Sorry James, but I just don't think you get the main point of what I have been saying...

IN THEORY, yes, the MS ought to be everything that you say it is. It is in the actual practice that reality comes crashing in. Personally, I don't think that even YOU could make the MS as good as a T3. Why do I think this? Because you HAVEN'T. And, trust me, if anyone could, they would have the world beating a path to their door to buy the styles and sounds to turn the MS into what it promised it was going to be. Why haven't YOU bought Goliath, and created a few hundred styles as good as the T3's or PA2X's or E80's? You could make a fortune doing that...

Or could you? Only a handful of MS's out there. No copy protection (so your styles would be pirated the minute you sold ONE set). Very few sales to people that WANT to use it as an arranger (bet you 90% or more are just doing duty as a VSTi player)...

You see, it's all well and good to say you COULD do this or that. Trouble comes when reality rears it's ugly head. You say people COULD make the MS into a great arranger. OK, be honest. What percentage of the players here at SZ (OK, let's widen the field - what percentage of ALL players you personally know) have the skills to make even ONE style as good as a T3? Now scale that up to the hundreds you actually need... Personally, I haven't heard ONE user style that approaches the ROM ones for live feel, great flow between variations, cool fills and Intro/Endings, and general all around usefulness. NOT ONE.

You see, were I to actually believe you, there would be hundreds. Thousands. All as good as the T3's ROM styles (or insert your favorite closed arranger here). BUT THEIR AIN'T. How can you keep shouting the open party line, with such a complete lack of evidence? Let's be honest. It is exactly the SAME job to create styles for a closed arranger as it is for an open one (maybe easier, because you already have a well balanced and cohesive soundset to work with). No easier, no harder. So... let's take this fact as a starter. If people can't create their own styles in any number or quality, what on earth makes you think they can do it once they get an open arranger? All of a sudden, they are going to turn into style making virtuosi because they made a purchase? Don't be ridiculous..

The truth is, it's one of the hardest tasks in programming to make a style that rivals the best the closed boys do. All evidence backs me up. I'm afraid that theoretically just doesn't cut it. As I said, 'theoretically' you could make a space rocket. Who has actually succeeded? One guy (Burt Rattan)..? Out of how many billions on this planet?

Where are YOUR styles posted, James? Can I listen to how well you have achieved what you claim is so easy for everyone else to do? Got some jazz styles, some disco or R&B, some alt rock stuff that comes close to Y, R & K's best ROM styles? No? Perhaps you could show me up wrong by demonstrating for us how easy it is all to do. Or admit that theory isn't quite the same as practice.

A piano is a piano. No-one makes the ridiculous suggestion that owning a piano is all you need to be a virtuoso. It takes skill, it takes practice, it takes genes, it takes a lifetime of work to be a virtuoso. And few that even PUT that lifetime in become one. But apparently, we ALL could become virtuoso style creators and soundset designers, just with the purchase of a magical bean... sorry, I meant an open keyboard.

I don't believe in fairy tales, and you shouldn't spread them as if they were true.

Their are gaping holes in much of the rest of your post, I don't have time to address them all, maybe just to say that Dom DID design the arranger OS for the MS. And it couldn't do bass inversions. You can't blame the VSTi makers for something that is NOT what they designed. That one squarely rests on Lionstracs. Take a look at much of the rest of my post without so much defensiveness, and you'll see that, in PRACTICAL terms, much is right. Yes, in THEORY, things OUGHT to be on the side of the open arranger. But once the real world intrudes on the theory, they simply don't.

And please, for the last time, don't equate an arranger with a WS. Two different tools, to do two different things. Yes, I believe the Lionstracs is an awesome WS/Groovebox, perfect for making music that WS/Groovebox's excel at. Might even get one, one day. But, for all my playing and programming skill (modestly, please take this!) even I wouldn't touch one with a barge pole with a view to turning it into a practical, day to day gigging arranger. You haven't, either. Maybe there's a little voice at the back of your head kind of agreeing with me on this one. I don't see you dumping your Korg PA and moving wholesale to this. And, let's face it, if you took yourself seriously, you would...