i hear what you say chas but that has nothing to do with whether you might use an arranger in a live gig or not. You could take your arranger out and play just keys , or use keys and a drum track or use it to trigger a click track for a drummer or some other preprogrammed sequence just like other gigging musicians do.You could use the arranger functions in their fullness or brfeak it down to just the elements you needed. For example i have some phrase pads that i have on my PA1X where i can trigger off a sequence or phrase by tapping the pad. even without the instrument being in arranger play IE the preprgrammed arranger styles are not active . so for example i could be playing a song like Earth wind and fires 'September ' with those nice brass stabs and i can trigger them from the key pad whilst playing live without having to change sounds on the main keyboard. Arranger keyboards are just so incredibly flexible but it is our imaginations that are limited and the fact that we are tunnel visioned in our thinking.

Most of the biggest contemporary bands performing today use some or all of the above functions in their performance and an arranger can do them all and so much more (but it doesnt have to). I know you are not bashing arrangers but i dont think enough of us give them justice either on par with any other keyboard that we might use. An arranger does not limit us to auto accompaniment in th left hand and solo's with the right. It actually gives us so much more choice than that and perhaps even over its workstation cousin.

Listen to this Korg demonstrator. The bottom example on this page is the long in the tooth Korg PA1X and the others are from other korg pa keyboards and taking us right up to the oasys and M3. Close your eyes and just listen then ask yourself whether you would feel anyway about taking any of these instruments on a live gig with you. Listen to them all .http://www.andreas-gundlach.de/korg/korg.html

[This message has been edited by spalding (edited 12-05-2009).]