The Real Issue With Arranger Keyboards

At this point, if Yamaha or Korg collaborated with a computer manufacturer, and just put a proper DAW onboard a keyboard, with all the physical controls, and digital instruments needed, I would buy that in a jiffy.

I wish the manufactures would listen to you. One of them should hire you to help them design one.

Choose a style you like and use only the drums and bass. You have to record the other tracks yourself. Then you can hear if you want to change anything about the drums and/or the bass and voila, you have something completely different.

I do understand where you're coming from, but: 1) A guitar is not equal to an arranger keyboard, it's not a fair comparison. A piano is more like a guitar in the regard that you can play whatever you want on it, and you create all the music live with your two hands without any aids. 2) Even my 10 year old PSR-S750 has three intros and three endings, nobody is forcing you to use the Karma Chameleon one on that particular style, if you want to play a different song using that style. Heck, even the ancient (by arranger standards) PSR-3000 has three intros if I recall correctly. 3) If you want to write songs with fresh sounds and much more flexibility, use a DAW and a MIDI keyboard, or a workstation. Arrangers are great for entertainers, who play on weddings, etc., and they usually play along to MIDI styles, or buy or get style packs from the community, who are willing to put in the effort to make those styles. 4) Generic styles have been a part of arrangers very early on, so it has been done. Take "8 Beat 1" from the PSR-540 (that's a style I know fairly well, since it's the first one on that arranger, which I had for a loooong time). It's so generic I can't name the song which inspired it. (it's very similar to Classic8Beat on the S750)

I use my PSR-SX900 for songwriting, and for me the best tool in the toolbox for this. If I don't use intro number 3, all the styles will follow basically whatever I do. Using the drum section in real-time and recording a sequence with it is light years better/easier than using my Native Instrument's software drums with my new Kontrol S61. This NI system, for me, complements the PSR-SX900, adding additional sounds in Cubase. In my opinion, the arranger drum setup on the Yamaha PSR-SX900 is really innovative... to control a drum arrangement while playing. My two cents.

Totally agree - pretty much sums up my issue with arranger keyboards as well - but I can't see them moving in the direction you suggest, unfortunately.

Interesting topic. I agree, creating your own styles (I have a Genos 2) is a complex process. Moreover, the result is often not what you expect. As a music creator, I design my own music with my DAW.

There are many companies that sell styles for those keyboards and I think the built in styles being so song specific is helping them sell their stuff…

hello Woody, you are right in many ways. However, there is a quick solution. Buy external ready-made styles and packs! I did that and they are not song-related styles.😀

Where are the times when you just had simple march, walz, polka, 8-beat, 16-beat, bossanova and tango rhythms? The main problem lies in the pre-programmed chord progressions. Without them you could play many more songs with the styles.

We have to remember that arranger keyboards were designed exactly for entertainers working in clubs, restaurants, ships etc. to be able to play a bunch of popular songs. Some kind one-man-show. So if you need inspiring stuff you need to look at side of Avenger 2, Nexus 4 and similar VSTi. Also no one prevents you from creating your own original style.

I get your point- and as a songwriter before a cover player- I totally agree. But I imagine if we take this complaint to Korg and Yamaha then they'll just point at their workstation keyboards.

For 20 or 30 years we complained that we couldn't find styles identical to famous songs on the keyboard arranger ! Do you think it's too much now ? I think it's perfect to be like that, that's the purpose of an arranger keyboard! It is an entertainment tool, and it is normal to have these styles ! If you want to compose, use a workstation! I personally think there are two big advances in the arranger category! 1 the sound quality and 2 the quality styles and closer and closer to great hits !

In a similar context to this theme, I think Yamaha's style creator is of great significance. I hope that Cubase's chord track and Arranger track will fully inherit this system in the future

As you said style creation is for advanced users, 100% agreed. Korg should give free classes to purchasers to learn, it shouldn't be hard to learn. The YouTube videos are short and very basic. Korg manuals describe the instrument they are not written to teach people how to create styles.

I have a Genos 1 but I also still own my first arranger keyboard, Yamaha PSR9000. Although it has a Song Bank, the styles themselves were still of sort that I could write an original piece using them and sound unique. I think they need to go back to basics and as you have said, maybe using all the sounds and features etc, they could have a Song Book and a separate Song Generator. The book can contain files made up and created by the company's, and the Generator for the User. Very good point made and agree wholeheartedly

Hey Woody, I completely agree with you. This has been a problem for me for a long while whenever I upgrade to the next keyboard, it seems the more styles included, the more useless they actually can be. Here are some thoughts. I like your idea of improving the style creator. It would be great, say, if there was a style creator 'bot' included where you can pick a certain type of rhythm style, eg, 8Beat, and the bot would scan through that specific bank and randomly generate a combination to create a brand new style from it. Now going back to the main problem, I kind of semi-resolve this by going through some of the legacy generic styles from the previous models (both the Pa5x and Genos2 should be able to play styles right back from the i30 in Korgs case, and the PSR7000 in Yamahas case), and improve them by revoicing them with the newer sounds. There's 1000s of styles to be had here. Also to note that Korg has a huge Bonusware catalogue that also contains 1000s of excellent high quality styles, as does Yamaha that have made all their expansion packs free. There's loads of generic styles there too. But I agree, the factory styles should mainly contain generic styles, and perhaps just have 1 bank section for "famous songs" as an extra bank.

Totally agree. After 3 Yamaha arrangers and 2 Korgs I have moved on. Played the last, PSR 900SX very little. In box under bed and need to sell. Hanging on to PA4x but use mostly for quick and dirty drums with EC5 foot pedal. New flame is my Montage M8X. Great keybed and superb sounds with lean prefab “styles” which are somewhat generic play with guitar and bass players and mostly original material or own arrangements of evergreens. Use Toontracks, Native Instruments in Cubase for recording. Would love Yamaha/Steinberg hybrid keyboard for creative songwriters who wanted to move past covering other creative people’s stuff. Keep giving us inspiring videos which are candid and objective. You make a difference.

My first ever keyboard was an arranger keyboard (Roland E70) however I've not had an arranger for 30 years. I have to agree with everything you said and find the whole arranger keyboard concept completely pointless for live performance in 2024. If you want to do cover versions that sound like the original there's loads of Karaoke companies that now allow you to mute certain instruments for live performance. If you want to do your own/own versions of songs it's far more inspiring/powerful to create your backing track in a DAW, you can also record real instruments and backing vocals etc (for vocalist keyboard players). It's going to sound far more authentic than anything that comes form a Genos or a PAX5 and either way you can't play everything live and the audience will not care one bit if the backing music is coming directly from your arranger keyboard or coming from a and mp3 or a .wav. Where I do think these kind of keyboards are useful is for people learning to play keyboards and learning how to arrange music, however the price of these put them way out of the learner's market. It's actually a lot cheaper to buy a decent computer and a good stage piano/keyboard. I have the exactly the same thoughts regarding workstation keyboards, they were revolutionary in 1989 but pointless and expensive commodities in 2024.

You need to test out the Akai MPC key 61. You're gonna love that one!