Over the last couple of months I have been witnessing several threads overhere both on the merits of using the full potential of the accompaniment section in the arranger keyboards as well as the part of the arranger keyboards in public performing and entertaining and its future.

As to the first issue, I have learned that many professional or semi professional entertainers using arranger keyboard do not set great store by the accompaniment voices as they lean very heavily on the drums and bass and “fill in the rest with their right hand techniques “. Which I suppose is fair comment. What does strike me as odd in this respect though is the perennial discussions of yet another new arranger keyboard etc.etc. if your most dire needs are good bass and drums and superb righthand sounds. Why is that ?

Well imho any old Ketron arranger keyboard going back almost 20 years in time ( X1, SD1, etc.) already offered superb drums and bass, on par or even better than the current top echelons of Yamaha and Korg. Admittedly they were trailing badly in many of the overall righthand sounds and samples , with the noticably exception of Musette and Blow Sax, which were way ahead of the competition. From others overhere I have been given to understand that modules such as e.g. the Roland Integra are superb , in other words combining an older Ketron with a Roland Integra for outstanding righthand sounds could already be a winner ?

Obviously I am simplifying things for argument sake. An additional query is the endless quest for 88 note arrangers ? Why ? Just purchase yourself an outstanding 88 Midi master keyboard ( quite affordable) and add either a module ( Roland, Ketron) or even a full fledged 61 arranger.
Some will argue that they want a weighed keyboard action, but in my personal experience any (stage) piano with proper weighed keyboard is not ideal for playing acc. Chords with the left hand, and vice versa, i.e. none of the arranger keyboards offer the full fledged ‘piano touch ‘ while playing acoustic piano on them. Not even the Genos or PA4X….

As to the second issue, public performing and entertaining, giggin if you like, I think the shift to different approaches is becoming more and more apparent and imho will ultimately phase out the arranger keyboard altogether. Luckily for most of us here on the forum we will probably not live to see the day, although……

As remarked by others the audiences these days , with the possible exception of folks in an old people’s home ,want to be entertained and do not really care whether the entertainer is actually playing his keyboard or just pretending for instance by using midifiles and adding the odd note here and there. Worse than that, more and more I visit places or occasions where there is no longer a keyboard but either a performer with an acoustic guitar ( amplified) which is great really, or just a performer with a mike, a good voice, a decent amp ( Roland Streetcubes are quite the thing here) and a stack of high quality Backing Tapes.

The advantages are obvious. Less gear to drag along, less efforts to make and prepare, you can’t go wrong with playing, your amplification can be very small and portable and your investment likewise. A wireless mike would be the icing of the cake but even with a decent wired mike you are okay. Only problem is the amount of dough required to invest in purchasing decent backing tapes in your vocal range. Mind you I am not saying this is something I welcome but it sure looks like this is going to be the future.

And the audiences ? They could not care less cause they want to be entertained. And they want to hear their favourite popsongs as close to the original as possible. And even with all of our songstyles ( in particular on the Yammies) we cannot get as close to the original than many of the current high quality backing tracks, see below.

So all in all not a rosy picture for the arranger keyboard I admit, unless of course you want to do with it what its name suggests: ARRANGE, that is get away from replicating the original popsong for the sake of a public performance but use it at home or in the studio to either arrange your own compositions or make new and refreshing arrangements for classic popsongs in a way that is not done with the Backing Tracks however superb and true to the original they may be.

I rest my case.

John Smies

P.S. Here is a link to a song that I recorded last year, by one of my all time favourite artists Cliff Richard ( still going strong at 78 by the by). It dates back to his early days when he started with Move It in 1958. I am using a backing track that I was offered by a fellow musician and the quality of the backing track is outstanding I think……

https://app.box.com/s/li0mavugqfvhhrul43w52z1wwm1o55x7

regards,
John