Originally Posted By: abacus
All valid points, however if Dan was to integrate Kontakt (For example) into his arranger, then he could set it up and balance all the voices to suit, thus it becomes as balanced as any hardware arranger, but with vastly superior sound.

The problem comes (As has been mentioned) if you try and Mix and Match as the designer doesn’t know what to set the arranger up for.

Dan, if you can integrate a high quality VSTi then go for it, just make sure you have full control over it, and are prepared to put many hours into getting the balance right.


This is what utterly defeated Dom at Lionstracs. Even monster VSTi's like Colossus don't have the comprehensiveness of sounds you find in even a modest arranger like a BK-7m. Not to mention, you are going to have to have pretty close equivalents for ALL the Variation sounds in EACH arranger your vArranger plays the styles of. That's over a thousand for probably every arranger out there, and other than the basic Capital sounds and the major GS/XG variations, they are ALL DIFFERENT!

And that isn't even STARTING to address how you are possibly going to have ALL these sounds loaded up in RAM, because playing an arranger is improvisational in nature... you are playing one tune, want to medley into another, are you going to be happy while the whole thing goes dead while it loads up the sounds for the next style? Hell no!

vArranger works wonderfully with the Ketron module. The next step is to have it work wonderfully with something like the BK-7m, or Korg Micro Arranger, or an S910 (so those with one kind of arranger can play styles easily from other makers). Then the NEXT step is to have it work well with MoXF/S's, FantomG's, Jupiter80's, JunoDi's, etc.

Then the NEXT step is to have it work well with the Kronos and M3, and integrate into the Karma functions, too!

And the FINAL step... once you have addressed the needs of everybody THAT ALREADY HAS A SOUNDSOURCE AS GOOD AS A TOTL ARRANGER, then you can spend your time tilting at the windmill of VSTi integration, and the 'all in the laptop' arranger.

Bill, your suggestion that Dan use Kontakt then 'set it up and balance all the voices to suit' fails to address just what a HUGE task that is you just casually tossed out.
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An arranger is just a tool. What matters is what you build with it..!