Hello everyone. I am in the difficult situation everyone is prior to purchasing a keyboard, since it's a considerable amount of money involved!
So, the candidates are
1.Roland VA-5
2.Yamaha PSR 2000
3.Korg PA-80

I need it for live performance, not for song writing or for studio. I also have the Yamaha W7 and the rack MU80 from Yamaha again. Anyone has experience with the "candidates"? Any info welcome. I've studied the specs of the 3 models from the internet and theis bochures, but I live on an island and I don't have the opportunity to play with the Roland since no shop nor somebody I know have it. The other 2 are available for testing and I will try them the next few days.
Thank you in advance,
Dimitris

Hi diosif,
Have you tried the Korg "Karma" It`s not an "arranger" KB (so to speak) but I just read a thread that there may be software in the near future that will allow the "Karma" to play and recognize "left hand chords" and you can up-date the board as you need. Best of luck and welcome to "our corner of the web"
jedi

Thank you for the welcome message! Actually, I need an arranger keyboard for live performance. I am a piano player, but accustomed to keyboards as well. The problem is I only have 2 weeks to choose and buy! And experimenting with gear "not exactly arranger" would be interesting, but time consuming. And, of course, it isn't available in my island (Rodos, Greece)...

I love Karma and it's way of doing things, but I'd place it very low for live performance for me, but only because I'm doing "cover" tunes live,and we are a duo, with all of the accompaniment coming from my keyboards. I've only spent maybe 5 or 6 hours on one, but it seems to have quite the learning curve as well. It would be quite the board to compose with though. Especially for Dance / Electronica.

I'm a bit disgruntled with the 2000 because of all the OS and other problems that mine had, so I don't think I can give a fair evaluation at this time. If it were working properly, I'd rate it very close to the PA80 for live play. I think some of the other guys and gals here will rate it above the PA80 for live play, and probably rightly so.
for the studio the it's the PA80, but for your needs..hmm let the others comment. I think because of my experieences with the 2000 I'm going to use the PA80 as my primary gigging board though. I know the board inside and out and feel very comfortable with it live.

Korg AJ

AJ.... after reading your post about feeling comfortable with the PA80 and knowing inside and out... I am now thinking I would take the refund offered by your Yam dealer and stick with what you know so well.

Diosif... with the limited time you have to choose and put together what you need in order to play, it sounds to me that the PSR2000 would be the best choice. You may find the manual confusing...but forget the manual...you will have all the help you need to get you up and running right here in SynthZone.

Eddie

Take a look at the Korg PA 60!

Gia sou patrioti,
Ego exo to Pa80, to vrisko poli kalo.
Para poli kalous ixous. Poli kala styles.
Genika, ego to brisko eukolo av kai oloi lene oti to psr2000 eivai pio eukolo gia paixnidi live.
Iparxouv kai arketa kaloi arapikoi ixoi. Me to Pa80 exeis kai tin pithanotita poli eukola na pekseis skales me 1/4 tonous. (de ksero av se evdiaferei auto).

Exo ftiaksei kai merika ellinika styles.

Ego eimai apo Kalymno alla pao syxna sti Rodo.

Kali tixi me to organo pou tha dialekseis.

An xreiasteis kamia alli pliroforia, mi distakseis va steileis minima.

Giaxara.

Para kalò,
can you try and write in english so we all can understand?
Efxaristò
Andrea

Sorry for that. The Greek text above was saying (briefly) that he has PA80, it is very good keyboard, he lives in an island near mine and he visits mine often, and that for any info I can ask.

I forgot the important info for you. That with PA80 we can play 1/4 of the tone, usefull for arabic tune or some traditional Greek.

Thanks diosif
and excuse for the greek text

I had not intention to hurt anyone.

I just tried to be more familiar with a man from my country.

so for any information : sklonari@ulb.ac.be

There are quite a few new Arrangers due out soon, so I would hesitate to jump on any board right away. The PA 80 happens to be in my opinion a good value of what's currently on the market, but there is the new Korg PA 60, if the harmonizer isn't a big deal. Plus Yamaha just anounced the Tyros, sounds wonderful, but the tyros name itself scares me, but for what it offers at $1850. sounds like a good value. The negative is that it is not available till Sept./Oct.

If you can get by with a lessor board for now and wait for the big boys to be on the market, it would be ideal for you to get the latest technology instead of spending big bucks now for old technology. Just an idea, because that's what I'm thinking of doing. Technics KN7000, Yamaha Tyros, Gem Genesis, Ketron XD9, lots of new boards that are worth making the sacrifice playing with a less expensive arranger for the next 6 months. You can use the one you buy now for home use or even emergency back up when you buy one of the new arrangers 6 months from now, again just an idea, might not be the ideal, but since I'm in the process of getting into the solo arranger scene it wouldn't set me back, I tend to play utilizing few gismos more with my hands, that is until I get an arranger and learn all of the gismos, than I can sit back and relax more, instead of concentrating on getting every little part in with my fingers. Well if your not rich like me, this may be an alternative.

Thank you all for your responces. Finally, I ordered the Roland VA-5. Basically, my main dilema was between Korg and Roland, but after seeing the PA's screen, all was clear. I just couldn'g buy a keyboard with this screen for that money. 1/3 plain old LCD, and the rest 4 lines of poor dot matrix? Thanks but no thanks. I will be very happy with the 320*240 touch screen of the Roland... You may find it funny, to decide over a display, but since the sound quality of both keyboards satisfied me, the Users interface was the second most important factor.
Plus that VA has 128 (korg 64)notes polyphony, 48MB of samples and the V drums (drum sounds recorded already mounted on a real drum set, with the natural resonances! Hear it and you'll agree)...
So, tomorrow or monday I'll have my new baby... Thanks again.