Hi all,
I've noticed members here and there sell their current arranger with the purchase of a new one, so I'm curious...
How many arranger keyboards can one own at the same time before going "nuts"?!?!

I've never had more than three at one time, and I'm not nuts.
I know because my mother had me checked.

DonM

At one point I had three, but now I'm back to two. Fortunately, a little insanity seems to go a long way. I'm living proof!

Gary

The most arrangers I had at one time was two of the same model when I was gigging several times a week...one was set up in the house, and the other in the case ready to go.

In my opinion, back ups are important, and even if the instrument is a paragon of reliability, accidents do happen, and getting an instrument repaired quickly is not always possible.

Ian

I have either 4 or 8...a Midjay, 2 MS 60's, an SD-5, an 88 key Casio 8000, a Clavinova 65 and a Roland GW 7. The last three have arranger functions.

Then, there's my old auto orchestra (still works), my Yamaha Electone (loaned to a friend 10 years ago...still mine!).

I know, it's a SICKNESS!


Russ (the hoarder)Lay

One Arranger KB is all I need..

Thanks gents,
Took my 3rd board home yesterday, the Mrs called me nuts... So I had a pausing moment...
Its nice now to know now I have proof that and look the part among a small group of musically sane geniuses. :):):)

At one point I had 3 Roland G1000's. One in the hard case for gigging, one set up in the studio, and one just because it was a good deal thrown in my face and I'm a belt and suspenders guy.
If something in my setup went down I'd want the same thing to replace it. I don't know how you guys jump from model to model and feel comfortable. That's out of my comfort zone. . I've always had two or three of everything when I was gigging heavily. Back to the days of B3's. Leslies, Rhodes, etc.
From my post in another thread I mentioned Ensoniq. When I got the KT76 I loved it so much I immediately bought a second one so my friend who had the music store did OK with me as a customer.

Bill how many times did you actually have a KB go down?.

Never had a complete failure in more than 20 years of gigging under some of the worst conditions. I remember when I was talking with Hank Bowman one night and he told me his PSR-2000 had a drinking problem. Said on at least two occasions someone dumped a full vodka martini into the keyboard. Both times he opened the case, dried it out with a hair dryer and went back to work the next day. Amazing how much abuse these things can take without falling apart.

My current backup is my 12-year old PSR-3000. It has never skipped a beat in all those years. I recently had to replace one of the foot pedal jacks, which in reality didn't fail, but the solder joint was faulty and the service guy just replaced the jack. Cost a whopping $65 and I was out of the repair shop in less than an hour. Can't beat that for service.

Cheers,

Gary

Only issue I had was with one of my PSR-3000, and that was a bad key contact. I simply switched over to my back-up PSR-3000, and got Yamaha to send me a complete set of key contacts.

When I had it apart, I simply replaced all of them and, as far as I know, it's still giving good service to a friend of mine who bought it when I got the PSR-S910's. The back-up 3K was sold to a duo who use it to play SMF, and it still works flawlessly.

Considering the amount of serious playing time I put on that gigging 3K, it really didn't owe me anything, and like Gary said, these things are tougher than we realize.

Of course, they were always transported in cases, and I never left them in the car overnight.

If you play quite often and it's your main (or exclusive) source of income, it's wise to have a back-up keyboard, preferably a similar model. Without a back-up, it's like a taxi driver not having a spare tire...down time can mean serious loss of $$$.

Ian

DNJ

tough to think of all the weird things that happen but heres a few that come back to my feeble memory.
I think what made me this way was back in High School. You know when we had kerosene lamps and heated the school with coal stoves. HA! My band had a great gig in the High School parking lot for a summer dance and our Shure PA Head went up in smoke. Luckily the township maintenance guys who set up the stage had one just like ours in the shop and ran back to get it for us. How lucky can you get.

Years ago. Had a leslie go out once and the B3 was my main ax so bad night. Had some B3 problems on occasion but still made it through those nights.
Rhodes with broken tines. I could fix it but good to have an extra at home until I could get to it.
Korg Polysix lost its memory. Bad battery or such but no backupon hand. Wasn't my main keyboard but missed those strings and synth sounds so again made it through the night.

G1000 had a finicky Disk drive due to a case problem, not an electronic problem. Never went down during a gig but good to be able to grab a backup while it was in the shop
To this day I still carry some sort of PA backup, either my Crate keyboard amp or an extra powered mixer. If my keyboard goes down I can DJ but if I have no sound system I'm smoked.
BTW I was also a Boy Scout--always be prepared LOL !!!

Bill, I carried a backup sound system for 20 years and never, not one time, had to use it. It's now sitting in the back of the office in the music gear closet.

Of course, the great thing about the new S-950 is the built-in amp is outstanding and would suffice if the Bose L1 Compact were to unexpectedly crash. I have another L1 Compact, but it only gets used about 5 times a year.

Gary

You only need the one to go nuts...!

Currently I'm in arranger heaven (or hell, opinions vary!) with two G70's, a BK-9 and a BK-7m. The extra G70 is for backup, and I got a nice deal (nice when you like something other people are only too happy to get rid of!). I had a boot up issue with my first G70 a year (just under, actually!) after I bought it from new, but fortunately, Roland got me nicely, pretty much replacing the entire motherboard and most of the other boards in one go rather than taking a long time to diagnose the issue and replace the correct board.

But after being pretty committed to using it for a long time (been about 8 years, so far, with plenty more to go), it made sense to get a backup. However, once I go to the BK-9 for a lot more stuff, I will probably sell one of the G70's. I doubt I'll EVER sell the other G70. It may not be the best arranger in the world, but I have never played or used a more friendly, incredible sounding live band keyboard workstation. I expect it will last me my lifetime... Built (and weighing!) like a tank sometimes has its pluses!

He didn't tell you the entire truth, he didn't open it up, just wiped it off and kept on playing! Next day he blew the hair dryer on it, but I doubt it helped at that point.
That 2000 is STILL in operation. It has burn marks all over it, scratches, dents, you name it. I think he was TRYING to tear it up so he could buy something new. I sure miss him.
DonM

You don't get nuts by having many arrangers but by trying to play all your instruments at once!

Thing is you could probably sound just as good with ONE arranger..

Fran knows the answer to this one, he as the most AKB and a load of gizmos too, unless he's gone nuts he will tell us

Smokin!!

Vagro, although you have shared this picture of your set up before, it still impresses me immensely.

It must have taken a lot of planning to get everything just so.

Ian

Donny, Donny, Donny..
Sorry, little off topic...
I've noticed you're using the K&M Spider Pro stand.. How easy is it to add a 3rd tier? And how sturdy are they to support 3 61key arrangers?
Regards
Ky