One of the things that interests me the most in our arranger keyboards, is the way or the techniques that we use to make the accompaniment of a song. In other words, what we do with our left hand when playing a song.

Most of the time I play in split mode, with the automatic accompaniment using three or four fingers to trigger the chord, and let the arranger play the automatic bass line.

That is quite enough for most of my entertainment acts, that do not require significant variations of this basic technique. But at home I like to experiment other playing styles that allow me to be less automatic/canned ("human" bass lines, left hand comping...) and practice richer harmonies. Therefore I'm willing to know how do you guys use the LH when you deviate from this simple technique. And what are the advantages over the basic scheme?

I'm also interested in knowing if different brands of arrangers allow different playing techniques. I only seriously explored Ketron keyboards, and I'm primarily interested in the top of the line models. My present Ketron (X4) has limitations regarding rootless chord recognition (improved in newer models) and manual bass lines (also improved with the bassist feature in newer models). The variety of playing styles allowed, will be my #1 priority in my next keyboard purchase.

Just to give an example of a precise question, when you want to play a measure of a song with D7/A (D7 chord with A bass) how do you achieve it with your keyboard? In the Ketron I use the feature "To Lowest" that makes the automatic bass play the bass line around the lowest note of the chord and not around the root the chord. So choosing the right inversion of a chord allows me to get the right effect... unless the bass note is not IN the chord. How do approach this in your instruments?

Thanks in advance for your input on this subject!

-- José.