I think what your missing is what a lot of us are missing. The total immersion into playing. The Arrangers take a lot of the load off of us and thats good for certain situations. I too miss Playing my B3, kicking bass on the pedals and having two other keyboards and a drum machine around me. Music moves on. The most satisfaction I get now is playing my FP90 piano. Just piano, nothing else with it.

Bill would love top hear some tunes on your FP90 sometime...

Take care!!

Hit the nail on the head. Today I was in my studio and started 'doodlin' on my SEVEN (Rhodes clone). Two hours later I realized I'd overshot dinner by an hour. Did almost the same thing yesterday on my KeyB (clonewheel). On the 'B3' I even forgot to turn on my drum machine (BK7m). Been playing some form of these boards for the last fifty years and am just as infatuated with them as ever....never bored. There is just something 'spiritual' about playing unaccompanied keyboard (and/or probably guitar as well). It's like starting each painting with a blank canvas and whatever is created is ALL YOU. Every note that is played is played only because YOU decided it should be played. Note, I'm not talking about "filling the dance floor" or "gig profitability" or "portability" or any of the other things drive us to play AI-driven pre-recorded riffs that are as predictable as your teenage kid's first fender-bender.

I'm not saying that you won't enjoy that shiny new arranger (for awhile); I'm just saying that the odds of you still finding it pleasurable and inspiring 40-50 years from now are very, very low (3 1/2 hrs in some cases ).

chas

Hey Bill! I got an FP90 digital grand piano too - hooked up to Pianoteq (a piano modeling VST for those not familiar). Yeah. I like playing unaccompanied piano or guitar more than arranger playing, but the arranger pays the bills, and it is a fun toy.

Good luck, Donny with finding the best tool for your self-expression.

I miss playing the Thomas Organs I had years ago....if I could get one today, WITH all the new sounds as well as what it originally was...WOW, that would be pretty sweet!
Let's see, I had a Paramont, a Lawrence Welk, a Trianon (3 manuals), and then a Celebrity Royale (61 note manuals)

Oh the days....

For me the FP90 is great on its own. No additions needed as you can edit the Piano Tone endlessly. I like the Jazz Piano tuning from the Roland App. I even like the onboard speaker and up to this point I hated onboard speakers. I usually don't even turn on my studio PA even though the FP is plugged into it. Happy playing !

since im not doing shows anymore, maybe just turn the arranger functions off for a while. interesting, i got the most emotional response new years eve doing "crazy",just a simple guitar setting on my pa600 and my vocal.it was doing something different spur of the moment ,no backing style ,arranger detox. using what i got.

Wrinkles sometimes less is more!!

All these posts are fine ....that said i am just trying
to sell a great arranger keyboard ROLAND EA7 right now...
just sayin..