Hi again. Personally, I prefer to have the sounds in the board. (Keep in mind I play live mainly) The reason is, making changes to my sounds, I mean simple things, like adjusting volume of patches in a performance set-up or changing the patches within the performance set-up is simpler. But then again, I never did use a very good controller. I once had a Fatar SL880 which was a controller, but to change banks and patches on my JV-1010 sound module, was highly impractical. The SL880 did not offer many dedicated buttons, switches, etc...
And I like to be able make changes to my performance set-ups and save them on the spot. At times I stumble across a sound, or split, or layer or something during rehearsal (because I experiment in rehearsals a little, not much) and want to adjust it and save it then and there. If you have that kind of need, make sure the controller you look at can do that. The Fatar SL880 was impractical in that sense. A great feeling board but very limited control.

My real point is, to answer your question above; it would really have to depend on the controllers ability to know whether or not it's important to have on-board sounds or not.

There is the matter of lugging more equipment and although rare, I've had MIDI communications trouble and had to do a reset in the controller/sound module set-up once or twice. Thankfully I wasn't playing live when that happened. So there may be a greater chance of a "stuck" note. But that's just my experience. Maybe no one else has experienced this.

I agree with the need for 76 keys over 61. Sometimes, I split the board and in the highest 1.5 octaves, I'll setup a flute or something (transposing it down an octave or two). I'll be able to play the rest of the board pretty freely, and play that upper section for my flute part where appropriate in the song, while continuing chording in the lower section. Doing that with a 61 key keyboard would seriously hamper what could be played in the lower section of the split. So in my opinion 76 keys are better for splits than 61 keys. Plus just in general, one is much more free with 76. I'm almost at the point that there's no difference between 88 and 76, for me. Almost.

Anyhow, I hope you find what you need. Judging from the specs on those A-series boards, they can do a lot. But could they let you split and/or layer and save that setting on the spot? Will they let you perform bank and program changes on the fly without sound cut-out? Those I guess are som "live" needs one would have. I'm sure there's others.


Peace
Bob
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[This message has been edited by RW (edited 01-08-2004).]