the best way to learn chords is to play them correctly (Not rely on proprietary easy play features), that way you can move between the different keyboard manufactures with ease.

Bill

I've had many different ones also. I had all the Korg models and most of the Roland. Currently I have the Yamaha 920. Great instrument, full of great sounds and styles and easy to learn. I use it for live play and it goes well. Folks enjoy the board. For my studio, I went with a Yamaha DGX-670. Same OS as the 920, so I can work on songs when my 920 is in the car. Both are quality arranger keyboards and have tons of available styles on the Yamaha forums. I use fingered on bass mode. Chord recognition on the 920 is better than any Korg I've played.

High price aside, I personally wouldn't buy a Pa5X right now. The release notes from the latest update suggest that there were (and probably still are) some bugs and missing features in the OS. Korg's "Advanced" chord recognition is similar but inferior to Yamaha's AI Fingered. And Korg's "Fingered" (with optional Bass Inversion) is similar to but not as easy as Roland's Chord Intelligence. For example: when you try to play common slash chords like C/E or C/G you must play all three notes on a Korg, otherwise the two-finger shortcuts get in the way! This could easily be remedied with a menu option, but as of now it has not been.

Furthermore on a Korg there is no way to play open "power" chords like 1+5 and also benefit from single-note major chords in the same song. Up until the Pa3X, this was possible by using a foot pedal to change registrations in real time. However the major OS revision that debuted with the Pa4X, Pa600 generation removed the necessary granularity from the style section of registrations, and it has not been restored. For these reasons, in the specific area of assistive chord input, I rate Yamaha's mid- and top-line arrangers better than Korg but inferior to Roland.

Jim has more skill than I do. Fingered on Bass requires pressing at least three notes to trigger a chord, and it forces you to always play in the correct inversion. For example, if you want the root bass, you have to play the root inversion. This inevitably translates to a lot of hand movement. If you play with a style running and there are no more than two chord changes per 4/4 bar, you can just "stab and move"; it's not too bad. But if you play as I do, with sync stop engaged or arranger hold turned off, bass and chord changes on almost every note, it would take a lot of skill to make those jumps accurately and on tempo. Remember, arrangers introducted Auto Bass Chord to replace the pedals on home organs. You are simultaneously playing three instruments: melody, harmony (chords) and bass on a single manual. I need all the help I can get!

One more thought... check out p22-24 of your owners manual. Specifically, functions like SplitInt, Auto Bass, and "Educational." If you're used to Roland's system you could continue to play "intelligent" partial chords on your E-09. It will output full triads and tetrads (i.e., 3-note and 4-note chords) via MIDI. If you send those MIDI note-on messages to a Yamaha SX920 and choose "Fingered" or "Fingered on Bass", it will correctly acknowledge the chords and drive the style, left-hand voice, etc. By MIDI'ing the Roland and Yamaha you are effectively getting the best of both worlds--easier and familiar assisted chord input together with a more modern sample ROM and the largest library of styles. I have personally done what I'm describing here, and I know that it works! If you're making music, learning, and having fun then you're not doing it wrong!

Ted probably didn't notice that the OP didn't say he had any particular need for a one finger system. To a hammer, everything looks like a nail..!

And he was also pretty specific about his approximate price range, so completely out of the PA5X range 💵💵💵

Which leaves him with either a ten year old discontinued (so there goes ease of finding spare parts if it malfunctions) EA7 with some pretty serious shortcomings, an 8 year old Korg PA1000, which if Korg had any interest in migrating it to the 3 year old PA5X engine, they'd have brought out the new mid-line model by now, or the 2 year old PSR-SX920.

The OP didn't really say what kind of music he wants to create, or anything about his playing skill level. I think some of us are projecting our OWN needs onto his query. Perhaps, before we go off on a diatribe about features that are essential to US, maybe we could ask if they're HIS needs too..?

Before the collapse of the arranger market, I would have asked FIRST what type of music a poster wanted to play, and that would often be enough to narrow down their choices along with price range. But with a rapidly diminishing choice, I think warning of how old the remaining few models are might raise some awareness of how deep into the endgame we're getting nowadays!

The OP already has an old arranger, so we can assume he's no stranger to the type. And the PA1000 might be what he's looking for if he's interested in synth programming and sampled sounds. BUT... nowadays computers and tablets can run VERY inexpensive software that utterly and completely blows any arranger at ANY price away for synth sounds and sampled instruments and grooves, and those can be MIDI'd to his existing arranger fairly easily.

The OP hasn't really given us enough info about what he wants to do, but I'd definitely say that if he already has an arranger, and mostly wants to experiment with synths and sampling, there's MUCH less expensive ways of doing it than buying an aging Korg. But as he's from Greece, that's almost definitely his best choice if he's interested in traditional Greek music..!

Decisions, decisions!

I think you're being overly pessimistic Diki. I don't see any evidence that the E-A7 has been "discontinued." As I stated, Roland released an OS update for it in late 2024 to maintain EU regulatory compliance. It's still available new from major online retailers like Sweetwater, as is the Pa1000 which is itself eight years old. I'm not sure that ANY of the keyboards sold today are especially serviceable. Some components such as screens, rotary pots, and key contacts might be common to contemporary models from the same manufacturer. My advice for longevity is to ALWAYS plug your keyboard into a UPS, or at least a good surge suppressor!

I also don't see evidence that the arranger market has "collapsed." Technics and Generalmusic (GEM) bowed out years ago. The pandemic closed the coffin on brick-and-mortar retail, so you won't see MOTL arrangers on the shelf in Guitar Center anymore. But I suspect sales are pretty robust in parts of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, hence the "A" in E-A7. Ketron is cranking out new models faster than I can keep track of--THAT gives me cause for concern with regard to serviceability! Yamaha is still releasing updated (evolutionary) models every other year. Casio's CT-X entry-level arrangers seem to have a strong following in India, the world's most populous country. Roland has integrated a lot of its legacy arranger functionality into the FP-E50 and Go:Keys. And then there are the clones from Medeli (which I don't especially like, because they're generally inferior to the major brands in every way but price.)

None of these companies publish model-specific unit sales. Although arrangers in the US are associated with an older demographic, arrangers are still the easiest way for a less-skilled player to produce full-sounding covers in real time. They're useful, fun, and I don't see them becoming extinct anytime soon.

EA7 was launched in late 2015. It received one OS update within its first year of launch. The other more recent update did NOTHING of any significance to the OS. As you said, it was merely an EU regulatory update. So, nothing for ten YEARS.

It has a sampler... with 128MB of memory. Yes, you read that right. Not GB, MB! In addition that tiny amount of RAM cannot read ANY established sampler format, INCLUDING any of Roland's legacy S-series samplers. Not Akai, not Korg, not Kurzweil. Nobody in their right minds would touch that sampler with a bargepole!

The time and effort you would need to spend would be immense, and simply hooking up an iPad to the EA7 would make it moot.

The EA7 has multipads. Finally! But wait... there's no way to import patterns to them. There's next to no factory content, and you can only create them live, in realtime with no editing. Give me a break..!

You can also use audio loops, but once again, ZERO factory content and zero editing.

The EA7 broke with Roland's arranger development team, and went after a very Yamaha-like design but failed to implement it well. Its greatest strength is it had a LOT of ethnic sounds and styles, but no real focus on any one particular region. And compared to say a PA1000 it's sampler and multipads were next to useless (and both those are pretty much essential to ethnic arrangers).

The EA7 came out over a decade ago and was abandoned by Roland after a year. I have no doubt that no new ones are being manufactured, and all Roland is doing is dumping the existing stock until it's all gone. Best of luck with parts...

There's a certain level of competency we expect from modern arrangers, and the closed architecture and simplistic OS's of stuff like the GO:KEYS and FP-E50 shows that Roland has abandoned all arranger development. Their current offerings are only notable for how much is MISSING from what we expect an arranger at those prices to have. Recycling old code, and locking style content behind paywalls, stifling user style creation and dumping long established arranger features isn't staying in the arranger segment, as far as I'm concerned.

Sure, you can make TOYS for kids and say you're still in the market, but we ALL know better. The heyday of arrangers is long gone. None of us would touch these poor excuses for an arranger with a bargepole. I rest my case!

Incorrect Post

That's exactly what home organ players said when they were in the same position as arranger players are today, you may not like it, but arrangers are a dying breed and they will soon become niche (Some say they already have) just like Home Organs are today.

Bill

Bill, do you (or anyone else on the 'Zone) have inside information or sales figures for various models? Particularly sales from Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe? It would be good to have some objective evidence to support our speculation.

I stumbled into the Arranger world from playing chord organs and an entry-level keyboard. Forty years later, music store shelves are still full of ~$300 Yamahas and Casios. And although the Go:Keys 5 isn't fully featured, it's also fundamentally an arranger. When the tweens and teens who received these keyboards this Christmas begin earning, they'll be looking for a step up.

I consider Ketron a low-volume niche brand for sure. But I can't imagine the major brands continuing to develop products for a market that's about to become extinct. If you look at the other thread (regarding the Akai MPC XL), the last couple of posts highlight the need for an instrument that can transpose a musical phrase in real time. That certainly sounds like an arranger to me! Arrangers have an inherent usefulness that, IMO, will justify their continued existence, even if that ultimately takes the form of an app, or software plug-in to a performance synth.

Edit: I forgot to mention that after years of high prices for aging used instruments, Suzuki released an updated version of its Omnichord last year. Although the form factor is different, it's fundamentally a low-end arranger with MIDI capability. And 15 year after its release, the Roland BK-7m continues to command prices near its original MSRP. Evidence that there's still a market/appetite for this type of instrument.

Aging arrangers aren't being snapped up by kids. They're being snapped up by US, as we realize that spares are rapidly disappearing and no new models are being created. The BK-7m is close to 30 years old. That they're being snapped up and not on a scrap heap is ONLY because no one is making them (or annything like them) any more. Ketron's the only arranger module manufacturer left, and their prices are triple what the BK-7m cost.

There's a certain level of involvement needed for a keyboard segment to survive. Just like home organs, we've LONG past the point where anything other than massively overpriced TOTL current models and toy kids' keyboards represent the future. Actual MUSICIANS (you know, those mythical creatures that turned barely acceptable organ auto-play functions into an entire keyboard segment!) are no longer creating music on arrangers. They basically suck at today's punchy, audio loop and hardcore synth driven music.

There is ONE semi-affordable MOTL full arranger left in production, the SX920. Then there's $4000-5000 offerings like the Genos2 and PA5X, and let's be honest, until recently the TOTL models weren't the BIG sellers, the MOTL models were. Now Ketron, Yamaha and Korg vie for the niche top end (sorry, but Wersi have always been the Ferrari of arrangers, completely out of reach to all but the really wealthy) and other than Yamaha, the middle is GONE...

And lose the middle, you lose the segment. You can't sell enough $5000 arrangers to support the R&D the segment needs to progress, when your R&D budget used to come from selling dozens of MOTL & BOTL for each TOTL you sell.

I remember the heyday of arrangers. Almost EVERY YEAR, the forum would be abuzz with arguments pro and con for whatever new arrangers came out that year. A three year cycle was pretty common. Stagger those between four manufacturers and there was ALWAYS something new to keep us engaged.

This is now a mostly 10+ year cycle for one manufacturer, and a four or more cycle for the other. No one in their right minds can look at that and think we're still a viable segment. It's a red letter year if even ONE new arranger comes out! Been over two years since the 920 (a pretty insignificant update).

We don't need sales figures to know where the segment is. It's utterly obvious from the dearth of new models. When people BUY arrangers, manufacturers make new ones, to compete for our money.

And they stop when we DON'T buy them... 😢