Ok James, you win. If it's an apology you want, you got it. Perhaps Spalding did need someone to explain to him the difference between an open and closed system and didn't consider it condescending. You certainly got it right about me being sometimes 'grumpy'. It's even ok for you to try to turn public sentiment against me for suggesting that the majority of forum members were probably not into experimental, trance, trip hop, etc., etc. and implying that most were in the 50-70 age group.

So again, I apologize for having the audacity to have an opinion different from your own. Heck, everybody knows that some guys are just flat out smarter than others, and those are the guys and ONLY the guys, that we should listen too. And if you still don't get it, they'll explain it to you in baby talk.

My only question is, What is YOUR interest in ARRANGERS and arranger-related things? From what I can gather, you mostly produce customized (tweaked) sounds and other-worldly musical landscapes and your primary tools are the Korg M3 and the Korg Oasys, both nice instruments, BTW, but hardly bread-and-butter arrangers.

Is it possible that an 'open system' may be a good (or even the best) approach for synths and workstations but not for an arranger (ie, plugging great sounds into a style or sequence doesn't always produce the best result). Just asking. Is it possible?

Sorry I ruffled your feathers, James. You certainly wouldn't be the first. But I do ask people to read what I write (hopefully twice) before (over)reacting to it.

Cheers,

chas