Hi Bill...you can easily use it on gigs as I already used it on my NYE job no problems once you set it up with styles for your needs.

Hello again, did you get a chance to play a MIDI file while changing the drums like in PSRs910?

While playing my Micro yesterday I noticed that I was playing a little differently than I usually do; a few more fills and trills. It occurred to me that WE adapt our playing to the instrument we are playing. I don't play the drawbar sounds on my s910, or the G70 for that matter, than I do on my XK-1 or on a bigger Hammond. In fact, I even play more differently on a console Hammond (A,B,C...) as opposed to a spinet or slab. So when people ask about the keys on the Micro, I have to say that you will find that your playing will adapt to the key size and feel. It's not impossible to play, only different...

I just tried it ....you cannot play style drums while a SMF is playing....once you select the style mode it shut off the SMF players.

Korg and Roland will not do this without a work-a-round...Only Yamaha has this feature...the one feature I did like on an otherwise terrible PSR2100...the drums were so bad with a SMF, this feature was a necessity to make it a workable solution...

Another nice feature on the Micro Arranger is that you write/save all your settings eg: STS, Track Vol, Sounds, etc, using the Mixer (Menu>Mixer) while your playing without any glitches....

I also ordered a nice affordable soft gig bag with dimensions close to the Micro Arranger size ...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004L6WY30/ref=oh_o00_s00_i00_details

Adapting to the small keys isn't much of a hassle, even for those of us with larger hands, but going back to playing a "normal" sized keyboard after spending a lot of time on the small keys is a bit of adjustment.

I played around with Korg's microSTATION and microKORG Synth/Vocoder for about a half hour (they use the same keyboard), and going back to normal sized keys was...er...interesting.

Scott Yee and I talked about this quite a bit the other day, and, he feels he'll have no issues, so it will probably vary with the individual.

I suppose it will not matter much if it will be the player's primary instrument, or if it is used mainly as a SMF player, but, it is something to consider if it is part of a multi-keyboard setup.

If that is the case, it might be best to control it (via MIDI) from one of the other keyboards with standard sized keys.

Ian

I've been jumping back and for the between the Micro & S910 with no problems playing both size keys and I have "BIG HANDS"...the keys are just shorter, the width is actually comfortable to play as I demonstrated in my demo.

I just noticed on the MICRO that you assign so many different sounds 139 to the 4 PAD buttons almost like the multi-pads on Yamaha units...this can be very useful, Jingle bells etc...plus you can assign many functions to the pads also..eg: drum mute, page down/up, fx mute , etc..

PADS (1–4, STOP)
These programmable pads can be used to trigger a
sound effect. Use the STOP button to stop a cyclic
sound. Each Pad corresponds to a dedicated Pad track.