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Who leads keyboard development ?


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To start of with, I have a double angle on the subject, making me a bit biased in the opinion of some, maybe more objective in other ways. Nevertheless, it wasn't uninteresting to have a long look at the analog(ue) and digital modern music instrument making industry. That's a double negative, I suppose not neat. But harder to say is that I had to find it interesting to follow some of the key persons and "movement" around the subject to get a decent idea about things at a level my internal Electrical Engineer and Scientist can handle.

 

I worked on my Kurzweil sound I've talked about a few times lately, and now get sounds I like, and probably will have a definitive setup (in a literal sense too) where my "rig" produces sounds I can work with and feel ok about. Now, that could be the result of random hobby activity combined with the sense of "enough is enough". But no: in my case I knew enough about sound since the 80s to know what I look for and what I do no want, so it's a leadership question automatically to wonder why I alone would have the desire for sounds I like. Either I'm an extreme person with extreme musical taste, or the consensus could be that people don't give good sounds away in musical instruments..

 

I would be logical to think some of the main names in synthesis and digital signal processing are responsible for the little locomotives we all use to make music with, so there's people like the early synthesis inventors, famous digital equipment makers, well known artists and producers making use of an array of available studio technology.

 

My conclusion is that a lot of time has been spent putting the "good sound" quest down under a burden of oppression, with or without the good reason of not letting a lot of questionable talent play with the big sound engines . . .

 

T

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I think I know what you're getting at. The simple answer is that in engineering and product design, there are always compromises. The old joke is, of good, fast, and cheap, you can pick two.

 

The other way to look at it is, Great Artists Ship. Eventually you have to stop developing and ship it or you will go broke because you have nothing to sell and have spent all your money working on it.

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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Eventually you have to stop developing and ship it or you will go broke because you have nothing to sell and have spent all your money working on it.

Joe, your remark brought back a memory.

 

In 1987, after more than a year of R&D, alpha testing, beta testing and endless tweaking, Bruce Crockett, Ensoniq's CEO, personally walked through every department and firmly proclaimed, "It's time to ship this product." He put the hammer down. And soon thereafter the ESQ-1 hit the streets.

 

That was among the many moments that I remember with clarity. The ESQ-1 had so much potential and Ensoniq's engineering team kept discovering new features to develop with endless abandon. Amidst all that excitement, someone had to pull the plug.

Steve Coscia

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Eventually you have to stop developing and ship it or you will go broke because you have nothing to sell and have spent all your money working on it.

Joe, your remark brought back a memory.

 

In 1987, after more than a year of R&D, alpha testing, beta testing and endless tweaking, Bruce Crockett, Ensoniq's CEO, personally walked through every department and firmly proclaimed, "It's time to ship this product." He put the hammer down. And soon thereafter the ESQ-1 hit the streets.

 

That was among the many moments that I remember with clarity. The ESQ-1 had so much potential and Ensoniq's engineering team kept discovering new features to develop with endless abandon. Amidst all that excitement, someone had to pull the plug.

Cool story, Steve. Some companies seem to have this down. I'm thinking of Apple, who ships OS updates every year and similarly develops some hardware updates every year. I'm pretty sure those who work on these things are continually coming up with new ideas but with these deadlines they reserve those for the next generation. That being said, it's easier for Apple to do that with their quantities of scale and knowing they still have buyers for those future generations of products. It's much harder of smaller companies like keyboard manufacturers.

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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