@Graham…

The thing about an arranger sounding its ’best’, that’s so many things to so many people. What you are playing through, where you are playing, what kind of music you’re playing to what kind of people… there’s honestly no one way to set up an arranger.

But I feel that, on the whole, most factory settings are designed for either the built-in speakers or pretty crappy home speakers in a dead bedroom or living room, which is what the majority of arranger buyers will have. These players are also the kind of people you expect to have a big ‘smile’ on their home stereo!

And, the truth is, I have many times seen people come up to me and ask why my arranger sounds so much better than theirs. I always hate to tell them it isn’t from some trick EQ and compression setting, or days spent editing the sounds (I rarely change my ROM sounds much if anything).

But playing a lousy sax sample exactly like a sax player will sound better than the best articulated multi-velocity sound available played badly and unidiomatically. Pros, especially demonstrators, sound so good because of what they play, not what they play on…. The harsh reality is, if the demonstrator sat down at a bog stock factory setting arranger, it will sound so much better than the home player. I always took pride during my music store demonstrator days of using the out of the box keyboard.

To be honest, nowadays, the thing I do to make my sound ‘better’ is to turn OFF the factory compression and EQ. I got decent speakers on the gig, and good studio nearfields at home, I don’t need any of that stuff to make crappy speakers sound better! But it’s still what I actually PLAY that gets my preparation time. Take care of that, the overall sound isn’t really all that critical… 🎹😎