We have started a NEW Facebook group called Arranger Keyboard Players in memory of Don Mason and we are growing very rapidly over 3600+ members to date. Would love to have you join us. We are devoted to all players worldwide who enjoy playing Arranger Keyboards and much more.
Sharing our Music & Songs, Discussing Old & New gear, Learning New technics, Making new friends, Etc. We have a great mix of Pros & Amateurs & most of all we all learn from each other.
You will be surprised at how many people you already know from other groups too.

Please come and JOIN US here at... copy the link

Arranger keyboard Players Group

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2819613151594818

See You There!!
Sincerely in Music

Arranger Keyboard Players Administration

Thank you

Hi Donny.
Nice to see you stopping by, and that Don M's memory is being honored. Don was, and still is, one of my idols both musically and humanly.
May he rest in peace. 🕊️

Thanks for the invitation, but.....
Facebook has never been my thing, and is for me a messy jumble of comments and posts. Forums like this and others are much more clear and more suitable for posting exchanges of opinions and for debating in.

It was a real shame that political opinions and disagreements were what it took to ruin the great atmosphere and great engagement here on this forum that has been the musical meeting place for decades.
My hope was that it would calm down and be like before, but time goes by, and the old and active membership is thinning out with time, in addition to the fact that many have found other forums where there is more daily activity regarding their interests and not least, music and arranger keyboards' problems and joys within different brands.

All the best & keep well. 🌞

A lot of what drove engagement here was predicated by discussion of each brand's new models, what had improved, what had got worse, which one was now 'best' (whatever that means!)...

Sadly, the arranger market has ground to an almost complete halt, one of the Big Three has left the building, one hasn't released a TOTL model for over three years (and no MOTL model for seven years!), only Yamaha are still actively releasing new models.

There's little left to talk about..!

What about Ketron and Korg? They're still inn arranger business with TOTL models.
There are also a couple of others such as i.e. Wersi thats usually not mentioned much often when speak about arrangers. At least not here...
But for how long or if any of them have any plans to carry on the arranger developements, I guess noone outside the inner circle knows.

Wersi and Bohm are both niche markets, however they are in 2 camps, (Organ & Arranger) giving them a larger audience. (Both are organ 1st with arranger features, so even the single keyboards have all the features of an the organ OS, making it easy to expand without workarounds (Adding an additional keyboard & pedals to an arranger is quite popular in Europe)

The other advantage is that they are easily updatable (Via software on Wersi and a combination of software/hardware on Bohm), so you don't need to keep buying a new instrument, the downside is the initial cost to get them, but long term (Because you don't have to change the complete keyboard) they don't work out much more than a dedicated arranger. (Long term means about 10yrs or so)

Its sad, but youngsters are not into instruments (Of any type) like they used to be. (They just want to press a button and let AI come up with something for them. (The range of new music today is quite limited compared to what it used to be)

I agree about Facebook, but it has its place. (It is easy for someone to setup a group than a website)

Bill

I am not a fan or user of Facebook, either. I am a fan of both our departed friend, Don and Donnie.

Every once in a while, I go to my equipment room and look at the items I got from Don...a set of Ketron pedals. 4 or 5 microphones. A couple of keyboards.

Occasionally, I will take a few items to a "one-nighter" job and play that equipment with a smile and a feeling of sadness at the same time.

While I will not be a part of this new group I certainly appreciate Donny and his initiative to start the project honoring our old friend.

Best of luck, Donnie.


Russ

Donny,

Thanks for chimming in here.

Every now and then, I return 'home' to Synthzone, where it all began (well, after the Yahoo group).

Many Arranger companies are releasing new Arrangers with subtle changes to the old, but KETRON recently released their new flagship EVENT (series), which introduced a brand new phenomenon into the Arranger world - Using Audio tracks that follow your chord changes in real time for Chords, Bass, and Drums/Percussion.

This example here clearly illustrates how revolutionary the Arranger has become with access to sounds and audio patterns and loops that follow your chord changes in nearly every key:- https://youtu.be/ZbR92WagOas

Here, we play a common tune:- https://youtu.be/O1K-erP7Y0U

What is even 'extra' is that, unlike previous KETRON products before it, where this technology started, the EVENT series allows USERS to create their own Audio Drums, Bass, and Chords and use them with styles. This is revolutionary in the Arranger world.

Thanks,

Most people that drive Ford's don't have much experience with Ferrari's! Wersi and Bohm are priced FAR beyond the reach of most gigging players. Let's face it Abacus, you're the ONLY user I can ever recall on this forum! Being such a niche brand and targeted at a niche player, I imagine there's one main English language Wersi/Bohm user group and most of you spend your time there.

Massively expensive, very heavy, technically beyond most hobbyist arranger players' reach, it's easier to think of them as home organs for the wealthy amateur (or organ pro) than a serious contender in the arranger market as we know it.

I already addressed about Korg... no new mid line model for SEVEN YEARS, and a tragically buggy and incomplete TOTL model that has taken over three years to even be comparable to its predecessor! That's not the behavior of any brand that WANTS to be in the segment...

Most of us are old enough to remember the rapid decline of the home organs. One day they were everywhere, the next no one would touch them with a barge pole, completely irrelevant for playing the contemporary music of the day. And therein lies the rub...

We can sit on our porches mumbling about how kids today aren't into music, but the massive sales of stage keyboards and synth workstations says otherwise (not to mention software instruments that run on mini computers or tablets!). What the kids AREN'T into is playing dated keyboards with barely 5% of their content aimed at their generation.

Look, WE are the generation that abandoned organs. Try to remember why we did... Truth is, they sucked at 70's/80's pop music! So we moved on. I imagine there were a bunch of crusty old diehard organ players back then moaning about how the kids (that was us!) not playing any more, but what they were REALLY complaining about was the kids not playing JUST LIKE THEM..!

The collapse of the arranger segment is driven from the bottom, not the top. You could still buy five figure home organs long after the base models were discontinued. But it was the high volume low cost organs that made the companies survive, and without that base, manufacturer after manufacturer went broke or moved on to synths, and all that's left is uber-expensive niche organs designed for those with a costly taste for nostalgia. Almost no one is GIGGING one!

The way the home organ faded away is being mirrored today. Ketron don't make ANY mid-line arrangers (and forget about low-line!), Korg haven't made one for seven years, Roland are gone completely and that leaves Yamaha.

But Korg and Roland have robust sales of just about every OTHER type of keyboard... stage pianos, synths, Hammond clones, workstations, software synths, home digital pianos, you name it. The kids haven't stopped playing. They just stopped playing hokey old arrangers..!

I keep going on about this, but most of us wouldn't buy an arranger that 95% of its styles were for hiphop, trap, jungle, glitch etc (most of us have no idea what those genres even sound like, let alone name a bunch of hit songs in the style!). And most kids aren't interested in buying anything loaded up with swing and bossa novas and bigband stuff..!

Arrangers are being designed for US, the survivors, the few, not the kids. And we're not enough to keep the investment and innovation going. I think we've seen the last of Korg, Roland's gone, Ketron is heading in Wersi's direction. There's always a last man standing, and unsurprisingly it's Yamaha. But for how long?

All I can say is, I'm glad I have TWO BK9's, and I'm stocking up on spare parts while they're still available!

Nice Read Diki !

Ditto,Diki. Additionally, NO Facebook for me. Too many scammers stealing your personal information from that site.

I recently dumped my land line phone and went strictlt cellular. Scammer calls galore and the scammers freely admitted the garnered their information from FB.

Good luck,

Gary

Thanks. For me, Facebook was NOT designed as a replacement for a focused BBS. It's designed for short term social interaction, and yes, we do that here too. But what makes this place ideal is the organization, the archiving, and the sheer history of the place.

Want to look up Donny's views on the Tyros1? No problem..! Need a source for an OS floppy for a discontinued arranger? We probably got it. Want to check into how well received an early Solton was? Want to find out who dabbled with a Lionstrac?

I think that Facebook makes organizing a decades long group very difficult, plus throws in to many distractions and don’t get me started about the fake AI profiles and their confrontational postings on any subject you want to discuss! An enormous percentage of Facebook is simply 'bots. Often 'bots arguing with each other! Go to a poster's profile. If all it is is pictures and memes (invariably stolen from a real person's account) it's a dead giveaway. Likewise those profile information fields with NOTHING on them.

I don’t mind being disagreed with, but I'd rather it be a person!

Diki

It is sad, sometimes, to read the truth, but like it or not, I am afraid you nailed it.

Bernie

I think it's time to look for a nursing home...

Hell no! But fortunately, my life revolves around MUSIC, not arrangers. They're simply one of many, MANY tools to create music, and I like to use them ALL. It's sad that one of them is in decline, but at the same time others (particularly software instruments) are in the ascendant phase and great fun to play.

I survived the decline of the organ, I'll survive the decline of the arranger. Plenty of ways to skin a cat! 🤣🎹❤️

I am having a heck of a good time learning piano on my new Roland FP-30X. With 50 plus years on arrangers, I am not starting from scratch at any rate. It has many good sounds, but I am sticking to piano now.

Bernie

That's the spirit, Bernie! No one is too old to learn something new!

Probably my favorite thing to do using the arranger section of my BK9 is to simply put it into Pianist2 mode, put on the Dynamic Arranger, turn of all the Parts except bass and drums (and maybe rhythm guitar) and just play normal piano...

It does a frighteningly good job of following the chords and inversions without adjusting away from regular two handed piano technique (you had to be a lot different back in the old Pianist1 mode!), and then just bang away at a bunch of jazz standards.

If you can, put the variation and fill triggering onto a multi-pedal, and then there's no interruption to your playing. There are times it can really fool you into thinking you simply have a great little rhythm section actually LISTENING to you! 😱🤣🎹

I agree with that and sometimes I add accompaniment from my SD40 or Event X module by Midi in and controlling what I want to play. I can also add voices at will. The only reason I don't do that more is because I will never learn to play solo piano by treating it as a arr keyboard. However, even when I do use the modules, I learn a lot of lefthand Arps and inversions by playing full piano keyboard.

I find the traditional 'three notes for a new chord' system that most arrangers have for their 'pianist mode' doesn't really translate too well to actual piano playing. Far too many passing notes and runs etc to get a really clean chord recognition. I couldn't use it on my old G70, it just went wild too often.

But Roland's Pianist2 mode adds the wrinkle of needing FIVE notes down (actually being played, not held by the sustain) before it recognizes a new chord while you've got the sustain down, and that simple addition makes ALL THE DIFFERENCE!

It's a common piano technique to use the sustain quite a lot while you've arpeggiate, or run through some passing notes, and that mode really helps the chord recognition ignore those notes, and just hold until you lift the pedal, which you always do on a piano at the next chord.

I know quite a few arrangers have an effective 'chord hold' feature (Roland doesn't!) but it's one MORE pedal and is used completely differently to a piano's sustain pedal (and independently of it), so for me it breaks the illusion of playing normal piano and nothing else.

I wish ALL manufacturers would 'steal' this Roland feature (Roland certainly aren't using it any more, and other manufacturers 'stole' Roland's chord sequencer and dynamic arranger without a lawsuit, apparently!). For a REAL pianist, it's a game changer... ❤️🎹🙏

There's always the FP-E50 Diki. Although Roland hasn't released a true arranger since the E-A7, the FP-E50 and GO:KEYS 5 definitely use some of their historical arranger features and programming. FWIW.

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.