Maybe where you come from, Bill. Over here, we got acts that use audio, acts that use SMF's, acts that use styles, and there's ZERO difference in audience recognition. You know what the audience DOES listen to (and it’s going to hurt!)..?

The singer.

You can spend days customizing a style. You can spend days customizing a sequence. You can spend days customizing a multitrack backing track. The ONLY thing the audience listens to at all is the singer and the solos.

We have a generation raised on karaoke nowadays. They actually WANT the backing as close to the record, it helps them sing along..!

Maybe Europe has a totally different scene, organ culture still exists as a niche entertainment for a dwindling generation that remembers the 40's and 50's, and holidays by the seaside and concerts by the organist at the local Palais maybe are part of some cultural memory. But that doesn't really exist in America. There's little nostalgia for a Butlin's holiday camp era.

When it comes to solo acts, it's all about the singer. You could put a gun to their heads and they couldn't tell you if we're using audio, styles or sequences. They CAN tell if you're playing solo piano, no accompaniment, but past that, it's 'who cares?'.

It's the singer, and the solos. And, to be quite frank, unless you're playing an organ solo, you need TWO HANDS to solo as effectively as the people you're imitating. And that alone, for me, rules out styles. You might WANT to bend that sax part, or that guitar solo, or do a flowery two handed piano arpeggio... but the song dictates a chord change exactly when you want to do that bend.

So the bend doesn't happen. And you end up with stiff, inexpressive solos and all that work on the style's bassline is wasted. Anyone who's ever played in a band knows what I'm talking about. To solo WELL takes two hands. And the arranger (in style mode) gives you ONE.

Now, don't get me wrong. I spend a LOT of time remixing audio tracks, editing sequences and working on my keyboard sounds. It's going to help me play better to them if they rock! And, even if you rarely use styles, arrangers make the BEST keyboard type for working, gigging soloists compared to workstations or stage pianos with a laptop. They're designed for what we do live, not meant to be studio tools with little ability to do the whole show!

But I fear the days of the audience (that shows up in bars and restaurants) knowing whether you're using styles, sequences or audio, and especially if you are using them as created or whether you edited the living poo out of them have pretty much disappeared.

Virtually all the shortcomings of sequencing that made us prefer styles in say the early 90's are gone. Nowadays it's a piece of cake to lengthen or shorten an SMF. Piece of cake to do extra solos. Piece of cake to medley to another sequence or audio tracks. Piece of cake to mute and unmute Parts on the fly to create a work of music that can vary nightly.

In the meantime, arrangers didn't give us back our left hand. Not unless you're doing rote repetition of a chord sequence, and somebody tell me what's the difference between playing over a CS playing the preset chords into an arranger, and playing over a sequence recorded by playing chords into an arranger or an audio recording of that sequence?

Here in America, Bill, 30 years ago I might have agreed with you. But technology and audience tastes and economic reality have long moved on over here. It's close to impossible for a non-musician to tell the difference HOW we create our backing. 90% of what we do about them is recognized by ONE person. Us..!

That's not to say I don't look back fondly on my Butlin's years (loved Clacton-on Sea!) and playing the organ. But I'd starve over here sticking to those guns... 🤩