If it wasn’t for that darn chord sequencer and the audio playback, I might have stayed on the G70, but the CS is a ‘must have’ for me to be able to play the way I do in arranger mode. I grew up in live bands, playing lots of early synths, and the bender is an integral way to solo on those. Not to mention an indispensable part of imitating horns, and basically everything not controlled by a keyboard.

Arranger mode ties up your left hand too much, so the CS (once you play in the head) frees it up to be expressive. I pretty much stopped using the G70 as a live arranger because of that. I’d still use the arranger to create SMF’s to play over, but on the gig I needed that LH free!

The inability to change basslines outside a certain range I think was a niche problem, restricted to the few that create their own styles, and for me, by the time I needed a bassline THAT specific I was happy enough to use an SMF with the bassline in its correct form. Sometimes I feel that arranger players can ignore the better solution to a problem because it makes them use the sequencer, but if you use Markers in an SMF, you regain a fair bit of the structural freedom the arranger gives.

I still haven’t found a better laid out touchscreen on an arranger yet… Early Korg’s were unresponsive, Yamaha use FAR too much screen real estate on eye candy, and to my eternal gratitude, I found out that even if the screen got exposed to bright Florida sunshine for a protracted period, even though it went black and unreadable, after a few minutes to cool down it came back as good as new. Phew! That’s a several hundred dollar part to replace!

I miss not having new Roland arrangers to discuss and dissect, but with both a G70 and a BK9, I think I’m a lucky man! 🎹❤️😎