Tom,
I didn't know what I was missing, I just felt through the music snobs of workstation vs arranger, that I must be missing the boat, serious composers/real musicians are using workstations, not arrangers.
Once I went into the workstations though Karma and Motif....what I was missing was headaches and frustration.
I'll stick to the arrangers, like my PA 80, I can't forsee me every crossing back over the line to a workstation again, I think they're a lot more hype then value to me.
I find the arranger to be far more inspirational to me and I get a lot more musical work done.
If the workstation snobs want to look down their nose at me for using an arranger, first, I don't care what they think and secondly they're missing the point entirely, it's all about just making music, ie., the end justifies the means. A good tune is a good tune, period. On top of which I think the workstation crowd is being pretty hypocritical. They use overdubbing and whatever is in the bag of tricks on their boards, it's not like they are reinventing music or going out and buying and learning how to play every instrument on the recording. How many of them learn how to play an orchestra full of stinged instruments when they put strings on their cut, from their workstations.....zero. They're using what tools and technology is available to them, the same as we arrangers are. I don't see many of them starting with a bare bones board building every sound they use from scratch, no, like us they push a button and pick a pre done sound too.
OK, I'm done,
Terry