John, I completely understand your perspective, don’t get me wrong. And, in my younger days was an enthusiastic user of multiple keyboards for live performance. But primarily because nothing covered all the bases adequately. As an organ and piano player originally, it was next to impossible in the 80’s and early 90’s to find something that did both well. So my rig was usually a workstation, a sampler, a synth and an organ with some sort of Leslie.

I think my K2500S was the first thing I got that really did it all well, and that wasn’t really until the late 90’s early 00’s, and it was an utterly impractical beast for anything other than house gigs, it weighed a TON and was temperamental about how it was transported (most touring pros would have them modified to strap all the connectors to the internal boards to prevent jiggling loose, and transported in heavily padded flight cases) and took several minutes to boot up and load in the samples.

An amazing piece of kit, and I still use it for home studio stuff, it stands up very well against a lot of modern gear, particularly with how every button, knob, slider, ribbons and pedal inputs can be completely user defined, so you can do some pretty amazing things like use the big ribbon to change patches and layouts so you don’t have to be ultra precise hitting a tiny button in the middle of a song! Massively complicated, but massive learning curve as well.

However, around this time, this is when I discovered arrangers as light casual live gig keyboards. Not for playing solo, mind you, but for playing with a variety of live bands, trios, duos etc.. When you play in a lot of underrehearsed outfits, you really don’t have the time to spend setting up splits, layers, hunting for sounds and effects etc., most of the time time they call the song title and a key (if you are that lucky!) and it’s go time!

To be fair, most workstations are simply not designed to do this well. But the arranger was. The soundset was pretty well balanced (workstations’ soundsets are often wildly dissimilar in volume or effects etc.), the patches were logically organized so sounds could be rapidly found, and splits and layers were a snap to switch on in a hurry. Live gig nirvana! I could sit in with anyone, get called a tune and have what I felt like for it usually before the count-off. That’s a near impossibility with a workstation…

It wasn’t until later that I started to get into the style section, and started to explore doing solo gigs with it. And, I have to admit, I still wasn’t a big fan of actually using the style section live. My whole playing style since I started playing in bands revolved around BOTH hands playing independent parts, piano left, brass right, or organ right, strings left, etc.. This basically had to get tossed out the window once my left hand got tied up being mandated to playing the chords for the style section. Not to mention, as a pitch bend addict, I felt perpetually torn between playing the chords and wanting to go to the levers or wheels to inflect the solo sound. This drove me nuts!

So although I loved the arranger, I hated using the style section live! But it occurred to me, why not use the style section at home to create the tracks, keep it to basic rhythm section like the bands I played with, then all I had to play was exactly what I would have played with a real band? That made a lot of sense to me.

So yes, I realize I come from a fairly different origin than a lot of arranger players, and yes, my viewpoint is often at odds with the more traditional home player’s origin. But, in the end, and the thing that I’m hoping to bring to SZ, is that the tool is not the job. The job is the job. One finger chords or a computer full of VST8’s, we’re trying to make MUSIC. And make it as well, and if possible as easily as we can.

So, to that end, I am often found trying to inject a little different perspective into discussions that seem perhaps a little too focused on the tool rather than the job. For the purpose of making MUSIC, it doesn’t matter if the job gets done with an arranger, or a workstation or a rack of modules or a laptop running a bunch of VSTi’s, or a microphone on your home piano! The job is the job…

I am about simplicity these days, especially when performing. The one downside to adding additional gear to your rig that counters the benefit of new sounds based on utterly different samples is you have to now learn an ENTIRELY different OS, different names for the same things… Just how many different terms are there for a stored set of sounds, style settings and the rest?! Why does every manufacturer call the same thing different names?! Why isn’t the save structure the same?

So the ‘one arranger’ approach is what I choose for live. Outside of that, for recording, sky’s the limit. For me, it’s whatever gets the job done the BEST. And, for each of us, that’s going to be different. So, I’m not trying to say anybody’s wrong.

Just that there are alternatives, and most of them aren’t yet another arranger. Perhaps there’s additional creativity to be found getting away from another arranger and looking at software, or a cheap workstation (so you can get into arpeggiation and clip launching as well as getting different sounds, for instance) or looking at sample sets you can load into your main arranger’s sampler…

Creativity is often sparked with a fresh approach, a different tool for the same job. Be careful about only looking in one place for answers and inspiration… 😎🎹🎄