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What is the best keyboard arranger……
- Thread starter Tom
- Start date
What is your plan exactly? I am asking because I am not clear about why you would want another keyboard when you already have the Roland to play on. Arrangers without a keyboard of their own are more compact.
I myself have two dinosaurs, an MS40 arranger (no keyboard of its own) and an MS80 arranger (CBA keyboard on the right hand, 120 bass buttons on the left). Either could be used with a Roland, but that is a bit pointless with the MS80 that already has its own accordion controls. And, well, is played while looking like a keyboard. Which means the audience is not disappointed when you aren't using mainly accordion patches.
Do you actually have a Roland Fr4x or some other MIDI-equipped accordion? Over here, something like an MS40 crops up occasionally around the €100 price tag. There is a certain danger that you get drawn into expenses like USB stick based floppy emulators, pedals, a nice keyboard amp and so on. Some of that stuff may transfer well to newer equipment.
One reason I am asking is that you were enquiring about some approach supportive of extending your repertoire from 2 hours to 4 hours. An arranger will provide a lot of variety to practising and performing that you don't get as a grade A accordionist even. "2 hours of repertoire at solid but not exceptional level" is pure gold in connection with an arranger. And you can fine-tune your practice speed to where you can consistently deliver and figure out passages you cannot do at speed.
Using floppies (or more modern equivalents) you can prepare backing tracks. Or you can store a number of specific "styles" for particular songs in the built-in memory. Working with styles instead of backing tracks has the advantage that you can stumble around without losing your place (well, the arranger loses the place along with you and you can get back on track together). When preparing song-specific "styles", you can put memorizable patterns or fill-ins or intros into the style and thus create an identifiable soundscape for the listener. Or yourself.
Because having a piece on arranger might be what it takes to inspire you to bring out a few of the qualities of an arrangement while you are, after all, performing on an acoustic instrument.
I myself have two dinosaurs, an MS40 arranger (no keyboard of its own) and an MS80 arranger (CBA keyboard on the right hand, 120 bass buttons on the left). Either could be used with a Roland, but that is a bit pointless with the MS80 that already has its own accordion controls. And, well, is played while looking like a keyboard. Which means the audience is not disappointed when you aren't using mainly accordion patches.
Do you actually have a Roland Fr4x or some other MIDI-equipped accordion? Over here, something like an MS40 crops up occasionally around the €100 price tag. There is a certain danger that you get drawn into expenses like USB stick based floppy emulators, pedals, a nice keyboard amp and so on. Some of that stuff may transfer well to newer equipment.
One reason I am asking is that you were enquiring about some approach supportive of extending your repertoire from 2 hours to 4 hours. An arranger will provide a lot of variety to practising and performing that you don't get as a grade A accordionist even. "2 hours of repertoire at solid but not exceptional level" is pure gold in connection with an arranger. And you can fine-tune your practice speed to where you can consistently deliver and figure out passages you cannot do at speed.
Using floppies (or more modern equivalents) you can prepare backing tracks. Or you can store a number of specific "styles" for particular songs in the built-in memory. Working with styles instead of backing tracks has the advantage that you can stumble around without losing your place (well, the arranger loses the place along with you and you can get back on track together). When preparing song-specific "styles", you can put memorizable patterns or fill-ins or intros into the style and thus create an identifiable soundscape for the listener. Or yourself.
Because having a piece on arranger might be what it takes to inspire you to bring out a few of the qualities of an arrangement while you are, after all, performing on an acoustic instrument.
Thanks Dak. Yes, I have an Fr4. I tried software arrangers but haven’t found one I like. I like the keys for a couple reasons. For one, I think arrangers are super cool and I’d like to play with one. Two, I think it would be fun to have an instrument I don’t have to strap on, that I could just sit down and play for a few minutes or hours in the evening, even sitting around the fire while my lovely wife is crafting, hard to do with accordion. Three, in xxxx years the accordion will be too much, might as well start preparing. Four, as you know, I am nutty as a fruitcake. All of this is independent of this years farmer market gigs. I still need the “four hours.” But how about for 2025?
Ventura
Been here for ages!
the Korg arrangers have a long and storied history, beginning with the M1,
and have had a wide range of types and price over the decades..
fewer speaker types and more pro level models overall, though they do have
a PX series very high end for Gigging musicians with speakers
the current entry level
www.sweetwater.com
which is nice, has the awesome Korg GM sound engine, is compatabile with the
FR4x and other USB capable Rolands in that anything you can do or create
on the i3 can be converted/output as a finished audio file/track that plays
from your USB stick shoved into the FR4x
(if that is what you mean by "...works best with Roland Fr4x?"
the only down side of the i3 is that it is not intended as a general purpose gigging
MIDI controller, and is intended to and only (usb) plugs in to your modern Windows 10/11
Computer to be used with a bunch of Software that is included in the price, so your
FR4x would also need connected to your computer through some MIDI port or
whatever connection if you wanted to mess with everything being plugged in at once
it works fully functionally as a stand alone arranger of course, if that is the way you like
to create songs and stuff, but lots of things you can do onboard are way easier with
dual 23" monitors and a trackball. A high quality sound system is obviously
necessary for any home studio to function decently so add that to your cost
if you don't have anything better than an old guitar amp laying around
(good excuse to invest in a nice little PA system)
higher end Korgs also have heavy duty Synth tone programmability,
seriously pro physical keybpoards, various front panel targeted function layouts
for different needs.. multiple MIDI/audio outputs.. stuff like that
all korgs share a ton of legacy stuff burnt in, like the rhythm patterns and
autoplay functions.. also lots of how-to's everywhere on the net..
whether it is better for a beginner/programmer to work through a
dedicated keyboard/arranger or just getting some of the program
play along stuff that has been discussed in many threads is the question..
depends on your way of doing things what might work better 4 u, but
any computer setup you try still has to have a keyboard attached to it
unless you use your FR4x every time you sit down to work on something.
Since the Korg comes with a ton of good software anyhow, OR can
be used stand-alone with full capability to create arrangements, it bridges
this gap in an affordable way in my opinion.
pretty much all the more expensive Korg arrangers have the save as audio file
function too now, so if a fancier one really grabs your eye and is on a tempting sale
you could spend more get more.. they all have the same great basic GM soundset,
they all have awesome amazing quality piano's
( if anyone else in the house feels like just sitting down and plinking keys )
there are plenty of used Korgs out there too, but the render to audio file function is a
more modern thing they added, so most older ones you would have to capture the sound
from the audio outs into something that can record to .WAV
(which is a pain for some of us and why grabbing an i3 was worth it to me personally)
as you know, i picked one of these up and have been using it in the studio,
but my needs and time are limited so i havn't even finished configuring the new
win 11 computer for the software.. getting around to it but i mainly use the i3
to convert the songs i already have, rather than new ones i might want to make
i was bugging a young guy who works for Korg about this stuff before i bought
one, and he said the software is very tweaked to work with the i3 and that
when everything is set up right, you HEAR the sound of whatever you are working on
FROM the internal sound engine of the i3, not from some GM sound font you
have loaded in the computer, so what you hear is what you get,
and that is actually kind of important (again, depending on the individual)
ciao
Ventura
and have had a wide range of types and price over the decades..
fewer speaker types and more pro level models overall, though they do have
a PX series very high end for Gigging musicians with speakers
the current entry level
i3 Arranger Keyboard - Silver - Sweetwater
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which is nice, has the awesome Korg GM sound engine, is compatabile with the
FR4x and other USB capable Rolands in that anything you can do or create
on the i3 can be converted/output as a finished audio file/track that plays
from your USB stick shoved into the FR4x
(if that is what you mean by "...works best with Roland Fr4x?"
the only down side of the i3 is that it is not intended as a general purpose gigging
MIDI controller, and is intended to and only (usb) plugs in to your modern Windows 10/11
Computer to be used with a bunch of Software that is included in the price, so your
FR4x would also need connected to your computer through some MIDI port or
whatever connection if you wanted to mess with everything being plugged in at once
it works fully functionally as a stand alone arranger of course, if that is the way you like
to create songs and stuff, but lots of things you can do onboard are way easier with
dual 23" monitors and a trackball. A high quality sound system is obviously
necessary for any home studio to function decently so add that to your cost
if you don't have anything better than an old guitar amp laying around
(good excuse to invest in a nice little PA system)
higher end Korgs also have heavy duty Synth tone programmability,
seriously pro physical keybpoards, various front panel targeted function layouts
for different needs.. multiple MIDI/audio outputs.. stuff like that
all korgs share a ton of legacy stuff burnt in, like the rhythm patterns and
autoplay functions.. also lots of how-to's everywhere on the net..
whether it is better for a beginner/programmer to work through a
dedicated keyboard/arranger or just getting some of the program
play along stuff that has been discussed in many threads is the question..
depends on your way of doing things what might work better 4 u, but
any computer setup you try still has to have a keyboard attached to it
unless you use your FR4x every time you sit down to work on something.
Since the Korg comes with a ton of good software anyhow, OR can
be used stand-alone with full capability to create arrangements, it bridges
this gap in an affordable way in my opinion.
pretty much all the more expensive Korg arrangers have the save as audio file
function too now, so if a fancier one really grabs your eye and is on a tempting sale
you could spend more get more.. they all have the same great basic GM soundset,
they all have awesome amazing quality piano's
( if anyone else in the house feels like just sitting down and plinking keys )
there are plenty of used Korgs out there too, but the render to audio file function is a
more modern thing they added, so most older ones you would have to capture the sound
from the audio outs into something that can record to .WAV
(which is a pain for some of us and why grabbing an i3 was worth it to me personally)
as you know, i picked one of these up and have been using it in the studio,
but my needs and time are limited so i havn't even finished configuring the new
win 11 computer for the software.. getting around to it but i mainly use the i3
to convert the songs i already have, rather than new ones i might want to make
i was bugging a young guy who works for Korg about this stuff before i bought
one, and he said the software is very tweaked to work with the i3 and that
when everything is set up right, you HEAR the sound of whatever you are working on
FROM the internal sound engine of the i3, not from some GM sound font you
have loaded in the computer, so what you hear is what you get,
and that is actually kind of important (again, depending on the individual)
ciao
Ventura
Thanks Ventura, a lot to digest there. I’ll take a look at the i3.
Basically what I think of an arranger is plugging in the midi out of the Fr4 and selecting a style and tempo. The arranger then plays the style in real time based on the chords in the Fr4 left hand.
Many people on here have demonstrated this ideally.
It would be nice to have the arranger have 61 keys so it can serve also as a keyboard instrument. Also its own speakers along with line out and saving to file. Also the ability to edit and/or create the style.
Maybe not a thing. Or maybe not a thing under $1500. Maybe you need a “regular” arranger and a keyboard. I have a lot to learn here.
Basically what I think of an arranger is plugging in the midi out of the Fr4 and selecting a style and tempo. The arranger then plays the style in real time based on the chords in the Fr4 left hand.
Many people on here have demonstrated this ideally.
It would be nice to have the arranger have 61 keys so it can serve also as a keyboard instrument. Also its own speakers along with line out and saving to file. Also the ability to edit and/or create the style.
Maybe not a thing. Or maybe not a thing under $1500. Maybe you need a “regular” arranger and a keyboard. I have a lot to learn here.
Ventura
Been here for ages!
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the PA series..$999 for the pa300 to $5000 PA5x
i think someone in here has an expensive PX
some guys went to the keyboard arrangers because of back and age issues,
as they let them gig for many more years than otherwise possible, and i
think mostly they substituted flat keys for accordion, but some of us
have gigged with accordion and keyboard, and it does give a nice
extra dimension. Mostly for me because of the backing vocals type
keyboard, plus being able to reach over and adding a few riffs on JUST
a Piano sound or Strings or some other solo voice that you just can't
switch to fast enough on a FR3/4/7x in the middle of a song
i really can't speak to the normal use of the arrangers being triggered
from the accordion for backgrounds following your chords, as i just
don't do that. Closest i ever came was using sidemen/drum machines
waaaaaaaay back in time.. yeah then we picked a pattern, triggered
breaks intro's endings, but just the drums, nothing else, so no accordion
control was needed (footswitches doing that better anyway)
Ventura
Been here for ages!
from what i have noticed, keyboards that are mainly designed to work
stand alone with their own speakers are often times limited in other
types of connectivity.. while they most all have midi in/out/through
they do not necessarily make it easy for "in" to reach anything other than
the GM soundset
meaning, one device (ex: with a vocal arranger) might be fixed on which
MIDI channels reach which section of the keyboards brain, so on some
keyboards it is not easy to control what you want in an easy way from a
different "controller" ie: the fr4x
that is the "gotcha" then, so once you get close to choosing one,
i recommend downloading the owners manual for a close look.
the next gotcha is, how will the Bellows midi data and the keyboard
velocity midi data affect the control of the arranger in ways that might
be another gotcha.. ex: my VK8m drawbar module.. the bellows data
kept dropping the volume to zero if i didn't squeeze.. on top of that
i had to squeeze at maximum pressure to get a good volume iout of it..
the VK8m has no ablity to turn off or filter out volume data from the
rest of the MIDI (note) data.. so i had to insert a data filter into the chain
sometimes we find this stuff out later, sometimes before, sometimes there
is a work around, sometimes not.
since arranger modules are designed primarily to work live
from a controller, they have less gotcha's, and some midi modules
allow for 2 MIDI in's so you can use the Fr4x AND a small portable battery
operated flat keyboard for live gigs as a possible way to put a nice rig together
someone else will have to say if any module they have/recomend has the 2 midi input feature
I don’t know if you may like my answer Tom, but, why not use the integrated percussion of the 4x before spending more money? No it’s not as fancy, but it can sound nice!
The principal difference is that the built-in percussion is one strike per button press while an arranger is free-running. The former is a means to spice up things for the listener. The latter is spicing up the practice challenge for yourself. An arranger does not just provide free-running percussion but also other accompaniment.
Can be pretty sobering to figure out what actual speed is considered standard for a march and to try keeping in line.
. Those are definitely the differences for sure, it Comes down to what you want to do of course… add a little extra zing to a performance or just spice up a song a bit more while needing to carry an arranger, speakers and amp so that this all can be heard. You also are going to need a wired or wireless cable to get the chords picked up from the accordion to the arranger.I am hopeless, I just enjoy all variations!
Definitely an amp comes into play as well. However, I think that when using orchestral patches in the bass, the speakers in the Rolands are out of their depth anyway. If that double bass is supposed to be fun, a setup with external speakers is really called for. Then the difference in gear when also engaging an arranger becomes less daunting.
I am hopeless, I just enjoy all variations!
True. I was thinking of getting a keyboard and it seemed like I might as well get arrangement capability as well, since all the cool Czech players on here use them!
I am hopeless, I just enjoy all variations!
I've actually seen a Solton MS40 here in the classfieds for €100 that appears to already have swapped its floppy drive for a USB drive (much more reliable). Apparently has a shot internal battery. I'd offer to mark this up to €200 for swapping the internal battery, checking it through, sending a PDF of the manual (it's actually an MS50/MS60 manual plus a few supplemental pages) and answering questions since I have the same here. It's a fun device with lots of buttons and connections and pretty nice sounds. On the downside it is old technology and heavy and bulky for what it does, but not as bulky as it would be if it included a keyboard of its own. And programming styles of your own is, well, not what I'd call simple. But one can copy and modify existing styles. And there is wagonloads that can be found on the net.True. I was thinking of getting a keyboard and it seemed like I might as well get arrangement capability as well, since all the cool Czech players on here use them!
What doesn't make sense a lot is using mainly accordion sounds or staying within a single genre with just the built-in styles: things will get repetitive pretty fast then.
MS50 is about the same but with keyboard, MS60 additionally with built-in speakers. The latter can be found pretty frequently as well. Then there is the "superior" MS100 model with a SCSI hard disk built-in and its CBA cousin MS80. The latter two are quite less common (I have an MS80 with the SCSI hard disk replaced by an SDcard: as opposed to emulating a floppy drive at the interface level, emulating a SCSI hard disk is not braked down to the original speed). The next Ketron generation is SD (with the cheaper XD series I think). Then they have the Audya arrangers, but with those we are talking serious money. Pretty well reputed. The competition for that is mainly Yamaha Tyros I think. I have no experience with anything beyond the old MS series: not my price bracket.
Hi Tom - good name!
First of all, I have used Band-In-A-Box and for some styles it works pretty well. It can generate midi tracks for each instrument in some cases, and also has a bunch of professional musicians playing, which are added to the song changes. I've used some of those stems in my own arrangements I make in Ableton Live. It's quite a program, but you need to spend some time with it to get the hang of it.
I make a lot of my own background tracks, playing every instrument, usually Kontakt library sounds.
Now to share this with you which is more to your original question.
Funny how things pop up browsing the internet. I found a fellow who makes arrangements and posts them on the net. Digging deeper on his site, I found a video that showed the keyboard he was playing and noticed it sounded like a background track being triggered while he played. I hunted it down and found this. A bit over your $500 price tag, but probably worth a look. Here's a demo of the
Roland FP-E50 88-key Arranger Keyboard
Maybe something to check out.And here's a guy comparing a Yamaha DGX 670 to the FP-E50
Say, thanks Tom! (Seems like a common name on here among accordion players!
). I’ll check these out tomorrow when I have a spare moment.
