That's because you're a musician, Diki. There are two kinds of OMB's; those that can play and those that use technology to disguise the fact that they CAN'T play. Sadly, the average customer with 'three shots and a beer' under his belt couldn't care less about which one you are (the exception being jazz club audiences that come for the music, not to make idiots of themselves on the dancefloor). This whole thing of being worried that the audience may not think that you're playing, is mostly a 'musician thing'. Truth is, only an idiot would think it's you playing 5-6 instruments at once (all at an 'expert' level), while simultaneously singing your heart out. Audiences are pretty dumb, but not THAT dumb (watching you pick out one-finger notes with a full blown big band arrangement going on in the background). Now, nobody's going to think Marco Parisi isn't playing, even if he's got a Genos stacked on top of a Bk9 stacked on top of a PA4x. That's because his keyboard skills are SO in evidence. I'm guessing, so are yours, given your piano background and broad musical knowledge.

My guess is, but for the economy of it, most Pro's out there wouldn't be playing Arrangers in the first place (on a gig). Sadly, most of the available gigs out there these days can't or won't accommodate 3-4 piece groups and an increasingly dumbed-down audience seems more than willing to accept the technological substitute (There's a reason we've got multi-millionaire DJ's out there and trained, degreed, talented musicians out there starving to death). Oh well, a guy's gotta' eat.

chas