Reconceptualisation of the electronic keyboard and its teaching (II)

Author: Anonymous

Created: 2006 (approx.)

　　Today, after more than twenty years of development, we have seen that the domestic electronic keyboard industry has become a force to be reckoned with in the market, and it has fought for its own share under the heavy squeeze of imported brands.

　　At the end of the 1980s, the number of electronic keyboard manufacturers in China had reached a record high of 114. The initial products were the kind of electronic keyboards that were known as reed organs, whose keyboards were solved by reed switches; voices were generated by analogue filters; and accompaniment styles relied on simple pulse signals to trigger a simple drum generator to be realised. It seems incredible that this kind of electronic keyboard, which is now considered too low-grade even as a toy, has become a popular consumer item among the general public. It is a fact that once upon a time, the domestic Huaxing brand electronic keyboards had a rush in the city's major shopping malls, causing merchants to frequently ask the manufacturers for emergency supplies. This is a good enough thing to make Huaxing people recall fond memories of the past! It is a pity that such a good thing has never favoured electronic keyboards since then. However, this sensational scene soon dissipated. None of these various manufacturers had the ability to develop electronic keyboards controlled by a single-chip computer in the present sense. Reed keyboards alone could not survive, and the principle of the survival of the fittest in the marketplace doomed only the daintiest among them to survive. 到今天为止，在诸多当时的电子琴生产厂家中，真正在市场上形成气候的，唯独华星一家，其余的要么被淘汰，要么始终处于散兵游勇的状态，而目前在市场上显现强劲势头的美得理电子琴，则实实在在是一位后起之秀，它与华星的发展轨迹刚好相反。

　　Let's list the names of a few companies that have or have had a real significance in the electronic keyboard market, which are Huaxing (Shanghai), Deli (Hong Kong), Shihui (Hong Kong), Anda (Guangdong), and Jiahua (Hong Kong). Among them, K. Wah had the earliest start but declined rapidly and is now nowhere to be found. Anda went through many splits and mergers, but never formed a climate, and electronic keyboards are only an occasional product nowadays. Shihui is split into three companies: SBS (which started a new business in Hong Kong to manufacture toy electronic keyboards for export on an OEM basis), Eiffel (said to be manufacturing small home appliances for daily use in Chongming, Shanghai), and Gradual China, of which Gradual China (MULTAK) has gained a leading position in the field of VCD design in China, while its MIDI VCDs can be regarded as an extension of its electronic keyboards. an incipient home appliance development company. Huaxing and Deli are the two major national brands that have confronted the imported brands in the Chinese market, and they deserve our attention, which will be spent on them in this article.

　　I am afraid that Huaxing's name has become synonymous with domestic electronic keyboards to a certain extent, and it has occupied almost half of the domestic electronic keyboard market for quite a long time, although it is not difficult to find out that it has such and such defects; even though it is now being challenged more and more by the strong challenge of Deli, we can't ignore its existence in any case, and we can't deny the contribution that it has made to the Chinese electronic keyboard market in any case. We can't deny its contribution to Chinese electronic musical instruments.

　　In its early days, Huaxing was nothing more than a street collective enterprise, but it has now grown to become a star enterprise in Shanghai's Huangpu district, and its success is largely dependent on its main product, the electronic keyboard. At the beginning of this brand, Huaxing did not have the ability to develop software for electronic keyboards, and it mainly relied on Shihui and Deli to provide it with the main chips, of which Shihui was its main supplier at that time. During the FM audio period, its masterpieces were the H-616 and the H-818, whose audio chip was the H-882 developed by World Fai, and during the PCM audio period, its masterpieces were the H-6000 and the H-6500, which was undoubtedly a more complete and cost-effective product in terms of the product itself. The audio chips of these two products are 9233 and 9407 from French DREAM, and the control software of the products was initially developed by Shihui, but now they have their own alternative software. During the development process of Huaxing, the sound chip of American ENSONIQ was also used, but due to its complicated circuit structure, the production cost increased accordingly, and Huaxing finally gave up this programme, but in the market, Huaxing has a digital piano, which is the only work with this programme, and it is a cost-effective product. In the mid-90's, Huaxing gradually built up a software development team while standing firmly in the market, and began to get rid of the shackles of the film supplier, which enabled it to form an enterprise mode integrating development, production and sales, and thus possessed the low spirit of standing proudly among the domestic electronic keyboards. It sounds like “there is no great general in Shu, but the electronic keyboard is not an allusion, but a reality.

　　Huaxing is a loyal follower of YAMAHA, another meaning of this phrase is that it is always under the shadow of YAMAHA. The functions of Huaxing's products are almost a copy of YAMAHA's, but the copying is superficial; YAMAHA's product functions are based on a set of fine and complete rules, while in contrast, Huaxing's product's operating rules are crude, simple, and have a lot of loopholes, which is only a superficial imitation of YAMAHA's, and far from touching the essence of the product. Surface imitation and in-depth development of a product are two levels of concepts.

　　The voices of Huaxing's electronic keyboards are basically purchased from DREAM, a company that supplies chips to the company, and it does not have the ability to produce its own voices. However, although DREAM's chips have good hardware quality, but because its chips are mainly supplied to the market of multimedia and MIDI VCD, and the requirements for the voices of this kind of products are much lower than those of electronic musical instruments, and DREAM itself doesn't have strong strength in the production of the voices, the voices made by it are much farther away from the requirements of the electronic musical instruments, but it provides a set of voices to the customers. However, it provides a tone production system to its customers. However, because Huaxing did not have its own voices developer, it had to be subjected to the supplier to develop its own voices and concepts. Moreover, since DREAM has been acquired by ATMEL, its development drive has been weakening, making it inevitable for Huaxing to be held back, and the consequences of this can be imagined. Huaxing should understand that there are no standard voices in the world, otherwise there would be no need for pianos and violins of different brands, manufacturers and tastes in the world. The so-called GM standard is only a kind of voices sequence standard, which does not specify the quality of the voices, nor is it possible to do so. However, it is precisely because of the differences in voices and tastes that it is possible to construct one's own concept of timbre, not to mention that music is developing and new voices are being produced all the time, and that the production of voices is a necessary task for every manufacturer of electronic musical instruments.

　　Huaxing also did not have its own regular music staff, making the music materials for its automatic accompaniment styles either provided by the foreigners who placed the orders, or written by some musicians who were not well versed in the essentials and were not skilled in various musical elements themselves, or simply went to Europe to buy some second- or third-rate goods, and these painstakingly collected music materials might not be suitable for its music and cabinets, and Huaxing did not have the ability to adjust them on its own, so that its music quality was not as high as it could be. adjustment ability, so of course its music quality is not guaranteed. And because there is no music staff to design a set of rules for its products to meet the needs of the performance, detailed automatic accompaniment styles running rules, making the product's musical expression greatly reduced. Huaxing should also understand that without the in-depth research of music designers, it is impossible for it to improve its own product taste and form its own music concept and style, and thus its products have no soul.

　　Huaxing insists on its low-priced route in the market, which is the most proud of its strategy, but in our opinion, this is exactly its Achilles' heel, which at least weakens Huaxing's development momentum, because electronic keyboards can never reach the scale of production and sales of TV sets, refrigerators and VCDs, and the low-priced route is tantamount to chronic suicide.

　　As a rising star of domestic electronic keyboards, Medley has shown a strong momentum, and Huaxing's dominance in the domestic electronic keyboard market has been severely challenged, and from this year's market sales, the two brands have formed a pattern of rivalry in the domestic market. From the point of view of development, Metrological has a strong momentum.

　　Metrological brand was founded in the mid-nineties, the company that created this brand is Hong Kong's Deli Electronics Limited, but the company itself can be traced back more than ten years, and now its development centre has been transferred to Shanghai in the mid-nineties, and at the same time, set up a production and sales base in Shenzhen.

　　In the early days of the company, Tetra Tech was mainly concerned with the development of control software and chips for various electrical appliances, with electronic keyboards being just one of the projects. However, one of its most successful products is the MC-3 electronic keyboard chip, which has sold 1 million electronic keyboards with this chip as the core in the world in the form of OEM for various European brands, and has laid a solid foundation for it in the electronic keyboard field. In China, electronic keyboards with MC-3 as the core in various shapes and different packages flooded all major department stores in the country at one time. There was almost no domestic manufacturer of electronic keyboards that did not use this chip, even Huaxing was no exception. At the first National Electronic Keyboard Golden Tone Award, MC-3 electronic keyboards took up almost half of the prize, while the other half was divided by products with chips designed by Jiahua, Shihui, and Anda as their cores, which showed the popularity of MC-3 at that time. Ironically, our experts were able to distinguish various essential differences between the many MC-3 core products, which was laughable.

　　While Huaxing's machine products were in full swing, Tetra Pak was quietly building up its energy, and the brand name of Tetra Pak was the result of that.

　　The success of the MC-3 in the market has given Deli the foundation and determination to develop further in the field of electronic musical instruments, followed by the classic MC-10. If the greatest success of the MC-3 is that it has enabled Deli to take its place in the world's toy piano market, then the MC-10 is a symbol of Deli's entry into the field of professional electronic musical instrument manufacturing. In this product, some of the most specialised musical instruments are available. In this product, the functional framework of some of the most professional performance keyboards and the processing rules of the automatic accompaniment styles were applied in a complete and reasonable manner, even though other brands of domestic electronic keyboards have not yet reached such a high level as that of the MC-10 at that time. Later on, Deli also developed the 9008 tone generator with the same function, and took H-882 instead. At the same time, due to the fierce competition in the market, more than one hundred domestic electronic keyboard manufacturers were left by this time, and the market share began to concentrate on a few brands. The market share began to concentrate on a few few brands, who were the survivors of the competition.

　　Even now, the MC-10 electronic keyboard is still a good introduction to learning how to play the electronic keyboard. Although there have been a number of electronic keyboards with FM tone sources designed by various Hong Kong and Mainland companies since then, none of them have really surpassed the standard of the MC-10, which is a complete and excellent learning keyboard in every respect.

　　In the mid-nineties, the company completed its strategic shift, moving its development centre from Hong Kong to Shanghai, and began to explore and make use of the talent resources in the mainland, while at the same time establishing its own production base in Shenzhen, which is when the brand name of Metrological was created. In the development centre in Shanghai, the music department, which has not been available in other similar companies in China so far, has enabled the development of electronic musical instruments in the field of electronic musical instruments, and has ensured the musical quality of its products, which is a masterstroke of the company, and we have to admire the foresight of the operators: under the condition that the technical standard of each company is more or less the same, the independent disposal and rational use of music resources has undoubtedly enhanced the professional quality of its products. Undoubtedly enhance the professional quality of its products, and with other companies to distance themselves from the product. Their music personnel have conducted meticulous research on the music materials of various imported brands, and have established a complete set of product design specifications with the full co-operation of the engineering department, in which the leading role of the music personnel is obvious and fruitful.

　　At the end of 1995, Deli launched an MC-150 electronic keyboard, which was the first PCM electronic keyboard designed and developed in China, and it had a milestone significance in that it marked the beginning of the PCM stage of domestic electronic keyboards, and it won a large number of export orders for Deli. At the same time, as it was the first PCM sound product, its defects were inevitable, among which the two major fatal weaknesses were rough voices and slow response to accompaniment styles, which were purely due to the lack of technical (both engineering and musical) preparation. At that particular stage in history, however, it was unavoidable.

　　It should be mentioned that the audio source used in the MC-150 was the second-generation 9203 from the French company DREAM, which provided the sound library. However, 9203 was originally designed as a sound source for computer sound cards, and its voices and underlying programmes are mainly suitable for multimedia products, and somewhat reluctant for electronic keyboards, so all the defects of MC-150 are inevitable. I once had the honour to play an Italian SOLTON MS-50 high-level performance piano, using the 9203 sound source, but its voices and the underlying procedures are redesigned and produced by SOLTON's engineers and music staff, making the MS-50 become an outstanding product, so DREAM's products are undoubtedly the quality of the hardware, while its software (including Voices) is much inferior, to use a good DREAM product, transformation is inevitable.

　　After that, DREAM launched its PCM series one after another, among which the PK-7 is a high-grade player instrument with a floppy drive developed and produced in cooperation with GENERAL MUSIC. It is worth mentioning that among the electronic keyboards of the PCM series of Takari, the MC-100 is a product that should be in the same position as the MC-10, and its value lies in the fact that it is not the most high-grade, but it is the most complete in all aspects, and we believe that it is the first choice of learning keyboards among the domestic electronic keyboards.

　　Medley's products have always tried to escape from YAMAHA's shadow, but it often sticks to the technical details of some functions, which makes the programme framework of its products destroyed, and makes them end up being cumbersome and poorly co-ordinated in their functions, and they should pay more attention to the actual needs of playing.

　　Metrological's work on voices has only recently begun, and this work is far-reaching, but they still lack the necessary accumulation and experience to develop their own style and system. It should be clear to the Deloitte staff that the producer of voices is like the conductor of an orchestra, who must integrate the voices of each instrument, and that it is unreasonable to emphasise the voices of any one instrument alone. Music producers have experienced that combining the best voices of YAMAHA with the best voices of ROLAND may not produce the best results. Therefore, the unity of voices is a crucial factor, which is a prerequisite for the formation of a style, and YAMAHA is a successful example in this regard.

　　There is a tendency to simplify the rules of operation of automatic accompaniment styles in the Medley products. Indeed, it is difficult for the average player to quickly appreciate the subtleties of this, and the performance is gradually revealed; YAMAHA's success lies in the fact that it has spared no effort in enhancing the expressiveness of its performance, making its products consistently superior.

　　Medley has not yet reached the point where the design of its automated accompaniment styles is a matter of ease, requiring its musicians to have a continuous process of accumulating and updating musical material, analysing and studying it carefully, and shortening as much as possible the process of imitation of imported products, while in the process of designing, the needs of the performer are still the first thing that should be considered and resolved.

　　The progress made by domestic electronic keyboards is obvious to all, even in the global scale, although it has not yet produced a recognised brand, it still occupies a certain market share in various OEM ways, and domestically, domestic electronic keyboards have formed a rivalry against imported brands in the low and medium-range products. However, there is still a long way to go for domestic electronic keyboards to really complete the leap from quantitative change to qualitative change, and some defects of the products themselves should also be paid full attention to.

　　First of all, the domestic electronic keyboard and other domestic electronic products, as well as no concept of their own, the key technology is still subject to the supply of the film provider, this is because any one of the domestic electronic keyboard design manufacturers do not master the sound source of the forward design capabilities, the algorithm of the voices know nothing about the design of the product function of the design of the lack of creativity, the imitation of imported products is still its guidelines. We know: first-class is based on its own product concept, no conceptual creativity, at best, can only be reduced to second-class.

　　Secondly, in terms of music, they should build up a strong design team, and its music practitioners should complete such three aspects of work: the first is the production of voices, the second is the production of music, and the third is the conceptual planning of functions. They don't need people who can't be called musicians, but rather musicians who are skilled in mastering and applying all kinds of musical elements, and have a fairly high level of technical sensitivity, with the ability to think in terms of both music and engineering. In Europe and the United States, because of their large musical populations and high level of musical fundamentals, the fact that the teaching of popular music has been standardised and scaled up, and the high penetration rate of computers, such personnel are not difficult to find. But in China, constrained by the entire music environment, we may have a certain type of music masters, but such a generalist hardly exists, and our music education is not equipped to cultivate this kind of musical talent, so manufacturers according to their own needs of their own training is almost the only way out. In this respect, Deli is already far ahead and has shown some advantages, but it will take time to achieve a qualitative leap.

　　Thirdly, since the speakers are an important part of the electronic keyboard, they should carry out acoustic research and experiments on the body itself in order to improve its acoustic quality. According to our understanding, this kind of research and experiment is a neglected part in domestic electronic keyboards.

　　For some time, we have been thinking about music education and popularisation, and this article is a result of such thinking. We think that the electronic keyboard should have its corresponding and higher status in our music life, and for our ancient country with a weak music foundation, the role of the electronic keyboard in popularising music should not be underestimated, and it should attract more attention from us.