Workstation Advice Needed

I am set for arranger work, but wondered if there is any advantage of a workstation for my band. I need combi, or section sounds on many occasions to fill out the sound. I know I can create them on my arrangers to a certain extent, but wondered if a used WS would be advantageous. The trouble is I would be paying for ethereal sounds and loops I would never use. I even thought of a Korg Karma for $750.

Bernie, that 4x will do ANYthing you need in the band.

For me, my combi of 88 key stagepiano/workstation and 76 key arranger works near perfect... but since moving from the tyros to the pa4x, .. i found that most of my soundcreation stuff works quite well from the pa4x You can do almost anything you want with the pa4x synth and sound part in the same way a workstation does.. except for synth arpeggiator

If you want/need more then 3 sounds layered, you could reroute your midi out to the midi in, then create an empty style, and choose 8 more sounds from your style tracks... you could even use multipads on top of that for doing some arpegio like things and drums...

You could also choose to use the ipad as a midirouter, and add some ipad stuff to your sound... but this is not necessarilly needed.

Be Careful, as some keyboards don’t like having their midi outputs connected directly to their midi in, as it causes glitches and may cause the midi sockets to shut down. (Modern keyboards have better midi electronics (Chips) so should be fine, but better to be safe than sorry)

The 2nd problem with doubling your tracks via midi, is that most arrangers are limited to 128 notes of polyphony, which can soon run out if start going beyond what the keyboard was designed for.

Not major problems, but something to be aware of.

Bill

I am seeing the versatility of the Pa4x for this purpose, and have gathered that most of the difference in listening to demos of WS is probably the fact that factory combi's are made by programmers with superior knowledge of the instrument, as well as orchestration in general.

But, hey, this is a small senior band of 10-20 old musicians playing to old people that enjoy our sound anyway. I can now see that the Korg will do all I ask, if only I knew the right questions.
Thanks all

Same deal with most dedicated workstations.

I dont think the keyboard sets of the pa4x are anything less then workstation factory sets... its great how you have direct access to these keyboard sets on the pa4x...

The only thing the pa4x lacks standard is the number of splits and layers, but i also indicated a workaround for that, trough a direct midi routing... or even by combining several sounds into a new one.. with 18 oscilators in a single voice, the possibilities for splitting and layering become endless... but this requires quite some hard work...

There is also 3rd party selling new keyboard sets of the highest quallity..