Diki, if you ate all your words, you'd be bigger than an elephant . How are you, my friend? We haven't communicated in awhile. I was hoping you'd resurface 'cause I'd been getting kind of bored lately.

I'm a little confused though. You say "For what arranger players do on a daily basis, the way that different sounds all interact is FAR more important that how good each individual sound is". That may be true but I don't really understand how. For instance, how does the way an arranger handles a sound set differ from the way a SMF handle a sound set? If I remember correctly, the G1000 had the same sound set as that upgraded Sound Canvass (SC88 or something). The voices in arranger style playing sound good because each voice has been tweaked in each individual style to sound optimal. But most people do the same to SMF's to prepare them for performance. I use sound sources from everything in my studio when making a baking track, Triton, Motif ES, SonicCell, Fantom G7, DM10 drums, VP-770, PA1x pro, Tyros 2 (love their guitars), and even some really old stuff like the Korg 01W module midied to an original SC55 (really phat).

I truly believe that if the basic arranger-specific functionality were there in the basic unit, such as the Mediastation, that a talented style-production team could produce a superior sounding arranger using a superior (as in, superior to what is found in hardware units) sound/sample set tweaked for each individual style. Of course, at that point, we're essentially back to a hardware arranger, since this is their 'formula'. The advantage, of course, would be the greater potential for 'cheap' upgradability. Interesting discussion, as always.

chas