I feel the same way...Gary has always been a great help to me on this forum, and fortunately we also converse privately, so I'm glad I will always benefit from his substantial knowledge and many years of "in the trenches" experience.

Thankfully there are other forums where he contributes his time and knowledge...it's just unfortunate that SZ, one of my favorite sites, will lose somebody of his caliber.

The old saying, "win an argument...lose a friend" applies a lot to SZ...I am no less guilty of wanting/needing to win...probably due more to my innate insecurities than actual healthy competitiveness...I do know my pride gets the better of me at times when I know I should just "let it go".

I don't like to see anyone leave the arranger forums...I look back at when I first got on the Internet and the joy I felt at finding a group of people who played the same instrument as I did...who got the same mixed reactions from players of more so called "legitimate" instruments...who dealt with the same issues of competing against DJ's and Karaoke...who actually shared tips on how to use styles more effectively and emulate instruments more realistically.

There seems to be less comradery on SZ than on the manufacturer specific arranger sites...but that's the nature of the beast, I guess, and although there is a vast range of useful knowledge among the members, it has a hard time getting by all the belly bumping.

Instead of sticking together and helping one another in this dwindling (and perhaps sometimes questionable) art form, we behave like a big dysfunctional family, and destroy ourselves from within.

Ian