"Spalding, guys like Marco Parisi can play the heck out of anything with keys. The Arranger doesn't make him sound good, he makes the Arranger sound good.....there's a difference. You continue to trot out how an arranger is this amazing tool, and you're right....it CAN be. But what we're talking about here is not the instrument itself but the way it is used by some to delude people, including sometimes themselves, into thinking they are better musicians than they really are. Every guy you named is a top flight musician and would be still, even if there were no such thing as an arranger keyboard. That's why they were hired in the first place."

Chas it is only you that believes people are deluding others or themselves about their musical abilities . I know great performances when I have heard it and so do you . None of us here claim to be musical geniuses on the level of marco parisi or the others . And if you went on the korg forum or motifator forum or roland forum you would find a similar bunch of musicians encouraging less than record label performances because we are all striving to get better and that's what decent people do .

But you have already nailed the issue in your post . Talent is what makes the instrument sound good . The instrument by itself won't sound good unless all you do is trigger the impressive intro and then immediately press the ending button and that gets old real quick .It's the stuff you play in between that makes the instrument sound good and it's the talent you bring to the table that makes the performance stand out . Same as any instrument . Why do you always choose to define the musical worth of an arranger by the worst examples of people playing it ? In no other context have I ever heard a musical instruments status or value defined solely by the abilities or lack thereof by the worst player of that instrument .

That simply makes no earthly sense !