First of, i am quite happy with where styles and multipads currently are .. However, i think arranger capabillities are only one of the features i want to see in the totl workstation.. but the actuall quallity of the styles in the high end keyboards is very good..

To make acompaniments more dynamic, i think you need to use tools like karma or the high end montage arps.. they are much much more dynamic in nature then the static style acompaniments.. its good to see that yamaha has realised so and added some to the psr-s series. But thats only a small beginning... in the end, i would want the full set of montage arps and other tools in my arranger.. in the end, it would be better to have styles in the montage then to add a montage to the arranger..as probably its not something many arranger players would use...

Then there is the form of the arranger styles... 4 var's, 4 fills, intro ending... when you look at the upcomming Ketron SD9 pro there is a feature that allows you to create a much more flexible arrangement backing by freely combining multipads and style parts.. it might take some getting used to.. but in creating your own performances, this is a tool of the future, much more flexible then standard styles... and yet the styles for easy access and playing along are still there..

Another feature, that could need some attention is the style creation, the Ketron instruments shine where it comes to this, they have the best interface that lets you combine different style parts easilly into new styles... it can be done on the pa4x and even the tyros, but the interface on the ketrons is much more suited for easy access...

And then there is the sound engine of the arrangers... only Korg works really well for me, as it has the most onboard freedom for edditing... but in the end i would love to see more features in all of them for real time edditing sounds and effects... encoders for filter cutoff, easy access to envelopes.. and lfo's .. in my view, having 8 sounds instead of 3 or 4 and being able to acces them trough the sliders and freely assigning them to the keybed would be a step forward..


But then, its obvious, i want to take arranger styles and multipads into workstation land... workstations are different... because the most important feature of arrangers is easy access, sit and play, ... but is it wrong to have an easy access upper layer, but have incredible depth underneeth?


Personally i am quite happy with current days style quallity ajd sound quallity of the top arrangers..... but not so much with the tolls to access that potential..