Thanks Graham. I already knew Arrangers weren't cheesy but a lot of musicians still hold to the belief that they are. Word is spreading though and people's opinions about Arrangers are slowly changing, thanks in part to places like Keyboard TV and even this Forum. And as we know, Workstation keyboards are slowly incorporating Arranger capabilities into them. I just recently purchased the new Yamaha Motif XS7 which has advanced intelligent chord recognition capability and in my opinion it has a smoother accompaniment flow of operation than Yammies arrangers do. Everything i.e. (the accompaniment along with the chord changes and lead voices) flows together in a more natural and seamless way. The Motif XS has 5 arpeggios (Arps) that are similar to an Arrangers Main Variations A,B,C,D. With the Motif XS you now have an E. Is it an Arranger? No, not quite, but I think Workstations are heading in that direction and one day there probably won't be much of a distinction between the two. The line is starting to blur and in fact may eventually become non-existent. Will there always be a need for Stage Pianos and Organ clones? Sure, but Workstations and Arrangers may eventually meld into one and will most likely be simply called a Workstation keyboard, instead of an Arranger or an Arranger Workstation keyboard. That's my opinion of course and only time will tell if I'm correct. Either way, I'm glad traditional Workstations are finally incorporating arranger capabilities into them. And there is fortunately no way one could consider, for example, a Motif XS, a Korg M3, a Roland's FantomX (or its successor) cheesy. Unfortunately a significant number of musicians still hold to the belief that an Arranger equals = cheese. I think the Tyros was the first arranger that started to change that notion (mainly because it had a wider exposure into the marketplace as opposed to Ketron's SD1 or GEM's Genesys PRO or even Korg's Pa1X/PRO because of its higher price tag and not being readily available in stores up until recently). And now we have the Tyros2, the Roland E80, and the forthcoming Ketron AUDYA. Korg should also be coming out with its new Flagship Arranger sometime soon too. All the more reason for people to stand up and take notice that an Arranger doesn't necessarily mean that it has to have the word "cheese" associated with it. People are finally waking up and realizing that fact.

Thanks again for the link.

Mike

[This message has been edited by keybplayer (edited 04-15-2007).]