Originally posted by Diki:
Kingfrog... If your wife feels she has to turn up with an 88 note stage keyboard, then they are hiring her to be a PIANIST.. plain and simple. And the honest truth is, were she to turn up with a 76 note ANYTHING, she could do the job just as well (or at least well enough no-one notices).
I am hired to PLAY in bands. They don't hire my equipment! If what I bring does the job, no-one says a word! Whether it is a 36 note strap-on KX-5 and a module, or a 76 note anything you like. They hire ME.. 
For me, a one keyboard rig is preferable to the three sided stacks I used to use in the seventies and eighties. But I have to be able to play organ parts, as well as piano parts. To do THAT well all on one keyboard it cannot be an 88 wood. Organ playing relies on speed and smears, glisses, dives and all the other tricks that are close to impossible on a wooden weighted keyboard. Conversely, piano needs AT LEAST 76 notes to be able to get the range of LH RH separation you expect (surprisingly, though, those last few outside notes are seldom used from an 88).
I believe that the performance is what drives people's satisfaction with you as a player. Not the equipment you play on. The trick is to pick a keyboard that excels at ALL areas of sound, not just being an arranger. Once you play with live musicians, sounds that can cut it against anemic drums in the arranger seldom work well against the real thing.
My take has been to weight my buying decisions primarily towards how well the sounds work in a live setting. Then make sure the built-in drums can keep up with that, for when you need them. Most arranger shortcomings can be worked around, but anemic sounds CAN'T...
The problem, and most of the prejudice against arrangers comes from two things (in a live band situation), IMO...
Firstly is that many of them ARE anemic compared to the best workstations, which are primarily voiced for live use, and secondly, and probably the most important, is that the SECOND anyone uses any arranger functions in a live setting (at the soundcheck, for instance), the defenses of every single musician that could lose his job to one of these goes up, usually in a hostile way. And who can blame them?
So I make a point of NEVER using my arranger's auto stuff in any live band situation, my G70 LOOKS like a pro piece of gear, it SOUNDS like a pro piece of gear (the piano is from the TOTL FantomX, the organ is from the TOTL VK-8, the rest of the sounds are the cream of Roland's live line), and no-one is the wiser about it's other functions because I NEVER rub their noses in it...
And in over fifteen years of using a Roland arranger for all my live gigs (with everything from local acts, to recording artists, to studio work for national artists with my G70), not one single musician, soundman bandleader, or audience member has ever come up to me and go, derogatively, 'Oh, you are using an ARRANGER? 
'. In fact no-one has ever come up to me and said much other than 'what are you using? It sounds GREAT!'
I just smile... 
The question is MARKETING. Roland, Korg, Yamaha, Wersi,Ketron etc does not market to the pro player (whomever or whatever that its). NEVER seen an Arranger advertisement in Keyboard magazine, not even Home Recording , or EM or MIX........
They are usually in HOME DIVISIONS of their respective companies...I only suggested why that might be and will be. MOST pro players play Motifs,Fantoms and M3s by a huge margin. Thats a fact. Why that is can be argued. I would LOVE for arrangers to be all the rage amongst those who earn their living playing around here. I could make a small fortune selling "Arranger lessons."
Playing 61 keys in a band is different. 61 keys are the norm. A few of them in fact. Yes my wife is hired as a pianist and keyboard player who plays using tracks and a harmonizer. She prefers to use both hands to play the keyboard parts rather than just playing it like a "chord organ." Its a different technique. She is very self conscious about being too "karaokeish" It took me months to convince her to use a harmonizer. Her co-hort (who played for Billy Idol during the White Wedding days)would rather play the an M3, Fantom or Motif live in a band situation. More on the fly editing and controlling.
I understand how a bar owner or other can be a little unsettled when paying $200-$300 to someone who markets themselves as a keyboard player, who shows up with a 61 key board. A 76 keyboard may be different and in fact is a lot bigger and looks more like a real keyboard.
Its personal choice, Around here I can tell you no one we know plays an Arranger at any contracted venue or in any band except perhaps private functions. She has made her living for over 30 years playing and has never even discovered arrangers until I brought one home from the store. She loved it but views it as a very very good chord organ.
If it were any different loacally we would be selling more of the Tyros and the Korg PAs series instead of Clavinovas. Even 100 miles away in Guitar Center you won;t find an Arranger on the floor.
But with the new keyboards the lines are becoming blurred with the multi arpeggios available. I can understand the advantage of using an arranger in a band for a few songs using horn sections, But in those cases tracks are easier as well.
[This message has been edited by Kingfrog (edited 10-14-2008).]
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