If I'm only writing songs, it's a no brainer for me. For "instant gratification purposes ( ie out of the box playability ) I go for the hardware arranger that also best works as a controller, and then spend the rest on software apps, samples, effects, and modules for better sounds. As a "songwriter", I'd have the luxury of being able to tweak sounds as I like, so it would make sense to me to buy the best sounds this money can buy. You could eat up what's left of 10 grand after a hardware artranger purchase rather quickly with some of the better quality sample sets and effects.

Even though apps like Band in A box, Jammer pro and the like aren't real time arrangers in quite the sense that a hardware board is, they are very good scratch pad tools. I'm assuming I don't have these to start with and have to buy them( though in real life I do have them all ). I also look at FL Studio and Orion as kind of a do it yourself arrangers, since you make up the styles ( patterns ) on the fly as you go. Then there is OMB, a true software arranger.

Kind of already done a good bit of this though... I just could use a better hardware arranger I suppose, and then the rest I'd spend on higher quality sample sets than I currently own and perhaps some good commercial styles.

I used to think it was a "toy" vs my hardware arrangers, but I was very surprised at how good some of the BIAB styles sounded after I put some better quality sounds in my computers. In fact, maybe I'll throw out a couple of demos soon to illustrate the difference using BIAB ( and some of my other software apps including OMB ) with the sound modules I used to use ( eg. Soundcanvas and some of my hardware boards ) vs what I use now.

AJ

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 08-05-2006).]