Hi Gary,
I really like a mixer to control my whole operation. It's so easy to set up with the Yamaha mic bracket, which neatly tucks into the keyboard tubing - right at fingertips, cool - takes 30 seconds.
I will always use a mixer. Next up is determining how to use the keyboard VH and run stereo outs at the same time, if I ever decided to use that feature - so far, not interested for the reasons discussed many times - the duck trio
IMO
Question? How do you get your FX if you don't use a mixer? If it's in the PA itself, seems it would be hard to control on the fly?