Dave, I'm sorry, but I still disagree with you about using a contemporary arranger for modern styles. There isn't an arranger out there with a fast enough load time for a sampler to be practical for live usage (MS excepted), and very little of most arranger's ROM sounds are practical for hiphop.

And I'm sorry, but put five musicians together and ask them to make a blues beat, or a rhumba, and you will get five different results. But it doesn't stop you from loading up arrangers with blues styles or latin styles, does it?

As I keep trying to point out, the 'hip' beat loops in workstations aren't magically lifted off of hit vinyl records. They are pieced together in a fairly similar fashion as TOTL styles are made... That is, by very talented, creative musicians, who get payed a lot of money for this ability (look at how poor most user styles are if you think making a great style is easy!)....

All the arranger manufacturers need to do is get these same creative, MODERN young players to create styles for arrangers, re-tool the soundsets to be a bit more contemporary, and you have the WS killer we all know they are capable of being.

I say again... the VAST majority of workstations do not end up in hit studios, making chart busters. They end up in the same place most arrangers do... In peoples homes, and bedroom studios, being used for self-entertainment (just like chas) and playing for or with a few friends. Occasionally, they end up in the hands of gigging pros and semi-pros, doing mostly cover and sometimes a little original music.

Probably well under .01% of WS's sold ever get on a major label (or even minor!) release. The myth that WS's are SERIOUS tools for serious musicians is (to quote chas ) HORSESH*T! The only reason they outsell arrangers is because arranger manufacturers refuse to try and make styles and soundsets relevant to todays younger musicians (who buy the VAST majority of keyboards).

But the majors don't make them buy a WS and then have to program ALL the beats they need... They are included (and few WS owners spend that much time programming new arps and beats, just like few arranger users program styles).

But somehow, magically, young arranger users are expected to do exactly that if they want to use them for modern music. Provide the styles, and they will come flocking to your door. Make them make their own, and they will go to WS's, where those beats ARE provided.

Simple as that....