I'm a beginner and I'm seriously thinking about buying an arranger. My modest question is: for general playing and composing, can he substitut a synt? Please, help me in my first choice.
Thank you.

Olá José.

Welcome to our little corner on the web. I'm sure you will find great friends and advice here. Speaking for myself, being a part of this family helped me a lot in developing my "musical side", in understanding my needs and in making my own choices.

If you take the time to look at previous threads, you will find interesting comments about this issue of synths versus arrangers. It's an old "war" around here! From what I have read and experimented, and as a general comment, high-end arrangers with sequencers and good sounds can do well the job of a synth. In addition, they will offer you great possibilies of making your own arrangements in a one-man-band style. For me, a synth would never allow me to evolve - as a musician - the way the arranger did. I also have little time to play with others, so only the arranger could suit my own needs of doing live solo acts.

You will have to ask yourself what you would like to do with a keyboard. Will you play in a band or alone? Live? Synths (and modules) will give more possibilities on the choice of sounds and samples and can include a sequencer and/or arppegiator that will assist you in composing, but arrangers also frequently include a sequencer and exclusively allow to play with styles (automatic arrangements). If you have more specific questions or something I type wasn't clear enough, go ahead and ask!

In short, arrangers offer you more versatility. Sooner or later, you will find out that arrangers are sometimes regarded by professionals as "toys". A pretty unfair judgement, according to many of us (of course), including myself.

-- José.

[This message has been edited by matias (edited 08-23-2002).]

José, who do you think you are? Jedi???

Sort off...
I guess I'm more like a "today's Jedi"

It really falls down to what you want in a keyboard. Arrangers and synths are in two differnt categories, and you'll find a lot of different opinions on the two.. However, it is true that many professionals still consider arrangers toys.. I honestly think they're mad because they now realize that arrangers are doing just as much as their synths and more. Personally I've owned both arrangers and synths.. I think it would benefit anyone to own both considering neither are bad types of keyboards.. With the arranger you'll have the auto accomp feature that follows your chord changes. Synths do not do this.. With a synth you basically program just about everything... Tracks are all recorded from scratch, including drum tracks.. However, some more recent synths are now inluding preset drum patterns, but these do not function like arrangers. They are just drum patterns and nothing more and can be used as a basis for constucting a song.. With the arrangers you can make your own styles, and they too will follow your chord changes just like the preset styles.. Many of the upper end arrangers offer so much now.. Example: the Yamaha PSR-2000.. This keyboard has a lot of features for a decent price.. You get digital drawbars for the organs, vocalizer, and quite a few other things.. Synths don't come with drawbars.., no wait I take that back, some do allow you to use the realtime sliders as drawbars.. I recall the GEM Equinox allowed this.. You'll find the arranger is geared more towards the musician who wants the all in one package for recording and performing.. Synths can be used for this too, but they require much more programing. Their operating systems are quite extensive and can get very deep...

Obrigado, Matias. Penso que, como eu, é uma pessoa que gosta de muitas coisas simultaneamente. No campo da música, o que preciso neste momento é de compor e fazer os arranjos. Compor o quê? Músicas simples, para festivais infantis e, num plano superior, bandas sonoras para vídeos meus.

Thank you very much for the tips, Squeak_D. I'll be in touch!

Hello José

Matias said well.
Wellcome in our family.


Sinta-se em casa
Saudações brasileiras
Chico

I would then listen to Squeak_D's advice. If you like to program everything from scratch in a sequencer, the synth will please you. With an arranger you have many ready-to-use auto accompaniement patterns (that in some cases your can modify to your taste). If you can, go to a shop and listen/play different arrangers.

-- José.

Here is what I think about synths:

1) synth keyboards are basically keyboards that are dedicated for assembling and tweaking sounds. It does so by adjusting the filters on multiple samples and combining these samples to make that sound.

2) Usually, dedicated synth keyboards do not have arranger capability. In fact, not all of them contain a sequencer. But some do.

3) So it depends on what you want to do in terms of sequencing and performing. Do you want a sequencer at all? If so, how do you want to sequence, from scratch by playing every single note or use styles to help you build some blocks/tracks? Do you ever use Styles for performance?

4) But the most important issue is do you make your own "synth" sounds? Do you spend hours on creating sounds?

Here is what I believe about this. I personally like to use "accoustic" and classical sounds. Therefore, I won't be able to tweak a sound better than the manufacturer. Let the artists hired by the manufacturer do their research and come up with the best "acoustic" classical sounds. For other non-acoustic sounds, Any decent set will do in my songs and performances. So in reality I do not care about a synth.

So in my opinion, a fully programmable arranger with excellent sounds is the best deal. But there is a catch.

In the past, musicians always thought that synths are for professionals. therefore, manufacturers loaded their synths with their best sounds. This practice is not completely true but you can always see hints of this.