I did realize it Diki, and my point's the same. We're not all as dumb as you think we are.

chas

Not ALL… 😂

. . .

Arranger players are unique to me. They are folks(like me)that are willing to spend hours programming and editing to get an arrangement the way they want it.

Most keyboard folks I know will show up with a hammered action keyboard and play with whom ever is in the group and whatever the key signature is.

I can do this on guitar/bass/mandolin. I can’t on keyboard.

In short, piano is versatile, arrangers not so much.

I hate to point this out, but an arranger can turn everything off except the piano sound, and there you are! I’ve been using arranges as my live, gigging keyboards with bands for well over 30 years. To be honest, I find most arranger sound sets better balanced, and more practical for gigging than many a workstation with its emphasis on weird synthesizer sounds, and stuff you will never use in a million years.…!

Especially if you get one with a 76 note action, you can play full piano, or Roads, etc. in a band, and nobody will be the wiser for what else it can do…!

...which begs the oft-asked question, then why do 99% of keyboardist in bands and 100% of 'pure' pianist's' (and organists) NOT use Arranger keyboards? I mean, they (Arrangers) have been around for about 40 years now; you'd think someone would have figured it out by now. I guess they're just 'DUMB'. Or maybe......

chas

Hi, arrangers have improved a lot over years so hopefully things have changed. Early days (90’s )there was a bit of a stigma attached . I was lucky enough to live 5min down the road from one of Sydney’s best known pro music stores. My home away from home😀. For a tech junkie like me, it was like living down the road from Disneyland. Getting to see the latest gear, going to the odd product launch. Gave me a part time job, just so I’d go home once in a while. 😁 Upstairs was the pro audio gear, workstations, synths ,samplers, mixing desks, amps ,speakers. The only arranger that ever made it upstairs was the Korg i3. It was all about the workstations and the synths. Things might have changed after 2000, wouldn’t know, we moved up the coast, but somehow I doubt it . Beyond me why.

I think most keyboard players in bands nowadays, if they are looking for something ‘automatic’ to jam with are of the younger generation. And unfortunately, while the arranger is the go to backing tool for legacy music and us fossils, they are pretty awful at approximating today’s contemporary music.

Most of that is created using loops and clips and a workflow that doesn’t really follow played chords much. You’ll see a lot of modern keyboard players got a Maschine or an MPC type groovebox in their kit bag, and that is what has become the go to backing gear. Either that or laptops…

Again, there’s a big divide between young keyboard players playing in bands and us older types playing in bands. We tend to be in bands with our contemporaries, playing the music of our youth, and need sounds that the arranger is strong on. Young keyboard players aren’t as big into retro music, or when they are, it’s more of the jam band thing which doesn’t need the full range of the arranger.

The kids are big on retro gear at the moment… Wurli’s, Rhodes’, Clav’s, tons of old analog synths, some Hammond, stuff like that. It’s no coincidence that that’s what Nord (who you see a ton of kids playing) concentrate on. And very few arrangers can hold water against the Nord’s for stuff like Hammond, Wurli, Clav etc.. But they excel at brass, strings etc, which the basic Nord’s don’t really do well. Thing is, on the whole, modern pop music isn’t as big into string and brass and woodwinds as legacy music was. So, the young player doesn’t really feel arrangers are the right tool, I would think.

The other thing that probably works against young players digging arrangers is the huge amount of styles the kids wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole! It’s hard to get the girls going when front and center on the panel are banks labeled ’Ballroom’ and ‘50’s’ and ‘Oldies’, and nothing labeled ‘Trip hop’ or ‘Lounge’ or ‘Hardcore’!

The arranger has become the ‘home organ’ of the 21st century… pretty near irrelevant for contemporary music. The minute pop went synths in the 80’s, that was the death of the home organ. I think it’s Deja vu all over again…

Diki has hit the nail on the head, (I have also said this many times over the years) just think about it, there used to be a boatload of home organs manufactures in the heyday, but are now down to a few, the same happened to arrangers in that most manufactures pulled out of the market, and we are left with just a few. (New releases are also few and far between)
If you look at a lot of electronic equipment most of it becomes obsolete pretty quickly, whereas acoustic instruments don't, and that unfortunately is life.

Bill

Good point Chas

Many stage pianists prefer hammered action.

If I we’re competent enough to play live with a group, I probably would choose a stage piano as well

For me, the advantage of an arranger is the ability to do solo gigs with accompaniment. But that takes a lot of programming time.

There’s another factor I think…

Complexity of programming for some.

I have a cousin who has been gigging solo with a stage piano for years and has done quite well.

But he has to haul a mixer, drum machine and a book for lyrics plus other stuff.

I’ve tried many times to convince him to go the arranger route and he wouldn’t need all the extra gear.

His response? “Too many buttons, too complex and not spontaneous “

😊