Are you trying to claim you never do that, now...? After defending the practice some time ago?

Good grief! I thought it was only arrangers you constantly changed your mind on

I never claimed your whole show was that. Just that you DO do it... Am I wrong? If so, who lied to me? The only reason I may have my facts not straight would be you not telling it straight, ol' buddy...

John,
THX, I feel real dumb-assed for not knowing the EQ-DSP's..... I'm going to try it later this week and I'll get back to you. How you explain it works, that about solves my biggest let-down and will make it much easier to tweak the T3 to my needs without having to record every part seperately.
For Most instruments the fully configurable 3-band EQ will be adequate. Although for Grand Piano a 5-band still would be nice, I've put that to good use on a CP-300 in the past.

As for discussions about the "full-part-styles" : I don't do dancing gigs but Jazz and Blues-clubs, but mostly audio production in that area.
Styles of the T3 : some of them are too recognizable a one-song-hitchart style : better use a midi-file for that kind of stuff instead of packing it with single-use styles.

As for the styles being too busy : I've never heard a full band or professional recording with such a busy background as some of the styles on any arranger.
Ask any Hi-Fi freak what a cloud of different instruments playing different parts in roughly the same frequency-range does to the overall sound : the parts aren't distinguishable anymore (blurr) and it stresses the speakersystem to an extend where the overall soundquality (even the sounds outside the crowded freq range) will lose pretty much every detail and quality.
Those are the audience that come to see me perform and buy my recordings.

A dancing crowd, especially the drunk ones, won't care any shit for the sound quality. I'd cuite comfertably use my old PSR-8000 for such an audience.
I've seen crowds >5k people going bazookas on the sounds coming from overstressed and highly distorting speakers.
And as I stated before : In the end it all comes down to personal taste.

BUT : if you play for a serious audience of music-lovers and/or musicians and your virtuous playing of the keys is a big part of your show, you'd better not be using crowded accompaniment : all those parts coming out of your instrument "automatically" : that will make your playing and performance less believable and people are going to think your probably be faking your playing too.
You'll probably get away with that kind of stuff if you're back-upped on stage with 1 or 2 keyboard players faking in the background, but then again that would really be a fake performance.

In 40 years I have done it all on stage performing ...leaving the stage is NOT my normal operendi but in those certain Rare situations when needed it is very effective & the audiences love it.



[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 01-06-2009).]

You probably shouldn't be using ANY form of accompaniment, whether it be styles or SMF, if you don't want it to look/sound fake.

There is no "half fake"...fake is fake.

Only time I feel I am not "faking" it is when I play solo piano, or organ with bass pedals.

The best part, and fortunately for ALL us arranger players, is that most audiences don't mind the fakery as long as they are entertained.

It is also much easier to strip away accompaniment parts than it is to create additional ones...hence all arrangers have full blown styles as a starting point...you don't have to use all parts, and it is a mere doddle to turn parts off on most arrangers.

Happy faking,

Ian

We gotta be realistic guys. From the moment we put our hands on our keyboards (arrangers and synths) we're all faking it. First off..., we're fooling the audience with a digital representation of the actual instrument we currently have selected. Doesn't matter if it's piano, sax, guitar, ect.

If you're at the keys and the sound coming from those keys is a Sax.., well "you're faking it". You're not really playing the sax. You're just using the piano keys as a note reference..., and other real time controls to "fake" other things to make it behave like a sax.

Even if you write your own styles you're still "faking it". You didn't use a real set of drums to record the drum track.., you didn't midi a bass guitar or electric guitar to your keyboard to record the guitar parts.., and so on.

As keyboard players we're masters of "faking it". The challenge is being really good at it.., and yes in an odd way it takes a great deal of skill to fake the things we keyboard players do with our boards. You do have to know how to play.., you do need to understand how the real instrument functions that you're currently faking with your keyboard. It takes a damn good faker to pull off a great keyboard performance.

So rather than use "faking it" as a negative thing..., just consider that it takes a very very very talented keyboard player to pull off a convincing performance from a "faked" back up band who is soloing with (although digitally sampled), but not real instruments. You're also faking your back up singers too. So the hell what..., the point is to put on a good show.

[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 01-06-2009).]

Ian excactly either you play totaly acoustic or your only fooling yourself let alone the audience......"auto anything" is just that AUTO arranger playing....simple as that.

I say bring on a good faker using Styles & SMf, Mp3, loops or whatever...I'll close my eyes & let just my EARS tell me what the story is EVERY TIME!

[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 01-06-2009).]

Absolutely nothing wrong with fakery, Donny...it comes with the territory when we play arrangers.

Just like illusionists or magicians, some are good at fakery...some aren't.

If someone expects you to pull a rabbit out of a hat...it had better not be a chicken.

I've heard perfectly awful style type playing, and I've cringed at some of the stuff played over SMF, including LH bass and piano parts....and then again, there are players that can work magic* with either form of background.

They don't even have to be technically great players(although sometimes, that helps)...they just have to have enough charisma and style to connect with the audience.

Ian

*Magic: An illusory feat; considered magical by naive observers.

By "Faking" I didn't mean faking sounds or whatever, only "faking your performance". If showing off your playing skills is what your audience want to see/hear in your show, overblowing your audience with thick layers of automated parts will make people in doubt if you are playing a SMF and are faking ALL of your playing....a.k.a. Mimmicking...you've sureley seen or been there : "stageperformers" who perform on a synth without line outs or even a power chord being plugged in. And if you do a good job on playing you don't want people to believe that you're one of those fake performers. that's what I meant.

Ian agreed.....

as always if you close your eyes when you listen to music... That which confirms authentication & evidence will shine through EVERY TIME!

I guess it would depend on what playing skills you are planning to promote or show off...if doing a replication of a sax over a big band arrangement is your goal, then having a "full" accompaniment might be what you want.

If you want people to take notice of your piano skills, perhaps less accompaniment might give you more room to play, but depending on the tune and the genre, that may not always be the case.

They are called "arrangers" for a reason...every human arranger would put together a tune in a different way, each one believing it is right for him...some arrangers prefer dense backgrounds, and others may wish to have a minimal amount of orchestration...the arranger(the instrument) gives us that choice.

To me, all arranger play is some sort of fakery, albeit in a good positive light, not in a negative connotation.

In 99% of the cases, the audience do not care, as long as the performance has merit and/or entertains them.

Ian