I was just thinking here... People are always talking trash about arranger keyboards and how they're just toys and only for kids and not professionals... Well seriously think about this.. If someone wants to write and play jazz, classical, blues, ect, the only keyboards you can really buy for this type of music are ARRANGERS... The synth market doesn't really cater to these types of music anymore.. Today all the synths are being designed primarily for dance, hip hop, and teenie bobber music.. The Tritons, Rolands, and Yamaha synths don't seem to have the punch they used to have in sound quality. The makers don't give a damn about those of us who like to play other styles of music and need good sounds.. Anyone actually try and record a good jazz or country song on a Korg Triton? These new synths are cheesing us out on the acoustic sounds and are focusing more on the synth pads and leads. So what are we supposed to do? We shouldn't have to own both arrangers and synths to play and record such basic styles of music. This teenie bopper thing is really effecting the quality of keyboards available to us today.. I honestly think the best synth I've heard so far that can be used for other styles is the Yamaha Motif.. That keyboard at least has some of the 9000 pro voices on it. One synth I used to own came out when the teenie bopper craze was just getting out of control. This was a great synth made by Yamaha but would you believe that when I got this thing (that was advertised as a serious workstation), it was actually missing basic instruments like violins, cellos, harmonicas, and wood winds....??? This thing was crap when it came to writing music other than hip hop, dance, techno, pop, and rap. The only way to get those instruments you had to load in the GM sound set off a disk (which took up sample memory, and it all wouldn't even fit unless you had the keyboards sample memory expanded....) Is there anyone else out there using a newer synth other than AJ (who owns the Motif), that is using it for jazz and so forth?

Squeak