Well, the fact that I’ve used arrangers as my main gigging keyboard and on many sessions for a good thirty years ought to stand me in good stead here in the lion’s den!

And, in fairness, you listen to any modern music, and much from the last 50 years or so, since multitrack recording and assembled music rather than live played music, perfection has been the order of the day. I don’t mind perfection! It’s repetition of perfection that bugs me!

And much of the baked in perfection of the arranger can be circumvented with effort. You can enable alternate tuning tables, and screw with equal temperament, you can ride the bend lever or pitch strip (my main way of doing it on live sounds), you can nudge tempo up or down by 1bpm or so between verse and chorus, and one of my favorite Roland features, adjust style velocities with your own dynamics.

But true enough, breaking free from the perfection of styles takes more effort than simply playing with others! But in fairness, the perfection is a function of the style creators in the first place. An arranger is at its core simply a player of MIDI files, which can be as loose or tight as the creator makes them. That they are made so ‘perfect’ isn’t the fault of the tool, it’s the fault of the operator.

I still think it’s the repetition more than anything that ruins the experience. I’ve been fortunate to play with many musicians that are hard to detect any fault or lack of perfection, but seldom played exactly the same thing twice!

And, in the end, the arranger is still just another type of keyboard. It’s capable of being a simply piano, no backing, a live band keyboard not using any auto stuff (at which, it’s better IMHO than many workstations that are best for studio work), a player of SMF’s or MP3 backing (which easily can be less repetitive) and, oh yeah, if you feel like it, you can use the arranger section… if you can stand it!

This forum has always been a forum for those of us that use arrangers (yourself included!) but not necessarily for those who ONLY use them in full arranger mode. I have always (and continue to be) very interested in whatever features that advance the ability for arrangers to break free of their repetitive nature, and be more responsive to player input. We aren’t here yet, and likely never will be indistinguishable from live players. But, decade by decade, they get better and better. Compare a modern arranger with an early 90’s arranger, we’ve come a long, long way. But we’re not there yet..!
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An arranger is just a tool. What matters is what you build with it..!