Let’s start off my return here with one of my favorite subjects...

It’s been about six years or so, I think, let’s take a look at what has fundamentally changed in arrangers since then. What is the ‘state of the art’? How much progress have we seen in getting an arranger to fool anyone it’s actually musicians playing rather than a box of conditioned responses?

I know there have been some advances in the raw sound area, six year’s progress has given us more sample ROM, better effects, better master effects etc.. But I’d like to hear from you how you think the state of the art has progressed in USING these sounds, new techniques in having them play realistically, more like a human...

I’ll chime back in a bit later, I’d really like to hear how you feel before I put my ten cents in! But the bottom line is, rather than endlessly debate one piano sound’s realism compared to another or stuff like that, let’s try to think about how the arranger itself plays those sounds.

What innovations are truly making you feel like there is progress in the state of the art?

I feel little has changed in 6 years. I have no real insensitive to upgrade. Sure, a newer model will have some nicer sounds, but nothing that would really make that much of a difference for my act. As always, it comes down to the musical skills and talent of the keyboardist.

In the last 7 or so years, Yamaha added the Ensemble feature, and then cribbed the idea of a chord sequencer from Roland and Korg. Korg added the KAOSS feature (which I personally doubt that I would use.) [EDIT: and they also now permit auditioning a style directly from USB, thus finally achieving parity with the other brands.]

As I understand it, the Genos metaphor is to have a more flexible, user-defined control layout that allows a player to affect the voice or pattern in real time. But not nearly to the extent of a Montage, etc. Go back a few months on this forum and search for a thread titled "Montage as an arranger." Pretty eye opening!

So frankly the Genos, Pa5x, etc., is more "innovation theater" than real innovation. The basic feature set of the arranger pretty much stopped evolving around Y2K. My perception is that it's the same old software with bigger wave ROM samples and hopefully more processing power. For a while it looked like that trend would be taken to the extreme with Yamaha's audio styles, Ketron's real guitars, etc. As a MIDI guy, I'm glad that trend DIDN'T continue. I'll take MIDI over audio every time.

Unless Roland makes another TOTL arranger or Yamaha permits more flexible chord fingering (and they won't!), I'll probably play my BK-9 until it wears out. My $.02.

I have all the biggest models in each brand and find that all have improved more or less each of their new models. There are only 3 brands left in the top range as well as Roland which has some interesting keyboards.
I'm waiting for the advent of real artificial intelligence on our keyboards without believing it too much
that is to say a beginning of real "creation" in the accompaniment.
We've been using robots for 40 years now that just reproduce pre-recorded patterns
respect rules of music. Of course this tends to become perfect but real music is much more than that.

Already getting something in the OMB's gut but playable in real time would be progress in my opinion.

oups no OMB but BAB band in a box

The arrangers downfall is still the style section which is boring and repetitive, and the only way to get round this is to turn most of it off and play it yourself, to give it personal flavour. (This is particularly important in the bass)

The other alternative is to do like Lowrey did (May they RIP) and make the style tracks 16, 32 or more bars long (Including fills) with no repeats within this range to help reduce the repetitiveness, also variations to the style with the type of chords played is another option. (Instruments have had the capability in their style sections to allow typically 16 variations/chords within each part (Variation, fill, break, intro, ending etc.) for donkey’s years, (Including the drum parts) so they need to be put to use if you want to rely on styles.

Of course all this becomes irrelevant if you just play the instrument yourself. (As it used to be in years gone by and you could tell who was playing by their playing style, now all you here is the arranger with most punters not being able to tell the difference between an arranger and Karaoke)

No matter what gets bought out it all comes down to the player in the end, do you want to follow what somebody else has programmed, or use your own creativity. (There is no right or wrong answer to this)

Bill

Ketron had the anecdote to boring styles-the launchpad that allows you to "mix and match" to easily create new styles and songs. I have been making my own backing tracks and not even using the arranger since I now just play at home. With BIAB, EZDrummer, Reaper, Sampletank 4 and a controller I can make my tracks sound exactly as I want.

Disclaimer- I'm not a musician; I have little training on chord theory, modes, etc. I don't write my own music, I just try to learn and play songs that I like. (My favorite genre is '70s Singer-Songwriter, and one of the hallmarks is a descending bass line.)

I don't understand the comments about repetitive basslines. All good arrangers have an "on bass" or "bass inversion" function that lets you force the bass to the lowest note played. So theoretically, you could play a different bass note, or ANY desired bass note, on any beat of the song. In some cases it might be necessary to customize the bass track, usually simplifying it to just the root (it could still have a little modulation on long-held chords.) And of course make sure that the bass retriggers with most every chord change. On most arrangers, changing the bassline like this isn't difficult- I've modified the bass pattern just noodling around in the music store.

But... forcing the bass like this means playing a lot of slash chords, sometimes on successive beats. To reach all of the notes on a non-intelligent instrument, your left hand would be jumping all over the chord recognition area like Daffy Duck! Which is precisely why I like arranger faculties that allow you to trigger a major chord with a single note, seventh chords with only two notes, etc. (Some of you would probably recruit your right hand to pick up the other notes, but I've never been able to play two-handed. I'm strictly a left hand chords, right-hand melody kind of guy.)

If I really had guts I would try to learn the bass pedals, which is how an independently-specified bassline USED to be played. But I'm already chest-deep in intelligent arrangers and slash chords. At my age I doubt I would ever become proficient enough with the pedals, I think I can get further by staying the road that I'm on.

So I have no problem with repetitive basslines. But when I get on a soap box about style programming, retrigger behavior, and ergonomic fingering for a wide range of chord types, now you know why! :-D

Bill makes a good point about making your arranger sound less repetitive by playing "live" bass.

Arranger bass lines can be very unmusical especially in swinging walking bass lines and certain Latin styles. The problem is the arranger doesn't what chord you're going to play until you play it. A good bass player will connect the chords with passing tones that lead smoothly to the next chord.

Confession.... I almost always play auto accompaniment bass, but someday I hope to do more LH bass.

I personally have found longer 16, 32, bar styles with fills can present problems because sometimes I end up getting fills played when I don't want them. This particularly happens when playing songs that have odd phrasing or for whatever reason you need to add a few bars at the end of the phrase.

But that's not the best option (at least for me) when performing live.

Agreed, that is what arrangers are great for-live play and creation on the spot.

On the arranger boards, I went from a Yamaha PSR-3000 to a PSR-SX900, and a lot has changed in those 10 years, yet a lot has remained the same.

More styles to pick from, and yes they sound "richer", "fuller" and drums are better, yet it's almost like a "been there done that" with quite of few of the styles that seem to be on every Yamaha arranger forever. On a side note, I do not like how they downsized style category. THAT they should have left alone, having more styles in less category's makes no sense. And whatever happened to audio styles? For whatever reason, Yamaha kinda just let that die.

Voices are much improved, again definitely more "richer and fuller" . Guitars on a Yamaha sound just awesome, I can't imagine any arranger sounding better. Piano's and Organs are also top notch and a big step up from the 3000. Adding a 3rd right hand voice was long overdue on Yamaha MOTL arrangers, makes a huge difference in layering voices. I find myself using OTS less often, and just wing it with my own setup.

Pads are better, chord looper (finally) is a nice feature, touchscreen (finally) is something that once you have, you'll never go back, and Bluetooth is a nice added addition.

Lot's of upgrade improvements in 10 years, Yamaha has kept some of it's tried and true stuff, and perhaps that's good, and they seem slow to change, but with the SX-900 vs any previous PSR line, it's a huge step forward that was long over due.

Sorry, didn't mean to go off on a review of the SX-900, so to Diki's main point in how we use these new advances to sound more human? I like to edit styles, many times minimize or eliminate parts of the style, increase drum and bass volume, and use less OTS, and stick to a simple "more human" simple approach. But these are arrangers, and it's also fun to just use everything full blast as pre-loaded by Yamaha. It may sound less human, but isn't that what's great about Arrangers, the ability to sound simple, or to simply sound out!

The problem with arrangers is nothing ever changes... at least not in the last 2 decades..

Altough, there is one highlight, thats Ketron’s launchpads feature

Some good stuff here. Thanks for participating...

I think that lately, there have been some promising steps forward, strangely enough mostly from Yamaha, who stagnated for a decade or so until the Genos and SX series.

I’m also surprised about the complete about face regarding keyboard size. When I was last here, the hardcore opinion was that the Tyros would NEVER get a 76, and who needed one as an option anyway?! Now you can’t get a Genos 61... 🤯

Chord sequencers were the exclusive province of Roland’s, and nobody generally thought they had any practical use. Now Korg got one, and Yamaha up the ante with one that can have up to eight named sections! And all tied to Registrations, so select your song, there are the chords, ready to go! You all probably know me as one of the strongest supporters of this feature, it’s the perfect tool to allow you style play, but freedom from the tyranny of tying your LH up with rote chord input. For those of us that started in bands, it’s almost the perfect substitute! It’s gratifying that almost the entire arranger industry has adopted the one thing I think a professional arranger should never be without! You wait by the river long enough... 😎

There’s a few things that also push the art further, IMHO, many of them gradually adapted from computer software. I’m a huge fan of the Yamaha Ensemble Mode thing. Brass and string ensemble sounds sound great when playing one note. A brass trio, trumpet, sax and ‘bone all playing together. But in real life, when they play a chord, they split up and each one only plays ONE of the notes in a chord. Same with woodwinds, same with string ensembles, you get the picture. Computer software has done this for well over a decade. It’s wonderful that it finally makes it to an arranger. Takes a tad of skill to get the best out of it, but an eye opener when you do...

We are also starting to get more realistic drums, with round robin triggering, heck, Yamaha finally made drum kits that don’t suck! They also contain loads of new hi hat articulations, and stuff like that. Unfortunately, it comes at the price of less compatibility with older styles. It’s a shame there’s no built in routine for automatically adding the extra articulations. You can tell those new styles from the old ones! But there’s quite a way to go to match the better VSTi drums. Eight way velocity splits with round robins at least! You don’t need that many kits when they kick butt!

Guitars have made leaps and bounds in styles, Korg and Yamaha’s both get strumming and picking much better than they used to. I’d still like to see a feature where the chord would be played further up the neck if you played higher up the keyboard (Roland’s guitar mode could do that) but still, all in all, nice progress.

And lead guitar sounds? Wow! Effects sections have adopted some of the best guitar amp simulators, and the sound of a clean guitar run into a proper amp, cranked up and slathered in echo is pure Pink Floyd heaven! No sampled distortion comes even close... voice it right, use the a SA2 articulation stuff, or the Roland SuperNatural articulations and it’s possible to fool guitarists! Never been able to do that before!

And, although it’s not my bag, I have heard some pretty good EDM stuff out of Yamaha’s and Korg’s, but then again, I probably wouldn’t know the difference between good EDM and bad EDM if my life depended on it! 🤩

But... and it’s a big butt 😉 What’s changed fundamentally in the style engine in years? 3-4 Intros. 4 Variations. 4 Fills. 3-4 Endings. Rinse and repeat. This wasn’t great a decade ago. Even sadder now. Styles still lurch uncomfortably from section to section, rarely transitioning well. No half time and double time options (a staple of many software drum machines), no variable swing factor, and that used to be a staple on older arrangers. The strange thing is, it’s actually EASIER to write styles yourself if you don’t struggle trying to write one fill that transitions well between two or three quite different sections. Eight fills should be base, more as options. I mean, what is it other than a clip of MIDI played from a source to a destination..? Why have we been mired in 4 Fills, or 4 Variations for decades?

So... glass half full, glass half empty. Or glass twice as big as it needs to be?! 🥃

Thing is arrangers are made for (And always have been) home hobby players who no longer have room for an organ, (Pro use is miniscule even in Europe) and adding a lot of features scares them off (Just look how Yamaha got burned with the T5 as users s*** themselves when trying to use the more advanced features, with many downgrading to a T4) hurting the manufactures bottom line.

Ketron is one of the most innovative when it comes to arrangers, but speak to the home hobby players and they will say that they don’t consider Ketron because they are too difficult, and have features they just do not understand.

The Genos from Yamaha plays older styles pretty well and can also use older pre-sets, with the newer features well-hidden or merged with more familiar features, and has been selling like hot cakes, (At the start they just could not make enough of them) which when you consider how poor the sales were of the T5 (Only the 76 note keyboard saved it) compared to previous generations, they had to do something out of the ordinary that the home hobby player could understand.

The latest organs from Wersi (The OAX range (The previous OAS range have long gone but a 14 year lifespan isn’t bad) now has a VST3 host on-board that is relatively easy to use, however most owners shy away from it because they are scared of it, likewise Bohm which has their cloud studio option (A PC is built into the organ) is also shunned by most users (Although personally I think Bohm overcharge for it) even though it has a big 17” touch screen built into the music rest. (You can also add a 2nd screen to the Wersi if the 13” built into the organ is too small)

Arranger manufactures are stuck between a rock and a hard place as they know their traditional users are dying off, but cannot add too many new features yet to entice the young, which is why I believe this decade will be last for arrangers, with them becoming really niche products just like the organs they replaced.

Let’s face it if it can’t be done on a phone with a press of a button the modern generation just aren’t interested.

Bill

Where do the sales figures come from?

I mean, is there a reliable source with actual numbers (please post the link) everybody can check and verify (this is the base of science since its inception)?

Or can someone say the exact opposite or any random number in between?


I do not know how well or how bad it sells, what *I* can say is that in a very BIG store I recently visited, they do not even carry the Genos (or the Montage), because it is too much money into a very slowly rotating stock.

If you want one you have to pay it in full, they place the order to Yamaha, and sometimes later you return to pick it.

And the ONLY place where Yamaha in Europe keeps some stock is in Germany, and from there they deliver the requested unit(s) directly to the store in every EU country. Not exactly a piece of hardware sold like hot cakes.....

No manufacture puts out sales numbers so as not to give things away to the competition, however those in the know can get insider information (Just like in any industry) as to what is going on. (If it is made official then you would have to sign an NDA so that it couldn’t get out)

As to selling them faster than they could make them when the Genos was first introduced, just ask any dealer, as Yamaha could not meet the demand and as soon as they were delivered they went straight out the door to the customers. (From memory I think initially there was a 3 month waiting list after the first batch) Things have now stabilised as the Genos has been out for quite some time.

Remember keep your eyes and ears open when it comes to technology as details come out unofficial than through official channels. (If you want to know what is going on get friendly with the various dealers and distributers (It takes time) and you will eventually become part of the loop)

Finally just look how many people are using them to see how popular they are in comparison to other boards. ((Your post seems to indicate that you are relatively young so you wont fully understand until you have gained more experience)

Bill

According to the Thomann sales ranking. the Genos does quite well, but Korg PA 4X and PA1000 seem to have more sales.

https://www.thomann.de/de/cat_rank.html?ar=422200

Thing with arranger keyboards is that most are bought from smaller dealers as people like to try them out first.

Here is an observation if you dig a bit, Korg do extremely well in the Eastern part of Europe whereas as Yamaha do better in the western part of Europe. (This may have something to do with the fact that most of the content for Yamaha arranger keyboards are done in the UK with input from Germany for the European sounds)

Bill

Yeah, Korg have always had a bit of an edge for ethnic musics, non-equal tempered things, sampled ethnic percussion and instruments.

Yamaha have always taken their older Western players seriously, lots of ballroom and oldies styles, and have almost cornered the worship music sector with the free play styles.

But once again, that’s still mostly a content thing. Yamaha CAN do sampled ethnic stuff, Korg can go softer and more oldies and free tempo worship stuff. But there’s not much of that type of content included. So it’s kind of self-reinforcing. The content attracts the player, then the player determines the content!

With a skilled and dedicated content creation team, I think just about any modern arranger can get the job done. But where each manufacturer prioritizes that content differs quite a bit

The pa4x replacement better be something different. They had 5 years....

A lot of companies that make workstations as well as arrangers are rather painting themselves into a corner, because traditionally arrangers are based around that company’s workstation technology.

But the trend nowadays is for extremely synth focused keyboards with very little attention to traditional sampled instruments, and it’s only getting stronger. Which leaves the VERY traditional instrument focused arranger somewhat lost for significantly new technologies to build on. A few more years of this, and arranger manufacturers could end up with having no really appropriate engine to power the arranger other than legacy stuff. Plus we are such a tiny market compared to the synth workstation demographic that it would be difficult to justify much R&D just for us...

Times and technologies move on, evolve, wax and wane. Some of the oldest amongst us watched the same thing happen to the flourishing home organ market. It’s happening slowly, but it seems we are watching it again...

As bands get smaller due to cost and singles and duos are still working there will always be a need to fill in the missing pieces. Unless its and Acoustic thing which is also very peopular here. Actually if I was looking I could find just as much work with a piano/drum machine as I could with an Arranger. So grab what you can now, learn everything about it before you go looking for the next new thing, and enjoy. playing. We have ehough available now to do whatever we need.
IT slooks like every pat of R&D will be effected with this new normal so I don't expect many new offerings in the near future.

Yeah, I look at the vast majority of workstation keyboards released in the last few years and ask myself just exactly what kind of gig would I use these on? The answer seems to be that they aren’t designed to gig that much any more...

The collapse of the band scene (happening long before Covid) seems to leave the majority of keyboard purchases going towards stuff you’d really only use in a studio, and most gigging keyboard players seem to be going back to Nord type stage piano/organs and older workstation stuff (legacy Fantom’s or Motif’s etc.).

I look with bemusement at the shift towards modular analog synths and all that weird stuff and wonder just how you monetize any of that stuff, or is it just for bored bedroom players with limited playing skills but happy playing simple phrases and widdling the knobs to create sci-fi sounds?!

It’s a confusing time for keyboard players... 🤯😂

Diki wrote:
“As so many of we arranger players are elderly, it’s a cruel disease that targets us disproportionately.”

After I read this my mind substituted the words, “The state of the art”, in place of cruel disease.

Wow,23 replays, I am not talking about the virus, it is the technology, I am lost with the subject, and it keeps coming. (smile)

In my younger days I did the same thing, just feel like complaining.
Have a great day, John C

I’m not so much worried about the technology, I’ve been all in on that. It’s about the ‘music’ that that particular type of technology produces, and its live application. Go listen to any synth demos, then try to figure out whether there’s even ONE venue in your area that plays that kind of music live...

I sure as hell can’t!

On the positive side, I think that arrangers have approached close to their zenith. Without actually needing to have any real grasp of the underlying technology, never has it been so easy to grab a one finger chord, create a quick chord sequence, and jam over a backing that is harder and harder to distinguish from the real thing...

Since the Technics 1000 I have bought every Technics up to the Kn7000, four Korg arrangers, three Yamaha arrangers, and now a Sx900. (Even had a Roland - wooow)
I was never disappointed because I expected small to medium advancements, if they put everything they have in the next keyboard, what can they sell next year. If they leave us like Technics. we would complain, and sing “IF ONLY THEY)

My second thought: There is so much in our keyboards, and my best bet is that most people never get to the full potential of their keyboards
ALL EXCEPT GARY. haaaaaa.

In the early days of computers, my advice was not to buy one you can learn in 2 months – or you will become bored.
John C.

I am often surprised at how little some of the features I consider essential get used by many players.

Case in point, I know I argued here for years about how useful the chord sequencer was, back when it was a Roland exclusive (or close to it), and was mostly met with blank stares and statements like 'why would I use something like that?' Strangely, Roland all but dropped the feature (I think it all but disappeared from the G1000 until the BK-9 and disappeared again) while both its major competitors picked it up and even considerably improved it (storage of CS files linked to registrations).

But I still don't read about many using it. Which puzzles me enormously. I can understand to a certain extent those that have only really mastered the one finger chord/one finger to solo playing style, although even there I wonder why they don't use the CS so that they can dedicate BOTH fingers to the solo LOL

But for anyone that CAN play with both hands, why would you want to tie up one hand repetitively inputting the same chords over and over? Many of us older players started out in bands, or playing organs with both hands and feet, often playing early synths with bend levers and expression wheels etc. None of which you can touch if your LH has to keep inputting the damn chords!

I'd love to find out how many of us that have arrangers that DO have a Chord Sequencer actually use it? Now that most do, is it being used as much as it could?

Hey, I resemble that remark! Honestly, that describes me pretty well. On most of the songs that I play, the chords change subtly from one verse to another, often enough that it doesn't seem worthwhile to record them. And if I make a mistake the first time through, then I couldn't replay the recorded sequence anyhow. My first keyboards didn't have a bender, or even a sustain pedal. To this day I have no clue how to use those! I couldn't afford a G1000 when they first came out. PSRs and early Korgs didn't have a chord sequencer. So the BK9 I bought last year was my first keyboard with a C.S. You can't learn to use what you never had!

Because I'm not good at comping or adding grace notes, multipad-triggered arps and chromatic phrases have more value to me in terms of enrichment and variety (because I couldn't play those arps and phrases in real-time, even with both hands!)

Since I *am* a left hand chords, right hand solo type of guy, chord sequencers lie on a "slippery slope"... With overuse of the C.S., pretty soon you're not really "playing" -- you might as well just turn on a MIDI or mp3. If single-finger chords driving a pattern-based accompainment is the musical equivalent of automatic transmission, then C.S. + multipads would be like Tesla autopilot!

Getting back to crucial features that aren't used by many players: I also like to edit styles, revoice them, simplify the bassline, etc. I make heavy use of sync stop and/or arranger hold "off," so that the sound ceases when I release the keys. "Free play" styles were a game changer too, although there's nothing really different or magical about them; they're just a specific use of the functionality that was already there. But- not all arrangers, especially the entry-level models, offer these possibilities. When friends ask me about keyboards, I tell them to beg, borrow, or steal to step up to a mid-range model. Even an older one. Because I just can't understand how anyone would play certain types of music without these options!

For me—look out – it used to be all that was going on at that time. (Kn7000) I would take pictures of the people and condo I was going to play in the coming weekend. They were put into the song in the (Kn7000) and play the song when while they were doing a sing-a-long, or a line dance.

Did the same thing with my email. Email a song to my friends, and they got too hear me play, and see my wife at the Grand Canyon. (nice)

Today, I just wanna play the music I love, and enjoy.
John C.

I have a C.S. on my Pa4X and SX900,but haven't gotten around to using it. The reason is that I have not found the need until lately. I have a busy left hand in that I comp and fill in progressions rather than resting it on a chord. Having said that,I do see the merits of C.S. when I want to put the left hand to better use. Right now,it is not to use the joy stick or ensemble playing,but using my DM48 wind instrument.

As an excuse,I would say that previous to Covid-19, I have been too busy with performances to properly investigate the added goodies. Like it or not,the time has come.

Bernie

My favorite use of the CS is so that I can play anything I want with the LH while the chords continue with no freaking out. I like adding 7ths or 9ths or things like that while the chord recognition sticks to basic chords, that way it's me doing the flavoring rather than the whole band.

And on jazz, if the changes are preset, you can do all kinds of dissonance and alternate voicings etc. while the basic changes go round. Easy enough to turn the CS off if you want the band to follow alternate changes too, then back on for a different head.

Yamaha's 8 piece CS is a thing of beauty, though, biggest improvement in the feature since first invented! Separate CS's for the verse, chorus, bridge, vamps, etc. so you can still lean on the CS but not be tied to a start to finish structure. All loaded at the same time, ready to go...

Particularly on standards and light jazz pieces, having the head chords played for you just really allows you to concentrate on the most expressive solo you can without trying to shoehorn it around the chords!