Evangelize all you want. I've said, many times before, I'm no stranger to what software based sounds can do for you. But I'm also no stranger to what they CAN'T do for you.

Currently, they can't substitute for an arranger, at least not in the way that 99% of arranger users use them for. You want to use an MS as an arranger, you had better be prepared for a VERY long, steep and tiresome process to even achieve the level of performance of an OOTB closed arranger. No-one has YET shown me anything otherwise. Until the open arranger presents me with the ease of use, live, as a closed arranger, all the extra stuff is superfluous. James, I could be gigging on my K2500, Triton, and a bunch of other gear. But I don't... Want to know why?

Because they take FOREVER to make sound good. My G70 sounds as good OOTB as the K2500 does after a week of work. For each song. Every minute spent programming is a minute LESS spent gigging. There is a question of diminishing returns. I don't know about you, but MY audience is FAR more interested in what I'm playing, than what I'm playing ON...

In other words, my G70's piano is really pretty good. Sure, Ivory MIGHT be a bit better, but my audience wouldn't care one jot if I played brilliantly on the G70 or an MS running Ivory. NOT ONE BIT... For 'live', there IS such a thing as 'good enough'. You want to get REALLY purist about it, nothing in the MS is 'good enough' either, compared to the real thing. Not piano, not organ, nothing. Sure, it's closer, but it isn't REAL... So, at some point, you have to make a value judgment. Is the expense and prodigious effort of programming an MS worth the slight increase in realism of the sounds?

Nothing I've heard yet makes me believe so.

In the studio, you don't NEED the integration of the MS, because you tend to lay things down one at a time, anyway. And live, until this thing is programmed to offer the same degree of ease that a closed arranger offers, the improvement in sound isn't worth it, IMO. You keep making out like I'm lazy... Far from it. My studio stuff compares to anyone's, tracks I am on are on the radio, TV, you name it. Major labels, blah, blah, blah.

But playing out live is another thing. My day is busy enough already, without having what appears to be WEEKS of preparation (or more apparently, months or years, from what I've heard so far ) before you can even show your face in public. I'm sorry, but everything I've heard so far from people actually GIGGING the MS has been pretty much rubbish. Are they ALL simply bad musicians, or is it a LOT harder to integrate the MS into an arranger than everyone makes out..?