I know that many of you have non-arranger boards in your homes/studios, but do any of you use a secondary board for live performances (ie clonewheel, stage piano, synth, etc.)? If so, in what configuration and why do you feel it's necessary. Just curious, as in 50 yrs of playing, I've never used anything LIVE other than an organ. But that's only because I've only (mostly) played in organ-based trios/quartets. However, from the beginning I've always owned synths, DP's, Workstations, etc.

chas

When I was using arrangers I always liked having a synth above it. Either Triton, Motif or Fantom. As long as it has sampler so I can load my custom samples to it. And that was always only for solo sounds. Now I am only using Montage. My budy that I play with took my pa4x.

Chas,
If I could ever get a job where I didn't tear down each night, I might bring my Rhodes to sit under my PA4x ... that would make me SOOOOOOO happy, but it's just too bulky to transport. Nothing else would interest me, except maybe, for my (also antique) Yamaha 9000PRO with DX7 board installed .... just for kicks. I'd midi it to the Korg for layers and use it as a straight piano/Rhodes.

Chas, I generally always use at least one additional keyboard. Sometimes, I use a piano at my right had...90 degrees from the main.

Recently, I have been using an arranger at the bottom, my new little Hammond on top of that and a Yamaha digital piano on my right hand. For really large jobs, I sometimes use a synth on top of the piano.


For years, I used at Rhodes on my right hand and a B-3 in front, plus a synth on top of the Hammond.

Once, when I was wearing a full whiter tux on a revolving stage between a dining room and a lounge (the stage turned after dinner hour), I took a perfectly good Hammond C and added a three note Fender steel on the top. The white shiny case was built around the steel. All this was matched to a white acoustic piano (Miked) on my right hand at 90%.

Love stacked keys for walking left hand bass lines and endings.


R.

For years I used a Yamaha 9000 Pro with the AP and DX cards MIDI'd to a Radio Shack piano (Casio CDP-100 clone used as silent 88-note weighted-action controller). That worked very well and I still have that setup in my studio, but lately I use a Kawai ES4 piano for solo work and a Hammond SK2 for band work. The SK2 acts like a dual keyboard rig: AP/EP on bottom and organ on top. Even though my SK2 "piano" has unweighted action the trade off of having a simple and quick one-keyboard band setup versus carrying around two keyboards won me over.

My arrangers (9000 Pro, Tyros 3 and Microarranger) stay home now. I use an iPad for backing tracks on stage when needed.

But if you had to do a solo thing, would you go back to using an Arranger? Also, HOW do you use the Montage live? What's the group configuration? Do you see yourself ever going back to arrangers for live performance? Just curious.

chas

I think Montage and PA4x would make a great combination, also when played on top of eachother...

Tough i think when having a Montage i would add a little Ketron SD40 just to have some awesome styles...

Now, i am only a home player, but i tried moving away from arrangers, but love the easy access to new performaces that arrangers offer way to much..


I also love having an 88 key for piano and a synth/organ keybed for organ and synths (altough both Kronos as well as Montage 88 keysbeds would suffice for both in the end)... also a synthworkstation really adds a lot to an arranger, as you mentioned above.

In the end, if you have arranger needs however, only having a Kronos or a Montage will not work, so if you want a high end synthworkstation you need to add some kind of arranger to it.. Montage/Tyros would work, but if you add 2 different nrands, it should work even better as they add more to eachother... So Montage/Pa4x, or in my case Kronos/Tyros5. Adding the SD40 module to any synth workstation is allways an option.


But then, i just play at home, so i can not say if having 2 keybeds for a giging player is worth the fuzz of taking them around to 3 gigs a day.. Thats something everyone needs to decide for himself. But i can say, that having 2 keyboards that add to eachother in both functionallity as well as in sound characteristics will be an advantage for most...

You don’t need a TOTL Arranger if you have a Synth/Workstation, so long as the Arranger can output the midi style data, thus allowing you to use the superior sounds of the Synth/Workstation.

Bill

superior sounds of the synth workstation?

Tyros 5 sounds where actually much more advanced as the Motif XF...
Korg Pa4x sound quallity is close to the Kronos, and in some cases even better...

In the end there is a different type of sounds (less synth, more orchestrall) in the arrangers, however they are not lesser quallity then the Workstation sounds...


Workstations having a superior sound engine only goes for the typicall synth part of the Kronos...

At Yamaha all synths use the same basic AWM engine, for ages now... and only Tyros used the advanced technollogies like SA2, Ensemble, Organworld... while the piano's used scm and vrm... Montage is currently a little ahead of Tyros in some parts becaus eof its huge dsp, but the next Tyros will certainly catch up...