AJ, I can hardly wait to see what the 'AJM synth / arranger will look like.

The exciting part of such systems is that they will all be as different as the individuals constructing them. The good news is they will all work well. The drawback at the moment is that the control surface is not as good as an arranger/workstation keyboard. However, once you get used to something like forte Ensemble the handicap is not to bad at all. The pluses outweigh the minuses (quality of sounds & effects, adjusting sounds and effects to suit your needs, sampling, etc.). In addition, you have all midi to audio needs on one system. It works and works well!!!