Chas, these folks call me their friends, and many have turned to me for technical assistance over the many years I have known, though it be only over the Internet and the various forums. A few, however, I have talked with over the telephone, which at times was quite difficult due to my lack of knowing their native languages, but we managed to communicate.

As to what makes their arrangements wonderful, IMO, is the incredible creativity they bring forward to produce these beautiful sounding musical masterpieces. Yes, often they are using onboard styles, free-play styles, such as the Etheral Movie style and many others available from Yamaha vast collections. I have only used a few of these styles personally, but I know of several forum members that produced incredible arrangements using them, and working in combination of the variations and OTS setting voices. These are no drums or bass with these styles, therefore, you must rely on your playing abilities and your creativity.

Having played the piano as a youngster, then switching to a 6-string acoustic and later to a Yamaha 12-string acoustic guitar, then adding an in throat hole pickup to the 12-string and a 100-watt Crate amp, I had a lot of fun, but what really got my creative juices flowing was being able to get into the heart of an arranger keyboard and explore all it's musical opportunities. Guess, in that respect, I also became a geek as well. I could not learn enough, and to this day, I still discover really neat things that you can do with an arranger keyboard that cannot be accomplished with any other instrument.

Additionally, just having fun playing was not enough for me. I truly enjoyed being on stage, playing as an OMB entertainer, to audiences varying from just a dozen or two at a small, living room party, to thousands at the Maryland State Fair Grounds in Timonium, Maryland where the state put on a senior event. To me, this was an exciting time in my life, I met so many wonderful individuals, and became good friends with many of the other talented, professional, musicians that performed there as well. Unfortunately, at age 81, I attended many of their funerals as one by one most have passed away. Fortunately, the few of us that are still alive keep in touch on a weekly basis and have done so for decades.

I still sit at the arranger a couple hours a week, just to try out different, new features I had not discovered over these many years. And, as I have stated many, many times, from what I have seen, only a few individuals have taken the time explore the many features and options available to them in their arrangers.

All the best,

Gary

Gary, you're a lucky man to still have long-time friends that you still stay in contact with. One of the worst parts of getting/being old is loneliness, lack of social interaction, and the frequent depression that accompanies it. So often as we age, family and friends can become geographically distanced and that can easily lead to 'out of sight, out of mind'. My daughter lives in Delaware (home of the president you so dearly love ) and I only see her once, maybe twice a year. My son, on the other hand, lives in the neighboring county and I see him and my grandkids at least once a week. Physical distance does make a difference. Of course things like ZOOM has softened that blow somewhat (I just had a 'Virtual' meeting with my local Democratic party (your favorite....just kidding - remember, humor, humor, humor) this morning. I guess that's one good thing (video calling/conferencing) that came out of this horrible pandemic.

Glad you're still enjoying your arranger, whether musically or technically. It keeps the mind sharp and helps drown out some of the other miseries that accompany old age. According to my Alexa, the average lifespan (in America) for a man is 75.1 years, so you've already beaten the system. Me, I look at it as bonus years (for being so sweet and kind ). I'm also trying to get all the battery life (10 1/2 yrs. left) out of my Pacemaker, especially since I've pre-paid for it . Have a good day Ol' Fart (your words, not mine ).

chas

Gary,
Enjoyed listening to both your friends offerings, Le Clan & Bring him home. Both very well done and I already know how good an arranger can sound. Movie & Show music are among my favourites so thanks for posting those.
Very generous of you to offer your styles too - Don't have time at the moment but will probably look in there sometime soon.
Thanks again,
Anthony

Thank you Gary. I would rate you as number 1 true contributor ( and yamaha arranger technical details/ styles wizard / OMB entrepreneurship / self marketing/ solo OMB singer experience on different crowds ) of the forum since many years ago. Thank you for your sharing knowledge and resources without any ego or drama like some. We really appreciate what you have done here throughout the years.

UD and Scott Y are also appreciated as well ( for sharing info when they were active),

Thanks guys. I am so happy I can still contribute to this forum and have beaten the odds of longevity predictions, both of Alexa and my doctors. This has been a very difficult day for me, not only in taking care of Carol, but myself. My lung condition continues to worsen and this morning when I got out of bed, I was gasping for every breath. Had to take a couple puffs of rescue inhaler in order to get dressed and walk to the kitchen.

All the best, my friends,

Gary (the old fart!)

I might just remind everybody that yes, this IS an arranger forum…

But it is not ‘I can barely play, so I use an arranger’ forum. The best thing about arrangers is that they can be used in a myriad ways, by players of a wide range of skill levels. As such, even if you have no use for more advanced features, sounds or discussion about improving your playing skills, you don’t have the right to demand that threads only discuss what YOU want to hear about, in a way that YOU want them discussed.

If a discussion strays off into country you aren’t interested in, too advanced, whatever, you are welcome to move on to another thread. Or bring the discussion back to what you want to talk about. Personally, I think the hoary ‘Yamaha vs. Korg vs. whoever’ is tired and done to death, whether it’s about sounds, or styles, or workflow. There are good and bad in them all, and discussing a legacy direction when modern models don’t have the same issues so much (Korg have largely got past the whole ‘jumpy fills and unrelated variations’ thing) just seems such a retread. Not to mention, as has been pointed out, what works for one player may be utterly wrong for another.

These brand arguments generally devolve down to ‘I like what I’ve got’, which is awesome… but hardly productive.

So, let’s just remember… this forum is not just for skilled players (whether pro or not). And neither is it for one finger chord amateurs who can barely play. It’s for ALL of us!

Great post, Diki. Sadly, it's unlikely you're ever going to get anyone over 70 to change their position on ANYTHING.

You may have noticed; with very few exceptions, subjects that deal only with arranger issues usually only produce 3-4 posts (sometimes less) before disappearing into the mist, while those that accidently or on purpose, veer off course, oft times gain new life. That's usually because the topic deviation is usually more interesting than the original topic. It's also because most of the arranger posts have been done a dozen times before and literally discussed to death. With no new product on the market, there just isn't much to discuss that has not already been discussed to death. This also proves that the forum is more about technology (and social interaction) than about music. Nothing wrong with that, in fact, it's perfectly natural in a population where untrained amateurs far outnumber trained professionals. As you and others have noted in the past, there is rarely a post or topic about things like chord structure, approaches to transitions, modulations, odd meters (5/4, etc), and most of all ARRANGEMENTS ie. how to best assemble the parts (styles) that we paid so dearly for. What I've noticed is that, in many cases, the thing that mars an arranger performance is TASTE; knowing what sounds good and what doesn't. Just because you CAN mix practically any song with any style in an arranger doesn't mean that you should. However, these things are never mentioned in forum critiques of posted performances. All we ever hear are superficial 'attaboys' so as not to embarrass or discourage the performer. Heck, Pro's get critiqued all the time; it's the difference in selling 200 records or 2,000,000. Trust me, that's a critique .

Sorry for being so long-winded. My initial intent was just to say "Great post, Diki", but then I got carried away .

chas

I think people should enjoy what they have and learn to utilise what they have, you’ve spent ‘000s of pounds on an arranger and your spoiled for choice with styles and sounds etc. It’s like an artist being given a palette of colours but it’s learning to mix the colours in order to get the colours you want.
During Covid lockdowns I’m sure arranger keyboard would have been a life saver for many.

I’m sure with every make of arrangers you get styles the are / are not to your personal taste. But even a bad style can possibly be tweaked into something that’s possibly useable.

Anyhow enjoy music and whatever makes you happy.

I agree with this big time. I tend to look at an arranger as a huge pallet of colors, but it isn’t a picture. That’s still up to you..!

All I’ve been trying to point out is that work on your brush technique will pay bigger dividends than changing a tube of paint. Don’t paint yourself into a corner… 😂

And, to bring the thread back to perhaps where it began, one of the most useful OS techniques you can learn is how to quickly edit styles to change sounds, drum kits, effects and velocities. If you’re dismayed at how complex and song specific so many modern styles have got, go back to earlier styles, and simply do the work to edit them to utilize the best, latest greatest sounds you have (which they don’t address, they are likely triggering the legacy sounds included with your arranger for compatibility), the latest effects (most legacy styles were done on arrangers that couldn’t use insert effects on style parts) and tweak the velocities so the latest velocity-switched sounds transition at the right point. Older arrangers, with no velocity layers, it didn’t matter if the track was high velocity, low volume, or low velocity high volume… vel-switched sounds and kits, it’s critical…

Discussing one brand over another don’t get nothing DONE… If you think modern styles are too busy, but legacy styles sounds dated, best of luck waiting until Yamaha or Korg do something about it! It’s up to you. Roll up your sleeves, listen to some older styles and see what you can turn them into simply by messing with the sounds and effects they address. It is, in the big picture, quite possibly the least amount of work for the most payoff of anything you can do with an arranger..!

Creating a style from scratch takes skill and patience and years of experience. But honestly, crack the manual and figure out the header editor system, you can make older, simpler, easier to use styles sound as good as the new ones…

Get painting! 🎹😎

I like this analogy and as any artist will tell you it's all about 'miles on the brush'!