A post Ian made on another thread prompts me to examine my organ-to-arranger "journey".

My LAST organ was Yamaha FS500, in 1984. It had three manuals and weighed about a million pounds. By the time i got it on dollies, loaded leslie, bench, and pa gear, it filled an entire full-size Chevy van.
After about a year of carrying it around, I sold it and bought a Yamaha PSR 70, a DX7, an RX7 drum machine, and a piano module. I connected them all via midi. Never looked back.
Soon updated to PS 6100, added a TX81Z and FB-O1, changed to Alesis drum machine. Added V50 for second keyboard and
Next step was 6300, which was last Yammy for a while.
Technics came on the scene and I started with KN800. Still needed the outboard midi gear. KN1000 was next, then came the KN2000, which at last had a usable drum machine. It was way ahead of its time. Then came the KN5000, which I played until Yamaha came out with PSR8000, which had built-in vocal processor and harmonizer. (Harmonizer was BETTER than the one in later models!)
By then I was back to one keyboard. At various times I had PSR510 (never used it alone, though it was pretty good), PSR640, PSR740, PSR2000, 2100, 9000, Tyros, Tyros 2.
The time frame gets a little fuzzy, but Roland G800, Korg PA80, Solton X1, Yamaha PSR S900, Ketron SD1, SD5, Audya, Roland G70, G80, BK7m, Yamaha PSR S950, Korg PA3X, Roland BK9, Korg PA900, which I'm currently using.
No brand loyalty! I will use whatever best suits what I want to do at the time.
Oh, I also have Casio WK3000, which I loaned to a friend about five years ago. Excellent piano and organ sounds, lousy arranger.
I expect if I live long enough, the Korg replacement for PA3x may be next. And we'll see what replaces S950
ANY of these arranger in the past 10 years are perfectly capable of doing most everything I need, but I do enjoy new challenges!

These things have kept from having to get a real job since they were invented!

That's quite the history Don. You must be pretty adept at selling off your old gear to acquire the replacements,

God Bless,
Don

The secret is buying them at the right price!

And finding a "fish" in the bluegrass to buy the old stuff (LOL)!


Russ (the grouper) Lay

The secret is buying them at a good price and selling them at an even better price... I allways try to buy used, and in general never loose to much and most of the time even make money when selling them...

The key word here is LOOSE! If you loose, you loose - not a god way to stay in business. I guess that's why some of us have retained the same keyboards for several years, which is why we're still making a profit as musician/entertainers. Now, like DonM, I've been fortunate to make hundreds of dollars in this business. However, I can attest that I've never lost a dime as an entertainer (I'm not a musician.)

Cheers,

Gary

Don, not too many marriages would have survived that purchasing history . Mine did but I lied a lot (about purchase prices). So the kids missed a few meals, so what. That builds character.

chas

That KN5000 brought Don & me together many many years ago...

Wow, Don, that is quite a list of instruments...especially considering you didn't start out your musical journey as a keyboardist...I believe you started on trumpet.

I actually have a written list of the keyboard instruments I have owned since I started playing pro, and for Arranger Keyboards only (and not counting Electone organs), there were 21 different models (mainly Yamaha and a few Roland), the number not taking into account the ones I bought a pair at a time for backup ( I had pairs of PSR-8000's, PSR-3000's, PSR-1700's just to name a few, for example).

Because I worked in various aspects of the business (sales, teaching, demoing), I often got my instruments at (or a little below) dealer cost, and I was usually able to make a profit (or at least break even) when I sold them after a year or two of making money with them.

Instruments were always an investment for me, and until my retirement, I treated them as tools of the trade...plus I was generally able to write off portions of the investment at income tax time.

The Tyros4 will quite likely be my last Arranger Keyboard, unless it has to be eventually be replaced due to hardware wearing out and parts no longer being available. Knowing how to program/edit my own styles, and being very content with the instrument's sounds makes getting a newer instrument unnecessary...thankfully!

I think we may have briefly discussed this topic some time ago, and, from what I remember...I think Fran might have owned the most instruments, but I'm not sure if they were Arranger Keyboards only.

In any case, it will be interesting to hear what others have been buying and using over the years.

Ian

Don,
Why would anyone go from the PAX3 to the PA800 or PA900? I thought the PAX3 was the top 0f the line for the Korg arrangers, NO?