From bruce@ashbysolutions.com Tue Apr 25 11:34:28 2006
Subject:Re: XK-1 vs. XK-3 carried further. (and further...)

Hi Allan,

Interesting outlook on the clone scene. Here are my somewhat damp $0.02 ...

>H/S should be
>studying Yamaha, Korg, or Roland on this issue.
>Information is consistent and readily available on
>various models - most of which are normally in-stock,
>playable, etc. at most dealers.

Unfortunately, I think it has a lot to do with size. Yamaha, Korg, and Roland are all bigger forces in keyboards. While Suzuki is a large company, HAMMOND-Suzuki is a small branch of that giant. Large companies can afford to develop marketing behemoths; small ones have to make do with what they have.

>Interesting point too, Allen, on the popularity of
>clones and the success of competitors. I suspect that
>Roland and Korg will likely be showing new clonewheel
>models in the next year or so...Plus, look at the
>popularity of Nord, N/I B4, etc. - and their products
>continue to evolve...

I wonder if this is going to happen or not. Historically, the tonewheel organ market has been dominated by smaller players since the Hammond Organ Company went under. Clavia (Nord), Native Instruments, and Voce all fall into that domain, as does Hamm-Suz.

The big Japanese companies, OTOH, do not. Korg has a track record of putting out a great Hammond clone -- once every 20 years! And while Roland seems to have come down with a good case of "Hammond fever" in the past 4-5 years, I wonder if the lackluster sales of some of their models (ex: V-Combo) may have given their marketing group second thoughts. Yamaha has stayed out of the area entirely since the late '70s.

Like it or not, our market is a tiny fraction of the keyboard market as a whole. (I'll bet that Roland's advertising budget for the Fantom X line rivals the *development budget* for the VK-series.) For every dedicated clone player, there are 50-100 players who just need two killer "organ solos" per night -- and some of them don't even know what drawbars are. Wouldn't it be better for Roland to take what they've learned in the VK-8, and fold that into their next workstation line? The VK's have been successful, but they didn't steal the entire tonewheel clone market away from Roland's competitors; what business reason do they have to replace them with a newer line?

>And, I know that almost all major manufacturers have
>their 'niche pieces' for markets outside the US. But,
>I find it frustrating that apparently H/S is planning
>on selling the XM-2/XM-2c only in the European market.

This disappoints me, too, for the same reasons. However, given H-S' past record, it wouldn't surprise me if a) it was true, or b) the website is misleading. We'll have to wait a little while to see.

Regards,

-BW

--
Bruce Wahler
Design Consultant
Ashby Solutions™ http://consult.ashbysolutions.com
978.386.7389 voice/fax
bruce@ashbysolutions.com

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