I love using "styles" (Roland coined the term many years ago)...especially since they can be edited to suit my manner of play...using styles also allows the player the freedom to use his own chord substitutions, and, today's arrangers with their excellent chord recognition (including inversions) really give the player very few restrictions.

We've come a long way from the boom-ticky-ticky style engines of yesteryear.

Midi files definitely have their uses, and although I'm not one to use them, they are unquestionably another tool in the arranger's box of tricks.

And, the Arranger Keyboard is just another tool in the keyboard player's kit....I call it the "Swiss Army Knife" of keyboards.

The Arranger Keyboard's biggest detractors and critics are usually players unable, unwilling, or too lazy to adapt to the playing style needed to bring the best out in the instrument.

As I was telling a friend earlier this evening, having done hundreds of clinics and demos I have learned that many competent (and usually well seasoned, and perhaps stuck in their ways) keyboard/piano/organ players can't adapt very well to the system needed to play an arranger in "style" mode...it's a combination of "dumbing down" whereas you have to play all chord types and inversions in a limited space, and "wisening up" in that you really have to know your chord voicings well in order to play anything reasonably complex.

At the same time you have to have the skill/knowledge to pick appropriate voices in the RH and play them with the proper inflections.

Witness musicians like Martin Harris play the arranger like this:



and you quickly see and hear just how much power and expression the instrument is capable of giving the player...and Marty is a PLAYER!

One time the Arranger was basically for hobbyists, but not anymore...lots of pros have wisely adapted to the instrument...I know in my own case, it has brought me all kinds of work, both on stage, and in the studio.

Ian