Yes I did, Fran...I would have thought you were one of the "advanced" users by now, considering you've had it for quite sometime...my mistake. Sorry.

Ian, you are misconstrued what "average" means...it has nothing to do with skill level....

And of course I am advanced....in many ways..

I do not use styles as many folks here do..I find them way overdone, and do not leave room to play over as I would like..

I rather record the arranger and save as a sequence..

I prefer playing over sequences...My boards also read chords with sequences..giving me a guideline to play over them...And my "crutch"..lyrics to read...


You mentioned the Roland's sound as the E-70..nothing changed...I think you need to revisit the E-70..

The "best" sounds are not the only criteria for a great over all sound...The G1000 was not the "best" sounding board..although there are many sounds as good as today's offerings...what made it sound great using the G1000 banks....were the balance of the patches, and how well they blend...One of the reasons the G1000 plays SMF's as well as any other board...Matter of fact the G1000 (bank) plays SMF's better than the default G70....until you modify pianos, bass, drums..etc..Than the G70 is the "best" at SMF play...

Another example..The newer Yamaha's have some of the best sounds available...but not all, and far from it...The XG sound bank is still the worst of all manufacturers..(probably need the XG bank to play SMF's..but not very pretty)..

For every super guitar, sax patch there are many duds...and they are not balanced enough to be used universally ..as in other instrument resources (sequences, styles etc)..They are designed to be used exclusively with Yamaha gear...but I believe they missed the mark..

My point....when I refer to "average"..it is the majority of players that will just power up a keyboard...judge what they hear...and play what they hear, without the need to alter anything...Also the vast amount of "average" players simply want to play a melody line over the style...."Average meaning the majority"...

So....I am not "average"...

Maybe well advanced...

Of course you are, dear.

Well, one would imagine an "advanced" player/person as yourself would find it easy to edit the styles into something more manageable, or perhaps something more suitable to your style of play.

It's nice to know you find it easier to play over an SMF...I would, too..in fact, most players would.

What I have found, that even with "markers", the SMF is still too rigid for my liking...I'd like to be able to react more spontaneously, than have it all spelled out...having chord changes locked in, style already set; it's not for me...it's far more fun, to be able to do songs in many style arrangements, not just ones I have already recorded, or preplanned, but we all have our preferences, and if yours works for you, that's peachy.

I play a lot more freely at my gigs, and I usually don't do tunes exactly as written, but prefer to put my own "stamp" on them...it's not for everyone, but I'm not stuck for gigs, and have actually turned several down this month.

It's all in how you market yourself, I guess.

I would hardly call myself an advanced player on the arranger (I'm more of a piano player), but I'm rather the more basic type...you know, style and RH play...but, I'm accurate and I work hard on my styles (and arrangements) so that I have my own sound, rather than someone who picks a factory style and works from that.

Ian

I am not sure that the average listener, your typical audience, knows the difference between a 'tweaked' style, a ROM style, or a completely user created style. When WE worry about such things, I think we are somehow thinking of each other, or our competition, or just some nebulous 'other arranger player', whatever... But I am pretty sure that most of our audiences couldn't tell you if what they are listening to is custom, tweaked or ROM.

AS LONG AS IT SOUNDS GOOD.

But this brings me back to what I keep saying... it really doesn't matter a toss about the arranger's OS, or it's sounds, or layout, whatever. The primary reason most of us pick an arranger is whether the ROM styles suit us. Are they well programmed? Are they well balanced? Are they too busy, or too sparse? Are they authentic in the genre we know the most about?

It seems obvious that many Ketron users have fallen for the Audya because of the great Latin styles, despite it being a very restrictive OS for tweaking, editing, or even changing much at all! But OOTB, this thing makes many Latin music players happy. The Mediastation, OTOH, seems to be one of those things that dreamers like to THINK will answer all their problems. Truth is, though, so far, I have still yet to hear anyone using it as an arranger and the results seriously challenge the Big 3. As even Fran has pointed out, the reason why some things are just so good is how INTEGRATED the whole soundset is. The MS is the polar opposite. There is no integrated soundset. You have to design it yourself. Given that even Yamaha can't create a well integrated XG soundset for SMF playback, how egotistical do you have to be, to convince yourself that YOU can do it better than Yamaha, with all their talent, experience and money?

Add to that, the fact that the style and the soundset are inextricably linked. You write styles for a SPECIFIC soundset. Translated styles only demonstrate how poor a style sounds when played back on different sounds. It is close tyo impossible to separate the two. I have long said that Dom needs to load the MS with TOTL VSTi's himself, and then get talented style writers to develop styles for that particular combination. Without that happening, what chance does he have of creating an ARRANGER? Because an arranger IS it's content. Look at Ketron...

I am still waiting for the day someone comes here and goes 'listen to all these amazing styles I created for the MS and a boatload of TOTL VSTi's'. Maybe then, that's the day I start to believe. But just as VERY few of us can create styles for our well-balanced soundsets in 'closed' arrangers, even LESS of us are likely to be able to create them for the totally open, do it yourself soundset of the 'open' arranger.

To be honest, I think that it is FAR more likely that a Big 3 manufacturer will develop the 'open' architecture that the MS enjoys, but will mate it with a well chosen and developed soundset and use their vast experience in making TOTL styles and make the MS that we all actually WANT... Unless Dom finally figures this out, he is vunerable to the first company that realizes this FACT of arranger use.

Styles, styles, styles. This is the FIRST and almost ONLY thing you need... (look at Ketron! )

I keep hearing the more wishful of us go Of course, so far, I haven't really heard any of these so called non-US 'experts' create anything that really rivals the ROM styles themselves, either. Yes, they find themselves HAVING to make styles, when playing an ethnic music completely unrepresented by ROM styles, but let's be honest, can we? Have you REALLY found a rich pool of talented style creators doing it for themselves ANYWHERE?

I know (from listening to the MS ROM styles) that Dom hasn't, anyway If these are SO prevalent in Europe, why hasn't he hired them?

No, sorry. I am unconvinced. Creating an exciting, usable, dynamic style is possibly one of the hardest things to do. It's even harder than making straight linear music. There are all sorts of considerations that don't come into play when making normal music. It's about time that we acknowledged this....

Or someone provided example rather than rhetoric.

Styles need to be created by the hundreds, not ONE style you have slaved away at for months. If anyone actually WAS creating great styles at this kind of volume, well, they would be selling them and making a fortune, wouldn't they? I see no evidence of this. Just Dom's customers alone could make a good style developer some serious money. But where is this mythical guy (or gal)?

It's nice to dream. I have this recurring one where I am a talented soundset and style creator, and live in a mansion bought and payed for by all the arranger users crying out for killer styles... But then I wake up.

Time for the rest of us to do so, too...

Why don’t I like this arranger?

1. Because it tries to concentrate on style content rather than style development tools. The power of the arranger is not what style content is onboard but what you can do with an arranger.
2. It does not have 76 semi-weighted keys.
3. It is not well built and less than 30 LBS.
4. It does not have assignable knobs, sliders and buttons for sequencer and style controls.
5. It does not have XLR mic inputs.
6. It does not have a feature where you can freely import and export loops to the keyboard.

Customizability and not content should be what arranger manufacturers should be concentrating on.

As you can tell with the Audya, it has styles and live sounding ones, but that is not enough; the cry is for styles to be editable.

I would like to see an arranger that has the style edit ability like the MS. The keyboard should be 76 semi weighted keys.
It MUST have excellent sounds both acoustic and synth. It MUST have the ability to load other sounds in other formats like SFZ, wave and VST.



It MUST have great live sounding Drums, basses, pianos/organs, guitars and brass.


As it relates to styles, OTB, manufacturers should only have around 100 styles. Those styles should give the user an idea as to the type of styles that can be used on the arranger.
Then the manufacture should have plug-in boards with genre specific styles available for the user. So, if I am an arranger player in the USA and want USA styles I would purchase the USA styles pack that would have at least 200 styles. The same thing for oriental, Latin, Caribbean and so on.

What that would do is help the manufacturer focus on the real part of the keyboard like editing and creation tools and ease of use on a gig. Also, manufactures could sell the arranger cheaper, increase the number of sales and the plug-in for styles could be priced at a premium and the user would be willing to pay for just the style libraries he or she wants and does not have to pay for something he or she does not want.

In order to encourage style development and creation, the arranger MUST be able to integrate with the computer. You MUST be able to create and edit styles on the computer with or without the keyboard connected to the computer. How, it still must have style and sequence creation directly on the keyboard.


For those of us who are involved with and are familiar with modern music, In order to capture the modern music market, you MUST have audio playback and manipulation (that is where the technology is headed).
If you want to have an arranger used for modern music, it is not about sounding like a band, but it is about sounding like a DJ. The arranger must be able to manipulate audio.
That is why the ELASTIQUE BPM feature on the MS is so useful.

So to recap, the old school arranger players who are just able to play by turning on the keyboard; pressing a button to call up a style and using a finger in their left hand to get the accompaniment and their right hand to play a melody, then they would get the keyboard at an affordable price and purchase what ever style packs they would want at a premium.

For the serious gigging musician who wants to get the most out of their arranger, they would also have the style packs available to them but they would also get the benefit of computer integration, extensive style creation and editing.


The arranger would also cover persons in-between those two extreme user types.

Arranger manufacturers should also start to form relationships with software developers like Sonar, Celemony Melodyne
and band-in-box.

P.S one feature I would like to see on arranger is a drum lock feature.
So that if you are playing a style, and you change to another style, you can have the same drum pattern play. Perhaps the same thing could be done for all the style tracks.
But it should also be able to be done when changing to midi songs.