TommyBoy

I used to buy these special Continental road bike tires from some company in the UK. Pro Bike Kit or something like that. The tires sold for $70 each here in the US but were $60 a pair at their shop. No added fees or expensive shipping. I'd order 4 at a time and was always shocked they showed up in a few days in perfect condition. I browse Thomann a lot and have seen many posts asking about them on various forums. The feedback is almost universally positive. Some of their prices are so much lower than ours here in the states.

I'd guess $3K to build it, $6K to the dealers, doubling their money on every sale, and the dealers selling it for $8K to the consumer. Dealer shaves a couple hundred bucks off and throws in some kind of value-add exclusive sound sets or accessory to differentiate themselves from Sweetwater. But who knows? All my experience is with high tech and not musical instruments.

Well, as a professional accordionist for the past 40 years I'm obviously interested in the product. I've had the Roland FR-8X for a decade and just love the thing. Whether or not this Korg, designed by the same folks that visualized the FR-8X, can provide enough modern value-add at $8000 to make us switch is yet to be seen. Supposedly the pre-orders are strong, and only a handful of folks have them already. That could be because they produced 50 for immediate shipment and there are 60 outstanding orders, or it could be because it's a necessary void that needed to be filled by one of the Big Three now that the Roland is old tech. There are a couple of flashy really incredible professional accordionists that are onboard and somewhat sponsored by Korg and fully endorse the product. But to me, it doesn't mean much. It's like Jordan Rudess sponsoring any new keyboard. Meh. I'll wait and see what the plebes can do with it first. The price is just outrageous to me. We're talking about $8600 with taxes and I don't see a lot of improvement over the $5000 Roland FR-8X I purchased in 2015. Maybe inflation dollars to dollars it's on par with the Roland, but what is the incentive to make the switch? I'm glad to see Korg hop into this world, but I liken it to somebody coming out with a really, really cool digital banjo.

Also Korg: Korg Fisa Suprema Digital Accordion Just Released. US $8000.

I think most accordionists are a bit older and not technologists. There are all these incredible features of modern workstations that are never discussed. Polyphonic Aftertouch, Seamless Sound Switching, Analog modeling engines, FM synthesis engines, and many, many more. So if you're going to charge $8000 for it, incorporate all of that. Get an OLED touchscreen in there. Have it do something, anything, that is revolutionary. But they don't. They use old sounds, old technology, and the consumer is supposed to jump up and down in joy over the fact that it's a digital accordion. There's all this discussion about the massive amount of R&D that goes into a digital accordion simulating the bellow pressure of an acoustic accordion. Well, Roland did that over a decade ago and it was pretty darn successful. Took eight years to improve that? I've argued incessantly that if you're going to have it cost $8000 then at least make the accordion sounds the best that have ever been heard. And - they're average at best. Most videos concentrate on somebody playing some movie theme. I guess most of the Old Guard hasn't heard that kind of thing before and think it's the Bees Knees. And now there's talk about 3rd party customized sound sets becoming available from the start. This is a hilarious concept, as we're talking about users that turn down the reverb on a sound, pair it with another sound and match it to a bass register they like and call it a "customized set". And people buy these. These aren't Easy Sounds from-scratch original sounds - they're edited parameter savings of factory sounds. Arghhhhh. For $8K, let's have the sounds be top of the line and the sets set up correctly for the majority of gigging accordionists. This costs the same as a new Montage M8x and Korg Nautilus together. In the land of the blind, the cyclops reigns supreme.

I don't disagree with you. I'm on an accordionist forum and this new Fisa is the talk of the Digital Forum. It's Luigi's baby and he was apparently responsible for the development of the instrument and bringing it to the masses. That forum is just gushing over the capabilities of this thing. Of course the last flagship digital accordion was Roland's FR-8X and it's a decade old now. I love mine and play it every day. But something is missing from this Korg. I too find the sounds almost GM-like. I'm comparing them of course to my Montage M8x and there's no comparison. It's not even close. There are a bunch of videos out there of people playing violin, guitar, theatre organ, etc. on it and not one of them is impressive. My S90ES had better sounds 20 years ago. To further muddy the waters, this instrument is selling for $8000 US. That's a chunk of change for sub-rate sounds and capabilities. So far most of the demos concentrate on such unique features as aftertouch and a gyro component where you can lean left, right, or forward and have the sound change. Mesmerizing. Edit: Meant to add - The Fisa has been EIGHT years in development. And Myron Floren wouldn't ever play one LOL!

I have a Montage M8x and bought a pair of Yamaha HS8 monitors during Black Friday last year for $400 or so for the pair. The bass thumps, the pianos are incredible sounding, brass and other orchestral sounds are crystal clear. These monitors get panned often when compared to the higher-end (and sometimes even lower-end) choices out there but for me, they're great and I've never looked back.

Agreed. Those are the two recommendations I would make. I have a Roland BK-7M. Roland discontinued them a few years ago and the used price has gone up quite a bit. $US 1000+ but a solid piece of equipment. I've looked at the Ketron modules recently. I owned an SD-9, or maybe even an SD-90 external Ketron arranger module years ago and the sounds were excellent. Their current offerings are EXPENSIVE. External arranger modules appear to be going extinct. Very few choices.

Thanks for replying Steve. Ensoniq sent two employees to the music store. One had a mustache and at 17 I was impressed by anybody that could grow a mustache! I figured he must be an adult or something. They were extremely knowledgeable and really spent time answering questions. 75% of it went right over my head. I ended up purchasing the Mirage a couple days later mostly based upon the company and the fact they'd spend time with some newbie farm kid accordionist answering keyboard questions. No pretentiousness at all with those guys. I had played with their DX7 for ages and they were probably sick of me coming in and lusting after that poor little keyboard. But it couldn't sample. That was a game-changer and I literally sat on the tractor thinking about all the things I could sample and if they would sound "musical". After getting the Mirage I discovered that most didn't LOL! Good times. I miss those days.

Soundtracker! Sounds very familiar! I think that's the one!

Unbelievably, I may have met you Steve! Did you ever do a demo day in Stockton, California? I can't recall the name of the music store but it was a big one back in the 80's. Ensoniq sent a team of sales/engineers and I spent about an hour with a dozen other folks going through the keyboards. Time has faded my memories as it also could have been the gentleman on the right. I was a young kid around 17 or 18 years old, year would be 1988 give or take a year - or two!

For the life of me I cannot recall which DAW I used for my demo. I've thought about it previously, and can't come up with a name. Neither of the two you mentioned ring a bell. It was probably something extremely simplistic.

Cool stuff. My Senior Project in Engineering was creating a MIDI interface between my Commodore Amiga 500 and Ensoniq Mirage. I ended up getting an A on the project mainly because during my demonstration the audience of engineers was fascinated by the sounds coming out of the Mirage! Showmanship vs Competence LOL. I loved that keyboard. The amount of hours I spent sampling EVERYTHING into it was some of the most organic fun I've ever had musically. I think that was around 1989, 1990? I still have a floppy that I stored a bunch of my creations on. I wonder if I'll ever get to hear them again.

I find it so difficult to make a decision based upon 30 minutes of playing (if you can get that) in a store. When I was researching the Montage M8X I listened to all the demos online and paid close attention to a couple of reviewers I trust a lot. I've had a Yamaha S90ES prior and really like the brand. My main goal was to determine if the action was something I could get along with. For that, it was invaluable that our GC had one on the floor. I was 90% there on the purchase but actually sitting down and playing it for 20 minutes let me know I could live with the action easily. I find all of those environments today to be hostile. Bunch of kids (I'm older now) pounding drums and playing licks on bass guitars and even with my own headphones I just never have felt comfortable. I keep contrasting it to the mid-1980's when music shops were the highlight of my weekend. Of course there was probably some old guy trying in vain to understand an instrument and I was banging away on the lone DX7 for an hour. I sure like to at least try an instrument before I drop $3K+ on it. Sending it back is such a pain.

Muse effect with maybe a touch of the UB-Xa.