I agree with a lot of what Danny says - There is a lot of convergence nowadays of many features including quality sounds in the top end arrangers. Most of us could use any one of them on our gigs although the availability of some of the functions does vary a little between makes.

He raises a good point about not wanting all songs to sound the same and patterns repeating over longer than four bars along with useable variations of a style help out here.

One of the things that I like use on my XD3 is the Intelligent and dynamic arranger functions - Dynamic just alters the volumes of different accomp voices which differs from voice to voice depending on how you set it up.

But the thing that I like best is the IR (intelligent arranger)part. This feature mutes whichever part or parts of the accomp you first choose when you play the right hand part. It doesnt just stop abruptly but fades. This is great when using big band or latin styles as these can be quite busy with many parts playing in the accomp but when you solo it cuts out (for example) any brass sounds (or whatever you have selected) you have in the accomp. This way you have more controllable variation over the accomp.

Does anyone know if this feature is unique to Ketron or have I missed it on other arrangers?

Regards - Keith