I'm new to the world of arrangers, as I'm considering getting one for the first time. I thought initially that a "style" was just a multi-track arpeggiator--e.g. a bass argeggiation, a string pad arpeggiation, maybe a fized-note drum arpeggiation/rythm, etc. But in another thread several people were lamenting that arrangers don't come with arpeggiators! So now I'm really confused. What's the difference between what a style tells an instrument to do in any given track, and what an arpeggiator would tell an instrument to do? What does each do that the other can't? This is an important question to me, because my whole reason for considering arrangers is because I thought it would give me basically a multi-track, multiple simultaneous chord-recognizing arpeggiations! So any and all clarification here is greatly appreciated!

I think the term "arpeggio" has been badly twisted from it's original meaning when it comes to what things like the Motif does. It blurs the lines between styles and arps, but really it doesn't do styles as well as an arranger does. An arranger keyboard has dedicated patterns related to verses, choruses, intros and ending and fill-to's arranged in the stereotypical western pop music tradition. Arps can be anything at all and rarely fall into categories we would easily recognize as verses or choruses. Arpeggios on most keyboards are just rather simplistic note runs based on chords. In Motif-world "arpeggios" has looser meaning and seem to be based on individual instrument strums and licks way more than "combination" arpeggios that feature all of the instruments in the "band". True, there are some Motif arps with combination drums/bass/guitar riffs but those are the exception and not the rule. Mostly there are independent arps that you use as phrases for building song patterns. That's far more time-consuming than the styles of an arranger, where easily recognized and applicable phrases that always consist of "full band" instrument conbinations are instantly available at the press of a button.

It's the goal that is important: styles are far better for stage performance of popular music as well as for people who are not well-versed at composing that want quick results. Motifs and the like are totally build-your-song-from-the-ground-up instruments that give you some shortcuts (arps) to get you going.

ThePro, I understand everything you're saying, but I still don't understand why people were lamenting that arrangers don't have arpeggiators. Can't a user simply program their own "style"? And if so, then why couldn't they program a style track to play any "arpeggio" they wanted? E.g. assign a synth to a style track, and program the style to do all sorts of up-and-down runs, or other arpeggiated synth patterns?

Hi Swandiver. I think your question is a good one. To me an arpeggio is a pattern generated using notes that are fingered and octave transpositions thereof. A style can play an arpeggio, but is not limited to notes fingered.

Of course, one can program a style to arp. So I have been trying to think what can one do with an arpeggiator that one cannot do with styles (at least as they are implemented today). One difference would be that you can select your octave with an arpeggiator, but not with a style. Another difference is that you can arpeggiate any combination of notes, whereas there might be some note combinations that would not be recognized by a style player. A third difference is that you can arpeggiate two and three-note combinations, but you get either one or the other with a style. A fourth difference is that you can select between open and closed voicings while playing an arpeggio, whereas the voicing is usually fixed with a style.

In summary, while you can use a style to arpeggiate, you have more control over arpeggios when you use an arpeggiator instead of styles.