1 the quality of the musician.

Any arranger keyboard will be subject to the musical capabilities of its player. Here in Holland we have names like Peter Baartmans and Michel Voncken who are or were promotional keyboard players for Yamaha.
Attending any of their demos and no matter what keyboard they play, shows their masterly skills. I remember attending once and seeing Peter play a 400 dollar budget Yamaha keyboard that made your mouth water so to speak. Anyone would have wanted to buy one…….only of course to be totally disillusioned having bought one and having to play it yourself…..


2 the quality of the professional programmers and musicians.

Overriding the importance of the musician that plays the keyboard,the quality of those people hired by the manufacturer of any keyboardis clearly overall important. All the major brands have top quality arrangers and technicians at their disposal to create the basic samples, sounds and styles. In my opinion these sounds and styles are often top notch and when faced with converted styles of any brand for any keyboard you will more often than not be disappointed. I have just purchased the budget Korg PA500 and am amazed by the quantity but above all quality of the sounds and in particular the onboard styles. But I have meanwhile collected a massive collection of styles that also play on the Korg PA500, from all kinds of sources and all kinds of conversions. Very few of these are in the same quality category as the onboard styles.


3 the quality of the onboard basic samples.


It goes without saying that no matter how good musicians and programmers,if the basic samples suck, the overall impression will continue to suck as well.
Luckily these days one can safely say that most keyboards of the well-known brands, including the budget ones, come with quite decent samples, and the top range come with extremely good samples. I guess the ideal arranger keyboard would be fully RAM sampled, in order that the musician could compose his owncollection of samples but that remains wishful thinking for the time being....


4 The quality of the onboard factory styles.

Referring to what I have already remarked on styles earlier on I personnally am often amazed at the apparently insatiable desire and hunger for more and more styles. Why ? I believe it was Uncle Dave or someone else here on the forum who remarked that significantly tweaking one of your favourite styles, would leave you with a couple of styles much more desirable and useful than say one hundred new styles imported, downloaded or purchased……………….


5 The quality of the onboard Performances/Registrations/User programs.

This is probably the most neglected area in the whole arranger keyboard field. I recall that during the previous decade ANY Roland arranger keyboard out of the box sounded dreadful, absolutely dreadful. The Roland G-800 for which I did a lot of programming at the time is a good example. But Yamaha and Technics weren’t that much better.
We have come a long way in one sense, but on second consideration not all that much further. Nowadays all the keyboards, even my Korg PA500 boast a Songbook, or Songlist that has a couple of thousand ready-made registrations for playing wellknown popsongs. Basically these registrations are a laugh (imho).
At the completion of the keyboard design some programmer or other has been alloted an minimum amount of time and money to construe these registrations, which are nothing more than picking a style and one or two right-hand sounds that apparently go with the style. Don’t make me laugh. Like I said I did a lot of tweaking on the Roland G-800 way back when,and in the early years of this millenium I spent hundreds of hours tweaking the Korg PA80 and PA50.And it takes ages and a lot of trial and error to come up with truly worthwhile registrations. And now that I have purchased the PA500 I will be tweaking away on this keyboard. It will take me at least a month before it becomes basically acceptable to my taste and needs, but that of course depends on the person.

My point on all this : Musicians should first of all concentrate on their playing abilities, should purchase the best keyboard that they can afford, and should not be blinded by the legions of sounds and styles either on board or on offer.
And personally I think they should try and create better and more useful total
registrations, it will open up a whole new window on your own keyboard.

Looking forward to your constructive comments and criticism.

John Smies
Holland

Hello to John and Everyone else on this Forum:

I'd like to reply to a couple points in your post.

I think with the Arranger keyboards, obviously you need to have some Musical Skills.

However learning what the keyboard can do for you and being able to navigate and use it's features to the fullest is just as important as your Musicianship.

That can not be accomplished overnight.

Thanks to the Technology, a chord played with the left hand and a single finger melody line , can sound fantastic.

I think the Musicianship naturally improves as you become more comfortable with the functions of the machine and where and when to use them.

Peter, Michel and Robert are all accomplished musicians, however, the important part of how good they sound, is the fact they have learned how to operate and maneuver around the keyboard!

When you become one with the machine, watch out! Thats when it becomes fun!

All four or five ( However many there are now, )of the Manufactures have placed before us some pretty amazing technologically advanced keyboards. Every few years when I buy a new arranger, I say to myself, " They can't put out anything better than this " but , they always do!

Spend the time needed and learn the machine!

The Musicianship will magically develop with the knowledge of the Arranger.

The wonderful thing about music is, no matter what level of player you are, your unique talent will be enjoyed by anyone that appreciates music.

Striving to become a Musicians Musician is a great goal.

However, you'll probably NEVER perform for a room full of Musicians.

Spend the time needed to learn and understand the keyboards capabilities.

The MAGIC OF MUSIC will certainly follow, no matter what level of player you are.

Jim R.

"....Spend the time needed to learn and understand the keyboards capabilities...."

Hi Nitelife,

This is exactly the point that I am referring to. I think quantity (styles/songbooks) is an overrated commodity whereas quality, the styles and sounds within your keyboard and what you yourself can do with them, is underrated or should I say not explored to its full potential by the great majority of keyboard players....

John,

I agree with you that the key part to produce good music in any keyboard is the musician. I have learn that in the hard way. I am NOT a very good musician, I am just learning and I am amaze for what some of the guys in this forum can produce.
But, I am trying hard. Taking some courses now that I should have taken years ago.
Maybe some day I will be able to post a good MP3s !!!

It will be nice if you share you experiences in the "building" of you PA500. In that way we all can learn from some body that have the experience. One of the keyboards use in school where I am taking lessons is a PA588 ( same sound set as the PA500).

Thanks !!

John great topic, but as we all know the only thing that matters is the "FINAL" product when you listen to the music...there is no way around what it sounds like in the end result. How someone gets there is a life long process and even then if you don't have it inside you you might not ever achieve it...not everyone can be a good musician as with any profession...some are suited for certain people some are not. We are all human and have different abilities. The tools we use are secondary.....hoping to hear more discussion about this.

d.

Great topic and thoughts, John. I'll echo Machetero here. John, what DO you do in altering/tweaking styles on your keyboard? I have a Pa1XPro and I find the styles pretty darn good as they are. Of course, I'm interested to hear what it is that you tweak and see if it makes a huge difference in my board.

I should have added that I do change instruments in arrangements, track volumes, and mute/un-mute some things during songs as I go along, etc., but not much else.

[This message has been edited by 124 (edited 04-15-2010).]

I think, to be honest, the more modest a player you are, the MORE important tweaking tools are, not less. If you are limited to simple chords and simple single note melody lines, use the same great style twice, you will end up sounding very similar, even on a different tune. But learn to tweak the style, only change the drumkit and bass to a different kit even, and you end up with something that sounds quite different, with a modicum of work...

Learn to write in your own OTS settings and Registrations, and you can quickly change lead sounds, and make the most of the little you ARE playing, also. It's often strange that many people won't mess much with these, going 'I'm not a great player', but in truth, they are your best friend...

So, I guess I'd say that what makes a keyboard a 'good one' is more to do with the ease that you can transform it into something new and fresh, possibly more than almost any other point. Great players can make rubbish keyboards sound great. They can make you forget about bad sounds, samples and styles, even (if they play enough to cover them up!), but more modest players need VARIETY..

Sorry guys I did not get round to answering sooner, and thanks for your input so far.

Machetero and 124,

It will be hard to trust to paper all that I am doing to enhance my arranger keyboard and loads of it are "trial and error".
What has always puzzled and slightly irritated me is a lot of musicians' obsession with numbers and quantities. I mean does it really matter whether you have an archive of 2000 styles, or 4000 sounds ?
Reminds me of someone boasting more than 100 gigabyte of mp3 popsongs on his harddisk. Great but when will he ever listen to only a minor fraction ?
What do I tweak ?
Well obviously in the styles I tweak all the volumes, the effect settings for each accompaniment, muting, DRUM settings/selection and part muting (very important). Theoretically you can tweak each style probably millions of different ways so like I said there is a lot of trial and error.
Two major pieces of advice, and I guess that goes for virtually any arranger keyboard.
Try and replace all the acc. tracks with the exception of drums and bass by the best acoustic piano sound on board. Then remove ALL of the reverb ( and if necessary) the choruses etc. from all the accomp. sections.
From there you listen to what you get and start filling it up again according to taste, trial and guesswork.
Another very basic advice that I would like to give anyone is "what about your basic samples and sounds ?
I mean let's be honest, how many sounds do you really need for your righthand playing ?
Depending on your taste inevitably a couple of good pianos, elect. pianos, organs, saxes,
brass, guitars, etc. I would venture to say that you do not get beyond 20 or 30 preferred right hand sounds.
So what I try and do is select for example the best (to my ears)acoustic piano, and by going to the basic sound programming, see whether I can improve on that one or have it more geared to my personal taste. I would do the same with my basic needs for righthand playing, in particular guitar, sax, elec.piano and brass. Again there is massive trial and error here as well.
But once you have done that you benefit tremendously from all your efforts. Of course
you can also incorporate your own sound improvements in your accompaniments an total registrations. I cannot stress how important I consider making good registrations.
And much as I agree with what most of you have been saying here like Donny remarking that the only thing that matters is the final product, "the tools we use are secondary ", yes but do make the most of the tools you have at your disposal, that's my point.
I also agree with DIKI that the better the musician the less need he may have for tweaking.That would explain my modest ability of playing,and , if I may believe friends of mine,my much greater ability in good tweaking......
But DIKI hits the nail right on the head by stating that it has often more to do with the ease that you can transform the keyboard into something new and fresh, and that it is often strange that in this very field many people cannot be bothered to mess with a lot.
Indeed VARIETY is what we need, the point is how do we achieve it, by ordering or downloading yet another cart-load of styles and sounds, or by creatively exploring and tweaking the hundreds of sounds and styles at our disposal in our own keyboard(s) ??

Have a nice weekend,
John Smies
Holland

Hi John,

I just wanted to pick up on the above quote, and whilst I definately agree with what you're saying, I have been really surprised at how well the T3 has played other manufacturers styles, especially Korg's I series, most of the i30 styles I have play almost perfectly with a tiny bit of tweaking. Only the GEM styles don't convert so well but I am not overly bothered about that as I found GEM's WK series to be the weakest keyboard for styles of all the TOTL keyboards I owned anyway.

I still have a PA1x and I've not had any converted styles sound so well on there, but on the Yamaha they sound great! very strange..

Danny.

[This message has been edited by DannyUK (edited 04-18-2010).]