Bingo! Spot on, Chas!

What you are saying certainly applies in my surrounding area...typical arranger performers at NH are generally guitarist/vocalists/entertainers with the Arranger being relegated to the role of a fancier, pricier SMF player.

The use of laptops with background tracks as mp3's is becoming very prevalent, and most of the NH, and, also a lot of the nightclub/bar performers, are using them as well.

The audience simply is there to be "entertained".

Over the past several years, my own gigs were steadily decreasing, not helped along by the fact I don't sing, so when the opportunity for retirement came up, I took it without hesitation. The larger restaurants in the area that booked the occasional background music keyboardist have all either shut down, or no longer have any music other than a central CD player piped throughout the venue.

My primary use for my Tyros4, besides being my own entertainment here at my apartment, is as a recording studio tool, and, a friend of mine and I carved out a small but fairly lucrative niche where we do music demos for aspiring local artists/songwriters, or just other retired musicians wanting to make a recording of some of their old "hits", which are generally old mainstream commercial tunes they used to sing in their former bands. They usually want a CD they can give to their family and/or friends.

That's where the T4 (or any arranger, for that matter) really shines as we can lay down bed tracks really quickly, generally using edited styles, or in some cases, song specific styles. These people can't afford the big studios, so we do pretty good at charging less and getting things done quickly (as time in any studio, is money) and therefore attracting more clients.

It's also a lot of fun, and keeps the old brain workin'....ha ha!

You know me...I've always maintained that Arrangers were originally designed as "Home Keyboards" and I suspect that they will continue to be sold as such, and, the once already small OMB/Arranger player/Singer/entertainer population will become even slimmer.

I feel I was lucky to have the opportunity to retire when I did, as I wouldn't be able to survive on gigging alone, even when supplemented with studio work.

Ian