88 Keys

I have a shirt tail cousin who lives not far from me. He is usually doing between 3 to 5 gigs a week mostly nursing home assisted living places. About half his gigs are solo gigs .

He brings an 88 key piano to the gig when playing solo. But in addition he needs to bring a drum machine and a harmonizer. I have suggested an arranger to him more than once. However he's a little overwhelmed by all the buttons.

He's using the new 25 pound Casio keyboard and likes that quite a bit.

But still I look at all the stuff he has to haul and it takes him three times as long as me to set up.

Glad that I'm using an arranger.

All but the Casio Privia 160 have driums built in and pretty good speakers. The full backing functions are really simple to use if he wants more than just drums. Tell him to upgrade to a 360 or I have my Privia 350 for sale if he's interested. As for a harmonizer in a NH I can't see why you would need one.

An 88 key TOTL arranger.... that would be my dream...

I use the Korg PA 4X 76 as a drum machine many times......

25-35 lbs plus graded hammer action....

If Yamaha....I'm not holding my breath. Yamaha charges $15k or more for a piano with very basic arranger functions.

Most arranger players. Are home players, which does make weight not an issue...

On top of that, technollogy is at the point where they can make fairly light high end 88 key weighted hammer action.... casio px-5s action and keyfeel are top..