Hi all.Glad to have found this forum Easy first question...Im a simple gig piano player...no gigging..play for my head. A little sing along etc. I want some accompianment and have decided on an arranger. Entry level..probably a psr s500 or Roland gw7 or E09.Problem..I dont want to just jam...I want to play actual songs and have proper accompianment. I know I must use the sequencer function and lay down individual tracks. Do I need to use midi for this??? What part of this is going to be difficult for the tech challenged!! Help...sorry for the length.

welcome aboard

Most arrangers have built-in multi-track sequencers where you can lay down one track at a time and create a custom accompaniment from that, or they will also read standard MIDI files which are pre-sequenced files that simply "plug and play". There are many MIDI files available on the internet for free or you can pay small amounts of money at some sites and get much better MIDI files. Just do a search on them.

If all you do is sequence on the keyboard itself you don't have to worry about MIDI applications unless you want to save the file that way to play on other devices that are MIDI capable.

Hope this helps....

Jeff

Another Option
Most Arranger manufactures have styles available for specific songs, and also provide suggested right hand setups, which means you can play live (Changing variations, fills etc) by just playing the correct chords and right hand melody, and this means you don’t need to learn sequencing or anything technical, plus it also has the added advantage that you can easily shorten or lengthen a song if required.
Hope this helps

Bill

and........if you want to write a song on the arranger, there is a shortcut method by laying down the band first via your styles - speeds up the process and makes for a good recording (IMO).

zuki