John,

You can tune any arranger keyboard to sound the way you wish. As stated above, it's what you hear that counts and nothing else.

As for the home player aspect, I would venture a guess that more than 2/3 of the forum members have at one time or another performed with a live band. They know the problems associated with live bands, egos, drunks, drugs, etc.., most of us have been there, done that and got the Tee-shirt. That's one of the primary reasons why many are now OMB entertainers.

If you are in the market for a new keyboard, my best advice is to spend some time and money playing them first hand. It's time and money well spent.

Good luck on whatever brand you decide upon,

Gary

I've owned several Yamaha arrangers over the years, along with a Korg PA80 and a Casio MZ2000 ( I still have both of the latter). Since I do play harder edged blues, jazz and Rock, I find that I have to work more to get the Yamaha styles to sound better, as opposed to my other arrangers.

Tweaking the effects and eq settings on my T2 helps some, but I get the best results when I do it in combination with making eq and effect adjustments in my outboard mixer. I rarely feel the need to put either the PA80 or MZ through the mixer in this way, as they usually tend to sound optimum to me "outta the box". OTOH, no matter how I tweak the internal eq and effect settings in the T2, I can't get it to sound somewhat close to what I want to hear without playing it through my mixer.

Then, in order to make the style themselves a little more dynamic, I like to tweak my styles by adding or modifying drum parts. It doesn't always take that much, sometimes adding a few ghost notes and slightly altering the timing, particularly on bass drum notes, along with making some adjustments to the dynamics, ie velocity, panning, etc. Other times I might add and subtract regular drum notes. Sometimes I might even add a slight touch of distortion or overdrive to the drum and bass parts, not much of course, but enough so that they don't sound so sterile. I also sometimes like to alter the bass lines and to a lesser extent some of the other instrument sounds as well.

I find with the Korg styles, and even the MZ's to some extent, that there is much less needed to get them to sound more "lifelike" for my preferred genres. Unfortunately, style editing, especially in conjunction with an external sequencer, proves easiest in the MZ, with the PA80 being almost as good to work with and the T2 not so good.

With all this in mind, and since my primary foucus is not playing as a OMB, I can easily see me parting ways completely with Yamaha arrangers and possibly adding a Roland arranger to the mix, or perhaps the PA800 or 2x.

AJ

"Great sounding" means different things to different people. That's the rub for commercial studios. "Great Sounding" to you is different than to me and still different to others and way different form those who consume the music. The "quality" is as subjective as the very content and is tied to it. I don't care for drop D Shred Metal or Trance,Rap,Hip Hop so whether recorded using fruity loops in a home studio or Electric Ladyland, it all sounds terrible to me.

The "noise" gap between home and studio recordings has narrowed a lot over the years. I would bet David Foster could make great tracks on all Behringer gear in someone's bedroom.

I blame the record companies,producers, and engineers for the dumbing down of the population with highly compressed limited dynamic range recordings.With that and good home gear getting better and better and less expensive. That is a good thing for the home recordist. Not so good for many Commercial Recording Studios and independent producers.

Many "vanity" recordings are sold everyday on gigs and provide additional income for the act. I know a guy who plays in a Piano Bar on a cruise ship who sells an average of 50 self produced CD's a week. He records them in his cabin using a notebook computer, a keyboard and a MXL mike. That's $2000 a month unreported "extra" cash! They may be just "souvenirs" purchased by people caught up in the moment but they are money in the bank he would not have otherwise been able to do. Many local single acts sell home produced CD's at their gigs. These are what you would call "vanity CDs but they are a steady income stream for the acts and exceed tips in many cases. Even if one sold only 5, that's an extra $50.It adds up. People like them and I don't expect nor are seeking "airplay". A lot more people are getting to shares their music because of Arrangers and Home Recording gear and that's not a bad thing. I enjoy going to Soundclick and hearing other people's homegrown work. Some I like other's I don't.

A good song transcends a bad recording. The otherwise isn't always true.

I am afraid that the decline in high dollar studio production has come about because of a precipitous decline in record industry profits. They are running at close to 20% of their gross pre-Napster.

People are buying ONE track on the iTunes store at 99¢ rather than the whole CD at $15.

You can't run and staff a world class facility, develop artists over time, foster and care for songwriters, and promote product as well as you used to on 1/5th of the money you USED to make.

People are making more records in home or small commercial facilities, because the big dollars from big labels for TOTL production has virtually dried up except for the highest profile artists.

And yes, the CD has gone from a musical delivery medium capable of 98db of dynamic range to a sonic abortion with a dynamic range of maybe 10db because of the 'louder is better' wars that labels have played with each other in an effort to catch radio programmer's attention. They don't care if it sounds good. Just as long as it SELLS.

Add that to the decline in popularity of high quality home audio gear... Most people listen to music on crappy computer speakers or badly set up surround sound systems for TV's. Those computer speakers are another primary reason for the drop in dynamic range... they sound like crap when given anything with a big range of dynamics, so 'let's just reduce it!'

Kids today are spending the money they WOULD have spent on hi-fi back in the seventies on computers, iPods, cell phones, blackberries, plasmas, all the detritus of the 'digital age'. So, even if you DID make a great sounding CD, their gear would not play it back well...

Sad, really...

Bluezplayer, just as a matter of interest ,have you tried playing ANY of the Korg rock styles? Especially the "heavier" genres. They are bloody awful imo, and sound NOTHING like any rock band I have heard or played in.

The same goes for a lot of their 50's/60's and pop styles as well.

I have to admit that to me, the Rolands seem to be much more "Lifelike" in pretty much all of their rock/pop genres, than any of the other.
And no, I do not own a Roland!!

Dennis

Ummm for about 8+ years now ... That's how long I've had the PA80. Mind you, I almost never use every part of every style, no matter which board I'm using. I'm mainly concerned with the drums and bass sounds, and sometimes I leave another part or two on. For the most part I'm not that concerned about guitar or organ emulations in a style. Few keyboard guitar parts ever sound very realistic to me, whether they use utilize megavoices or the Motif arps for that matter, though the latter can sometime sound a tad closer than most ( yes I have one of those as well )

Still, I think I can mimic a pretty good rock tune with the PA80 styles I have.. at least a lot better than with any of the comparable T2 styles.

Again, you have to understand, I've had the board for ages and have customized almost all of the internal styles in the PA80, making better fill matches, adding dynamics to the drum and bass parts. I can do that on the PA80 and make it sound pretty good. On the T2.. not so much...


I haven't heard enough of the Roland styles to give a fair judgement, though I was not overly impressed in the when I demoed the G70 or E80. Perhaps a more fair test though would be on the same sound system I use with my boards, and then after I've had some tume to fiddle with the style data.

AJ

Yep... I honestly think that expecting ROM styles, a la factory set, to be anywhere NEAR where we each personally like them is optimistic at best.

I have rarely heard a factory ROM style, on ANY arranger, to be exactly where I want it, no matter what genre it is in! I feel that it is one of the things each owner should have to do, because expecting some guy in Japan or Italy, or wherever these styles are made, to have EXACTLY the same idea as me of where the mix should be is lunacy!

Hence, one of the reasons I am still unapologetically a fan of the Roland's. If you DO like o tweak your styles, or SMF's and don't have some kind of fantasy that one day, someone will make an arranger that magically mixes everything JUST right (the 'baby bear' arranger!), the tools that you do that remixing and revoicing on are critical. Most that have actually bothered to dig into this area of the OS (not something many try out casually in a store) have nothing but the highest praise for the way that Roland have engineered this section.

Now, of course, I'm not expecting many to drop their favorite arranger, and rush out and buy a Roland (you can't find them, anyway ), but at least try to get YOUR favorite manufacturer to look at how Roland do it. If it was as easy as Roland make it, few would even worry about how the factory styles sound, because it is SO easy to change them to how YOU (and you alone!) want them to be.

Cool, thanks AJ.

Just wanted another opinion on them.

Cheers
Dennis

I have to disagree. There is a standard for audio quality that is well known in the music industry. While many labels and engineers don't necessarily adhere to that standard, others do and record labels and distributors will reject any submission if its not up to par. Any engineer who has done work for major labels is well aware of these standards and will meet them. Some labels are very strict about audio quality and I admire those labels because they not only believe in delivering an album that has great musical content but quality audio as well. GRP and ZTT are some of those labels.

As an engineer I have worked on all styles of music and no matter what genre or audio format I work within (analog, digital), I strive to give the client the absolute best audio quality possible. Just because I am recording a RAP record doesn't mean the standard for that recording should be any less than that of a Jazz or Pop record. Any engineer who cares about their work will strive to make any recording they do as good as it can possibly be.

I realize many people today record vanity CD's at home each year and sell them at gigs but that doesn't mean the CD quality is any good. I'm personally disappointed when I purchase a CD where the music may be great but the delivery of the musical recording is sub par at best. A great song may be a great song no matter how it is recorded but I still don't want to pay good money for a recording where the artist didn't care enough to make it of decent audio quality.

One of the reasons CD's today sound so horrid is that many people are commanding the helm of a mixing console and recorder that they aren't qualified to mix on. One wouldn't pick up a scalpel and expect to be a Surgeon so why is it one can buy Pro Tools and call themselves and audio engineer?

Just curious, but when you have a rap client, and he wants his CD as loud as, say a 50 Cent CD, or the latest Kanye West, what do you tell them?

"No, sorry. It'll sound terrible" or "OK, whatever you want!"

Because, if it's the former, they always turn round and say "but the Kanye sounds bangin'! That's what we want..."

How can you fight that?