What some people might fail to recognize, is that these so called "easy play" features (that make amateur or less skillful players allegedly sound wonderful) on an arranger offer the advanced player even more scope than what could be found on a workstation or organ based instrument.

One can also plug bass pedals in an arranger and forgo some, or all, of the auto features, or mix in whatever amount the player desires. It's easy, as Jimlaing has showed us, to attach another keyboard to give further potential during live, or recorded, play.

Like any other musical instrument (organ, piano, guitar), the potential of the arranger keyboard is only limited by the talent or creativity of the player...witness advanced musicians like Peter Baartmann, Marty Harris, or our own Telmo, Tostie, Jim and Rico and how they exploit so called "easy play" features to their advantage.

There are lots of mediocre piano and organ players for every advanced player, and it's no different when it applies to arranger keyboards. For every critic who thinks a player using auto play features is somehow "cheating", there are many excellent players (as mentioned above) who creatively apply such attributes to make incredibly listenable music.

As I said earlier, I feel that arranger manufacturers are burning the midnight oil trying to come up with new features to make the arranger more playable to the beginner, and more exploitable to the advanced player.

Time will tell what's on the way, but it sure will be interesting to see what comes along.

Ian