Yup, I'd go along with that. I'm in the adaptive industry in my day job and I've had several of my clients tell me their estimate of how much I earn. The closest and most conservative estimate was roughly double the real figure. I must confess that, despite being a fairly mild-mannered chap (I hope - back me up George!), I actually lost my temper with one guy who said that, since I'm blind myself and I work where I do, that I was stealing from other blind people. I found this a little hard to take and requested that one of my colleagues deal with this guy in the future to prevent me from saying anything further - I'm not proud of this, but I'm only human. Anyway, this is rapidly heading off-topic, so I'll stop there and carry on doing the best I can with the music stuff in my own time - I'd like to be able to spend more time doing this but my wife insists that I continue to bring home the bacon (grin). I'm meeting with someone in a couple of weeks to discuss the next step along the road, so fingers crossed. Cheers. Tim -----Original Message----- From: ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of W. Nick Dotson Sent: 26 November 2005 21:59 To: ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ddots-l] Re: Accessible keyboards? Right. My point is, and has been, a bunch of wild-eyed or "uneyed" folks screaming about "fairness", "I want", "fabulous riches in the blind marketplace if only you'd only do thus and such" are not going to get us anywhere, in fact, will do the obverse. I certainly understnad impatience, and poured my share of bread into things that sounded just like what I wanted in the store, but the preponderance of what I'd like to be able to do with them is inaccessible... But, I know that industry people by and large are interested in profit formost, and in maintaining a status quo with an upgrade in sales if possible, as desired by their stockholders. It is only by capturing their interest, on a one by one human in a company basis, then, helping their company advocate for our interests, how to see that what they might do to make our lives easier will enhance their revenue stream by playing into the needs of larger demographics their companies sell to, that our advocate will be able to sel our position up the corporate decision-making ladder... I get really impatient with the collective ignorance in our community with respect to how corporate decisions get made, and what their primary goals and interests are, and how to play into them for our own interests. And, it's something I have to do all the time since 1985 when I joined the Adaptive Tech Indrusty, and people started flaming me for selling out, and why couldn't companies producing Adaptive Technology sell their products for less, and on and on and on, with no conception of what it takes to run a company producing hardware or software with a annual revenue base of $15,000,000 with is just big enough to distribute in the US, Europe, South and Central America, and have small scale distribution in Asia and Africa... They, blind end-user's, seem to have the collective delusion that distributors are having their business expenses defrayed by some mechanism in the sky, rather than from a 20% or smaller commission, from whence their income, corporate and personal taxes, and those of their employees must be paid. Then, as prices descended to the $2,900 or lower per unit level, it became impossible for the dealer to distribute 3.5 hours of training per unit, which used to be the norm, without charging the customer, lines of exclusivity broke, and consequently there was no useable feedback mechanism to ensure that mal or non-feasant dealers were punished, and the only thing that mattered was quarterly sales performance and quota attainment... So as prices and profit margins dropped, the dealer had to sell more and leas and less after-sales customer attention could afford to be paid. It is the same in music with the proliferation of "Musician's Friend" "Guitar Center" and other box pushing shops which keep prices down within about 3 brackets, entry-level student models, simi-pro gear, and high-end pro/studio gear... The price points on new offerings never seem to change once determined and prooved out by long-range performance... Nick On Sat, 26 Nov 2005 21:19:29 -0000, Tim Burgess wrote: Hi, I certainly can't object to lots of people trying different ways - we only need to get the result once, after all. The only thing that concerns me is folks thinking that getting a result for their particular favourite piece of kit is the end game - it's not. We want access to every bit of MIDI kit out there. This is a big target in itself, but will still leave the problem of non-MIDI kit, soft synths (although MIDI text out could potentially affect these if we got it through the MMA), etc.. I'm trying to focus my efforts on one target that I understand at the technological level and think is attainable in some kind of sensible time frame and where a means exists to address accessibility industry-wide. If I can make this work then we all win, not just the fortunate few with the resources to afford a Kurzweil (I'm one of the lucky ones here). Cheers. Tim -----Original Message----- From: ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of W. Nick Dotson Sent: 26 November 2005 21:00 To: ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ddots-l] Re: Accessible keyboards? Yeh, I know, just seems some folks are rather thick about the fact that this stuff just doesn't happen over night, and they've got their nickers in a knot... (grin) Nick On Sat, 26 Nov 2005 12:48:39 -0000, Tim Burgess wrote: That's the intention. Cheers. Tim -----Original Message----- From: ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of W. Nick Dotson Sent: 25 November 2005 23:06 To: ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ddots-l] Re: Accessible keyboards? It would appear that Tim is doing exactly that with Yamaha. Nick On Fri, 25 Nov 2005 13:32:38 -0800 (PST), Jay Thompson wrote: Ok so we all aggreed, that a midi channel would be ideal. Good! Now then, will somebody take the step in getting this idea on the table to the manufacturers? Jay Jay Thompson You can do all things through Christ that strengthens you. Phil4:13 __________________________________ Yahoo! Music Unlimited Access over 1 million songs. 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