Don't get me wrong, I have really enjoyed using arranger keyboards, and have owned 3 Yamahas (includig the 540 and 740). Though I'm not a professional musician by any means, I've had the pleasure during these last 25 years of performing mainly as a vocalist\guitarist in church choral groups, bluegrass\folk gospel street bands, rock bands, folk and rock duos, and as a solo performer. I have never used an arranger keyboard on stage but would definitely not be adverse to the idea.

In December of 2004, I was ready to buy a new keyboard after selling most of my E-mu stuff (PK-6, PX-7, a bunch of expansion ROMs), and a couple of digital recorders. The reason I didn't buy an arranger keyboard came down to a combination of 2 factors: price and expandability. The arranger keyboards that can be expanded with new samples\sounds are just way too expensive! I really don't understand why arranger keyboards remain such closed systems...there are only so many ways you can layer or otherwise combine the limited collection of sounds on an arranger keyboard! For the money (around 1k), I thought the Korg PA-50 was interesting because it used the basic Triton soundset, which meant that new presets could be added. Still, its limited sample set just didn't go far enough for me. Along with good quality bread-and-butter sounds (like piano and organ), I like to have a lot of textural color and movement..especially with ethnic\world instruments, ambient synths and pads. I enjoy experimenting and playing with a well-rounded sound palette and I just didn't get this with the current crop of
reasonably-priced arranger keyboards.

My dilema was that I had a total budget of around 2k, and this included funds for a small mixer. I missed out on some B-stock Triton Extremes that sold for under 1600.00 in November (loved the huge onboard sound library, in-track sampling and tube processor...not that crazy about the touchscreen). As I saw it, my only other alternative was the Fantom S (didn't even consider the Yamaha Motif because the display was much too small and the operating system seemed to be convoluted...at least that's how it felt after originally viewing the official Yamaha Motif promo DVD a couple of years ago). I was able to purchase a B-stock
Fantom-S 61, the World and Orchestral (and recently, the new Piano SRX-11) expansion ROMs, as well as an Edirol M100FX 10 channel mixer, for a few dollars under 2k. I freely admit to having a brief flirtation with the Fantom X after Roland announced the new operating system at Winter NAMM but quickly came to my senses after realizing the extra money involved! I am extremely satisfied with my purchase but wish there had been more options available, especially because I
truly dig arranger keyboards! Has anybody else experienced the same frustration?

Michael