I don't think any arranger is going to be the best solution for industrial, goth, etc. The premade rythyms won't necessarily lend well toward those styles, but more importantly, your sound palette will be very limited for those styles. An arranger works well for those of us who like to play live, particularly as a solo act. It also works pretty well as a scratch pad for writing songs, especially if you find creating or playing rythyms from scratch to be tedious work. It would be my last choice however for full production from start to finish, especially for the newer and less traditional genres. I have a Korg PA80 arranger, which probably ranks near the top as far as sound editing capabilities in an arranger. I can make some nasty or offbeat synth sounds with it, and program some really cool rythyms to boot. That said, I still find it to be a weak choice for the kind of music you want to make. I dabble with some experimental stuff btw, though I'm no expert at it.

A workstation / synth might work better for production from start to finish. A top flight station has everything inside to produce most genres. You can generally warp and mutilate sounds better than most arrangers will allow you to. Still, these are generally sample based instruments, so creating off beat sounds from scratch is quite possible, but I find it to be tedious work compared to taking an analog synth and making / tweaking sounds with it. I will say though, that there are talented programmers who can take samples and extract much fuller and offbeat sounds by gnarling samples than could ever be done with an analog. I have a Motif ES6. It has excellent preprogrammed arps, and you can add and make your own. There are some that might suit your genres of choice. Many of the sounds though are more acoustic instrument based. Overall I think it would be a fair choice for your preferred genres.

Someone mentioned FL Studio. BINGO !! By far, with the right VST instruments, or hardware synths that you can also control with it, this would probably suit your genres best. In a way, it's very similar to the pattern sequencer function of the Motif workstation, only a hundred times better. Why ? I'd need three pages at least, but doing stuff in a real piano roll and on a big screen for starters. Second, it has many more options and features and these are much easier to access than trying to scroll through multiple menu screens on an ES. Also, there are enough freeware synths and effects that will keep you busy with more sounds that fit your genres than any hardware I can think of ( including V synth ). Some of the commercial synths and / or samples are outstanding as well. If you can program your own rythyms at all ( or better yet play them on a midi controller of your choice ), FL is a great way to go. Also in this category are Orion Platinum ( also very good ), CW Project 5 ( only tried the demo ), Reason, but you can't use Vsti's with it and are limited to their propietary synths and refill ( sample ) packages, some of which are very good btw. I like Orion a lot too btw, but I think FL may have surpassed it as far as usability and features.

I use my Motif ES as a controller for FL and my softsynths. I also use some of the Motif voices as controlled by FL. You can use any module(s) / sampler(s) of choice, be it hardware or software. I mix and match. I have the analog modeling plug in it ( AN150 ). These are based upon the hardware analog AN series synths ( they can exchange patches ), and it's a very nice analog modeler, yet I think it almost pales in comparison to some of it's software counterparts that reside in my system ( Absynth, Pro 53, CS80V, Imposocar .. to name a few ) Industrial ? There are vst synths that are entirely dedicated to industrial type sounds, hammers, pipes, etc. You won't find that on any arranger or workstation

Cons with software ? You have to pick and choose and mix and match a lot of stuff. If you become a fanatic like me, it can get expensive and sometimes a little complicated to boot. It can be a little intimidating for the novice user, but then again I was a novice at it a few years ago too. Guys like Frank Rosenthal here at this forum and other forums like KVR did a lot to help me learn what I needed to know. I have a lot of software and have spent a good deal of money. I also have absolutely no regrets. A workstation is an all in one solution, but your limited to what's inside. Forget sampling workstations. Nice feature to have, usually tedious and not worth the effort vs a dedicated sampler.

I would suggest checking out the KVR Audio site. It might be the best resource around for soft synth systems. Many good freeware and commercial synths, samples, hosts and utilities can be found there, and there are quite a few members who are interested in genres similar to your favs. Some of these guys / gals are quite knowledgeable. Some of the freeware is awesome, and many of the developers hang out on KVR's forums.



AJ



[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 07-31-2005).]