How is two keyboards easier to travel with than ONE 76?

Not to mention that, because of the 'dumbing down' of MIDI implementations since the nineties, it is MUCH harder to integrate two different keyboards to control ONE arranger.

You see, the whole point of arranger registrations is the 'one button' call-up of everything you need for a tune. But because arrangers are now designed specifically to NOT work with external gear as easily as it used to be, you are faced with the problem of having to use TWO different sets of controls to integrate the two keyboards.

Let's take the simplest thing you are likely to want to do with an 88... Not only play the arrangers piano sound, but also to trigger the arranger's 'Piano Mode' chord recognition, so the accompaniment actually follows you. This is much harder to program than simply using a MIDI channel to play the voice. Then there is the question of chord 'hold' (so you can play passing chords without the machine going crazy) as well as sustain, sostenuto and soft pedal control.

Doable? Possibly, on your arranger, but hardly simple. Now add in the fact that you would probably like to have 'Piano Mode' enabled for the section you are playing piano on, but want to go back to a LH chords, RH solo sound for another section of the song (you don't want to HAVE to play the entire song on piano, do you? ) you add an altogether more complicated thing to program without a lot of button pushing.

Add to this that you are going to have to physically separate the two keyboards by quite a distance (so you have access to the 88's buttons), and you create a rig that is far more uncomfortable to play than if they were snuggled up close, á la organ style, and far more complicated to make changes to. For those of you that would prefer the inconvenience of hauling at least TWO keyboards around, with all the extra stands, wires, pedals MIDI cables, etc. so you can have the 'purist' approach of playing an 88 for what, two sounds (piano and Rhodes?), I would suggest you start making a LOT more noise to your favorite manufacturer about the dwindling MIDI implementation.