was nearly as much the case even just 25 years ago.

Stephen Fortner

Principal, Fortner Media

Former Editor in Chief, Keyboard Magazine

Digital Piano Consultant, Piano Buyer Magazine

 

Industry affiliations: Antares, Arturia, Giles Communications, MS Media, Polyverse

 

 

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https://www.yamaha.com/en/ir/publications/pdf/an-2019e.pdf

 

Yamaha corp 2019 financials.

 

Go to page 100, for Yamaha's P & L

 

gross margin is 42 % of sales . A very healthy figure.

SG& A is 29% of sales. Which seems high. The notes suggest an outlier contributing to SG&A

 

Operating income is 13% of sales. A good result.

 

I know. Most say ' so ? ". And Reading these reports is wonk-ish.

 

While this is obviously big picture consolidated, the organization is successful.

 

The Musical Instrument division is 65% of Yamaha's Sales or sales 'pie'.

 

This might support my assertion that these co's have a healthy margin operating style.

Why fit in, when you were born to stand out ?

My Soundcloud with many originals:

[70's Songwriter]

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They're worth what somebody is willing to pay. Econ 101.

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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https://www.kaijinet.com/jpexpress/default.aspx?f=company&cf=financial_statement&cc=7944

 

I am hesitant to analyze Rolands 2014 statements. Aged info, and I recall some re-org they did.

 

Anyway, FWIW , Rolands margins were stronger than Yamaha's , in the above post.

Why fit in, when you were born to stand out ?

My Soundcloud with many originals:

[70's Songwriter]

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OT but I think relevant. I started learning about computers when that had 386 chips. By the time I bought my first computer companies were at the end run of pushing 486 chips in their computers. I ended purchasing a Gateway 2000 with a 486 but have no fair for future cause it is upgradeable to a Pentium chip before long. I bought it and did spend the money to upgrade eventually to a Pentium chip. What wasn't told to me was that the busing architecture was not as wide so I would never get the full potential of the Pentium chip. So, looking back of that experience I think I was tricked into buying old technology that seemed like it would be just as good as the newer version.

 

I remember thinking about Korg advertising how revolutionary their Oasys keyboard was suppose to be but it didn't seem to stay around once Kronos hit the market. Then there's Nord. Yeah, you can upgrade sounds but what do you know, Nord comes out with new models with newer memory and other advancements that get owners to loose money on deprecation and upgrade.

 

I'm not an engineer or really know what I'm talking about so please correct any misconceptions I might of left. I no longer have faith in any company that boasts their product is upgradeable.

 

I would love to see Yamaha make the Avantgrand upgradeable since all that is needed is new sound generation. I would dream of day that they offer me a new sound generation that rivals the best VSTs out there. I mean I already have the action and the amplifiation.

AvantGrand N2 | ES520 | Gallien-Krueger MK & MP | https://soundcloud.com/pete36251

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With regard to the Yamaha and Roland financial reports cited, yes, great research about how the companies are doing overall. I"d like to point out, though, that these reflect the performance of the entire companies (well, the Yamaha one looks like just the musical instrument company, not Yamaha Motors). Given the thread topic, I was focusing on the manufacturing costs and profit margins of keyboards â in particular, slab keyboards meant for professional studio and stage use. Being the largest musical instrument maker in the world, Yamaha makes a lot of other things that have different margins, such as school band instruments, pro orchestral acoustic instruments, grand pianos, home digital pianos, guitars, commercial audio consoles, and so on. I can't give you chapter and verse here, but all those figure into that 42% gross margin. Similarly, I"m guessing Roland"s numbers reflect their business across all the instruments they make, not to mention their video and DGA (printers, 3D printers, etc.) divisions. Within the 'stuff you"d buy at GC or Sweetwater' subset of Roland, I"ll tell you a secret: The V-Drums positively carry everything else in that category on their shoulders margin-wise.

 

The sorts of keyboards we take to the gig and prop on an X-stand are, in business terms, the young Harry Potter living underneath the stairs of any company that makes them alongside other, higher-margin items. And in terms of resources allocated to design new stuff to a certain price point, any sane company is going to expect each business unit or product category to earn its keep. I"m shooting entirely from the hip at this point, but it ain"t like Yamaha is going to subsidize synthesizers with saxophones. A double whammy is, again, our expectations: Synth enthusiasts and early adopters are always on the lookout for more-better-different, so the whole field is R&D intensive even as its sales are tiny. (I"m not saying it"s bad to be that way. I"m totally that way. What the heck else am I here for?) That's not necessarily true of the customer who simply wants a nice, high-quality electric guitar or acoustic piano with which they connect emotionally.

 

Sidebar: 16251 mentioned the Korg Oasys. IMHO it was a case study in folks not being willing/able to pay for the project studio Orgasmatron we all wanted in 2005: Multiple synthesis engines? Multi-track audio hard disk recording built in? Then-huge touchscreen? Stephen Kay's generative KARMA stuff? It was a freakin" baby Synclavier, only a lot newer and cheaper and more NCC-1701D than 1701A. Still, it only sold 3000 units worldwide and was discontinued after four years â because it cost eight grand. Korg smartly realigned most of its technology into the Kronos, which had form factor, materials, and pricing in line with market-standard workstations ... which, of course, are still considered expensive.

 

Anyway, tweet version of main point: Manufacturers may indeed have healthy margin figures to report, but electronic pro keyboards are almost certainly not the main thing driving that.

Stephen Fortner

Principal, Fortner Media

Former Editor in Chief, Keyboard Magazine

Digital Piano Consultant, Piano Buyer Magazine

 

Industry affiliations: Antares, Arturia, Giles Communications, MS Media, Polyverse

 

 

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I am cautious about 'predicting the future ' because I am not directly aware of anyone who has that ability

or has a large degree of accuracy.

...

Anyway, I think its difficult enough to predict the next 2- 6 months.

 

That was part of my focus in my O/p,

what is lining up , economically, and the impact that might

have on Roland [ $4000 Fantom ], Korg [ $3700 ] Kronos,

Yamaha Montage [$3999].

..

.

 

In a free world where people have fun and markets thrive in peace, there's a different economy than the social behavior of people awaiting partaking in a world dominion scheme with their peers. I have no idea what those high end workstations (not exactly the same kind) are going to do, price-wise. Artificially priced is a part of that type of products, in normal competition, I guess people would find those items priced way high for hot electronics products. Then again, that's not entirely what they are, just a little utterance of those manufacturers indicating they understand innovation should be part of their business, but there isn't that much of it there, I think.

 

The jazz coming together in electronics for musical instruments is destroyed by the modernistic commie way of driving everthing grand down to the level of whoring "awesome" (bit different pronunciation..) but actually meaning " look at me taking this tech scene for a ride". Good electronicists don't like that and prefer to work in freedom, without an everlasting need to keep clients of their products and gadgets and stuff in between on the straight and narrow as if they're politicians where in fact they like to play around with their interesting analog and digital strife.

 

Software appears to be a dead end without digital signal processing expertise that actually goes somewhere, sound-wise. I just got my fast windows 10 pro PC to get to windows update 1903 IIRC just to run a certain program, and the amount of hoops and nuisance is a good indication of the idea of software engineering having come to a full drag indeed, there's that spirit that quite killing, too. So a lot of musical stuff that gets 'discussed' often essentially I don't think is going to acquire more momentum no matter who does procuring, by now.

 

I do believe there's great music and a good feel about advanced, complicated, and high tech instruments possible, but the people with the important knowledge simply haven't invested that in IT cubilce people or a bunch of deluded new age power greedy b*tches, unfortunately for the world.

 

So I feel those instruments aren't bloated as far as that they can make *some* music and have *some* appeal to but nerd and pro musicians, but who needs top notch musical tools in terms of winning certain competition tools. Maybe the Commodores needed a Prophet 5 to make new hits in the 70's ? Possibly Jeam Michel Jarre would be creatively stuck in the early 80s if there weren't any samplers with bigger memory coming out ?

 

Seriously...

 

Theo V

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its great posting with you Stephen. I know the #'s are the mixed bag of everything.

It would be ideal to find the internal reporting of the keyboard groups, for example.

 

Just the same, its fact that the Musical Instruments Business is 65% of Yamaha's

entires Sales 'pie '.

 

Thus my reasoning , is that group is the primary driver

of gross margin and SG & A and ultimately, operating income.

 

To clarify, for everyone, we are talking factory, the manufacturer, not retail.

 

Retail is razor thin or close to it.

 

What I know about these organizations is that there is a variety of internal bonus incentives

to maintain performance , hit goals and exceed annual business targets.

 

Teams and individuals are incentivized to not only increase sales, but to achieve profitable

sales, to increase gross margins, to decrease costs, to strike better deals with supply chain.

 

There is significant internal competition to be the rock star of achievement, to stand out,

to be recognized by your peers at the annual sales event, where top performers are called

on stage , for over performing, being the best, while 500 peers are cheering you, recognizing you, etc

 

I would be surprised if the internal keyboard group was motivated to achieve razor thin, tight margins,

lets say a little better than break even. From my direct experience, with electronics co's, its all about

top line sales, improving margins year over year, and driving down costs.

Why fit in, when you were born to stand out ?

My Soundcloud with many originals:

[70's Songwriter]

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Fun posting with you, Theo.

 

The philosophy of music production is a big deal.

 

A variety of marketing tactics and sponsoring. Often, lots of noise.

 

And lots of imitation. Co A does this. Co B comes along, and says "nice, but my co does it better "

 

I like all the competition in music production. The 3 Big Dogs, the boutique keyboard cos, the app creators, the Keyscapes,

the platforms guys [ Ableton] , the various VST entrepreneurs, the interesting start up alternative co's like Roli.

 

There is something for everyone. At almost any price.

Note my O/p was not about " cheapest best music production rig '.

 

I was mostly picking on the Big Dogs with their Flagship pricing.

Especially, if the gear is mature in the marketplace for some years.

 

we can respectfully disagree what the Big Dogs ' could ' do.

If they were motivated to do so.

 

Maybe we will see a pricing change in that flagship/premium space over the next 2-6 months.

 

Its been locked in for some years.

Why fit in, when you were born to stand out ?

My Soundcloud with many originals:

[70's Songwriter]

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Profit margins matter if you're buying stocks. If you're buying a keyboard, the profit margin by which it was made is irrelevant. You won't have that information, and even if you did, you can't use it to bargain with the retailer.

 

The statement "X is too expensive" only is meaningful if you add "compared to "Y." "Y" can be a number of things, such as: production costs, historic cost, your budget, or costs of alternative ways to achieve the same goal.

 

For me, the most interesting "Y" variables to talk about are the ones with the largest subjective component. Is a workstation too expensive given what you can do with a midi controller and software? Fascinating subject, but everyone will have their own answer depending on their requirements. And all those answers are true and valid.

Gigging: Crumar Mojo 61, Hammond SKPro

Home: Vintage Vibe 64

 

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Profit margins matter if you're buying stocks. If you're buying a keyboard, the profit margin by which it was made is irrelevant. You won't have that information, and even if you did, you can't use it to bargain with the retailer.

 

The statement "X is too expensive" only is meaningful if you add "compared to "Y." "Y" can be a number of things, such as: production costs, historic cost, your budget, or costs of alternative ways to achieve the same goal.

 

For me, the most interesting "Y" variables to talk about are the ones with the largest subjective component. Is a workstation too expensive given what you can do with a midi controller and software? Fascinating subject, but everyone will have their own answer depending on their requirements. And all those answers are true and valid.

 

Disagree on a few points you made. Here is why:

 

Knowledge is power.

 

Being analytical and scrutinizing #'s , understanding whats what , is a sound skill to have

and apply not only for a keyboard purchase but all purchases.

 

When you as a buyer, convey business knowledge to the seller, it can be effective.

 

Example- I bought my Kronos 9 years for $2975. My retailer made 8% on the sale.

We then had a productive conversation on the Korg margin.

 

IOW, showing knowledge/scrutiny of all the #'s led to acquiring more knowledge.

 

It can be explained as a healthy curiosity of whats going on the behind the scenes.

 

This is the way I operate. Its time well spent IMO.

Why fit in, when you were born to stand out ?

My Soundcloud with many originals:

[70's Songwriter]

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Profit margins matter if you're buying stocks.
I would expand this to "the expectation that future profit margins matter...".

 

For example, Amazon became HUGE because investors believed in their future potential.

 

 

digressing from the topic, as we often do. I worked for Sun Micro. we sold Amazon its server platform

1995-1997.

 

I thought Bezos was a little crazy with his ' vision' back then. He is crazy brilliant as most of us know.

Why fit in, when you were born to stand out ?

My Soundcloud with many originals:

[70's Songwriter]

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The challenge for the big hardware workstations would be to

 

* Do stuff a computer doesn't do (low latency, reliable module connects), or PC software somehow magically doesn't get tuned to do well, ever, possibly through a lack of knowledge

 

* Supply significantly more power than a computer manages to harness, Dsp power, Fpga power, dedicated device power

 

* Provide interfaces and software components which do not easily or at all become available for PC users

 

So is the extra service and power and sound or the high end workstation competative with lower ranking keyboards and all kinds of Windows/Mac/Linux software plugs? Some people suggest in the end it might be a matter of sitting on some secret software modules and build a PC in a keyboard with the most exclusive wood polish.

 

I thought it was a good question Greg, where the who high end market is going, and, honestly I believe the real hidden leadership is a lot of engineering power never getting used to make an Open Source (now, I didn't necessarily see free) Kronos OS for a generic Linux PC with some Xilinx U50 Fpga board on it's PCIx, maybe at some point there will be better access to Dsp power that can produce A level digital sound, I'd like that.

 

Real analog isn't tuening into someone who knows what they're doing making a $1000 form accurate board with cheap Smd's sounding like a CS80, and maybe that's fine. Maybe we don't want a Montage, but an SY999!

 

T.

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Technology has matured to the point where we have somewhat-affordable music tools / toys that are miraculous and a total bargain compared to even just 50 years ago. From this perspective, it's not whether the +$3k boards are affordable, it's how much time we have left in this bubble, this era.

 

If things are priced high, wait for a sale. Got a new 88 K2 few years ago Black Friday for $2250 from PAS. Seemed like a reliable board aside from keyboard problems which I did encounter, returned and got a new replacement with no issues.

Another view of time left in this bubble is denying yourself something per your life expectancy. I've tuned pianos for old people who love piano in beautiful homes with enough resources playing on a beater at the end of its life.

I tell them why deny yourself. Go get a new piano. As the saying goes you can't it with you.

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Another view of time left in this bubble is denying yourself something per your life expectancy. I've tuned pianos for old people who love piano in beautiful homes with enough resources playing on a beater at the end of its life.

I tell them why deny yourself. Go get a new piano. As the saying goes you can't it with you.

 

I agree with you sentiment. Its a segueway, philosophically, from the O/t.

 

Using myself as an example, I am 67. Having a great time with music.

 

I figure I will keep rolling along, improving slightly for another 10 years.

 

Just the same, its a life habit to be careful , and not throw Benjamins around just because

I have it and/or I might die next year.

 

IOW, I think understanding one's life time horizon is a useful internal discussion.

 

Plus, its not all about me and what I want today.

 

Have a wife and a household

and other non music financial goals to consider.

Why fit in, when you were born to stand out ?

My Soundcloud with many originals:

[70's Songwriter]

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I only regret purchases I made way back in the day that the electronics failed and made them useless. Including amps. 2K on a Arp Omni hurts thinking about it since I had it 'fixed' more than once and don't know what to do with it besides some other junk laying around.
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Seems like the prices have always been around what they are now. So it's possible considering inflation that even the more expensive boards are cheaper than they used to be.

 

I recall as a teenager going into a music store and having a Korg Polysix just cause my eyes to bug out and my jaw to drop. I ended up with a Moog Rogue LOL...that Polysix was WAAAAYYY out of my price range at the time, want to say it was well over 2,000 bucks. My first "real" keyboard was a Roland JX-10, which was over 2K in the mid 80s when I got it.

 

I started buying used (from Guitar Center years ago) and the deals are great...however, I've had some issues with a couple of used keyboards, and these days I would go new. I sort of regret my MODX7, I go back and forth between thinking it's one of the best boards ever and not liking it :) Right now it's more on the "don't like it" side since I have to use it as a controller for my software, and the action is the worst thing about it.

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My focus was on the recent flag ship boards by Korg and Yamaha and Fantom.

 

I find it interesting that Kronos has held steady with its $3700 price for 9 years.

 

" " Yamaha " " " $3900 price for 4 years

 

" " Roland Fantom was priced at $ 3999 when announced last October.

Why fit in, when you were born to stand out ?

My Soundcloud with many originals:

[70's Songwriter]

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Buying used gear has its advantages.

 

In the last 48 hours, I sold two keyboards (XW-P1 & MS-20 Mini) at attractive prices and hopefully made both new owners very happy. Both sold on eBay in a few hours. Neither keyboard had much value to me and making someone else happy was worthwhile.

 

I'm probably not the only person to do that.

Steve Coscia

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