I’ve had some pretty interesting conversations with a few musician friends lately, and I told them they’re in “Arranger Keyboard Denial”. I left arranger keyboards (and even synth-workstations), and moved over to computer music production. However, I still feel anyone can benefit from having an arranger on hand regardless of what your primary is.

I have a few friends that have looked down on arrangers as long as I’ve known them. They’re strictly into DAW’s and VST’s. Here’s the funny thing...., the way they produce music with their DAW’s is exactly how it would be pieced together on an arranger keyboard. They’ve literally spent thousands on their PC and Mac systems not realizing their end result sounds like it was produced with an arranger keyboard (that’s not a dig at arrangers either.., it’s just that the way they’ve pieced the song together sounds like an arranger when you listen to the bass and drum tracks). It literally sounds like their music moves from one variation to the next with fills because of how they arrange it. They’ll use drum VST’s, not physically play or record a single drum note, but literally drag midi data from preset rhythm patterns (intros, fills, variations, ect.) on to a track and line it up exactly how you’d record it on an arranger.

I tell them..., you could have produced that same song on an arranger keyboard with the same results. Then record the audio into a free DAW like Cakewalk, and save a sh** load of money. As soon as I say “arranger keyboard” it’s like I disrespected their momma. They don’t even use the features DAW’s have over hardware sequencers. It’s very strange. Spend all that money to sound like an arranger. My one friend has at least four grand worth of VST’s, not to mention the monster of a PC he has as well (the thing can probably run 16 separate instances of SampleTank 4, and not break a sweat).., anyone who knows how CPU heavy SampleTank 4 can be knows that’s impressive.

Sqk