The main thing that has killed my desire for an FP-E50 is that it is closed off from my 30 year collection of Roland styles, you can't edit in detail the ROM styles and expansion of the content is sparse at best. It's essentially a preset arranger, with little of the modern conveniences.

In a way, it's a throwback to the early days of arrangers, few ROM styles (comparatively) and very basic. Which might in fact be ideal IF the styles are exactly what you're looking for. But the idea that, if there's a style you really like BUT there's a kick hit in a bad place, or you'd prefer that tight rock kit on brushes instead, or would like a simpler rhythm guitar part, or it needs to swing a bit... too bad!

There was a time when we adjusted what we played to fit the styles. But that was nearly 30 years ago. Then we started adjusting the styles to fit what we wanted to play. That's tough to let go of.

For a home user, maybe what it does is enough. But for a pro, it's tough to deal with early 90's functionality when our current arrangers are so malleable. We've been dealing with 88 note arrangers having stripped down arranger features for decades, but FINALLY the PA5X came out with an 88 on a true TOTL arranger, it's a shame Roland did their usual 'one step forward, two steps back' tango and didn't simply slap an 88 on a BK9.

At least we can still MIDI a decent 88 controller into our TOTL arrangers and get the best of BOTH worlds.

BTW, if anyone is using an FP-E50, I would REALLY like a breakdown of the chord recognition modes, the manual is a bit skimpy on the details...

DITTO!

Well said! A very intuitive summary of our "Journey" through the Organ to the Arranger market.

Thanks for putting things in such a great perspective for me.

I am so grateful for all I learned from all the members in this Forum.

I have also made some great friends from all around the world, thanks to Synthzone.