Arranger Keyboards Are Mental 😭
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 มิ.ย. 2024
- It's a damn musical amusement park! 🎢
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Timestumps:
0:00 - wtf is an arranger
2:52 - specs
3:55 - PA5X basics
9:28 - PAN FLUTE ON THE BEACH
10:45 - Sound customizing $ sampling
14:04 - Chord detection & charts
14:58 - GUITAR FX?!
16:19 - VOCAL FX?!
18:18 - FTC Musical PSA
19:33 - MIDI Out Madness
21:31 - Invented a new genre nbd
22:36 - Oriental Version
24:52 - Another new genre nbd
26:02 - Welp - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
![[LIVE] ย้อนวันวานกับนางเอกยุค 90's #คุยให้เด็กมันฟัง EP.42 (8/6/67)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/MslQDdFwULE/mqdefault.jpg)
I used to work at a library that a Yugoslavian seniors group used to attend. They set up in a huge meeting space, and got blind drunk, while a musician went absolutely off on an arranger keyboard for 2 hours straight at an alarmingly loud volume. It was some of the most intense music I’ve ever experienced.
God I was waiting for the balkan comments. Up there, the arrangers are incredibly common among the "blue collar" musicians as he mentioned and you can hear a lot of old popular tracks using just generic backing tracks from casio arrangers. Fun stuff 😅
denny's grand slam level of legend
Tbh an arranger is just an accordion on every kind of steroid to a typical yugoslavian, that must have been a wild time
ngl, sounds lit
@@pavlebn Agreed. my entire life experience with arranger keyboards has been at eastern european restaurants that have dance floors...
Korg just got the best demo they could ever hope for. A testament to Benn Jordan's talent as a content creator, not just his musicianship. I loved every bit of this piece of kit, guilty pleasure and all.
*preset applause*
How does that man do things that don't directly concern me and yet captivate me with every video?
Benn is a modern version of the renaissance man: Interested in everything, making everything interesting in the process.
Passion.
He appeals to the kid in all of us that loves to explore the ________ out of everything new to us.
May you just think it doesn’t concern you. I was wringing my hands deciding if I should buy this thing recently.
The vocal harmonizing and the crossfader.
I think though that audiences would be much less impressed , it’s hard to say . Things are different know with tech,
But regardless of the music you play, would an audience be less impressed if your standing behind just a keyboard .
Compared to having a huge convoluted stage setup. I know some people would be .
He is that guy
With that thing and it's headphone mic combo you can do telemarketing / tech support and also play the stand-by music while the customer waits.
Now that's customer service! Would call Korg everyday like in the old dial-a-song days
A man added a Korg Pa5x to his tech support. This is what happened to his career....
Yeah and don’t forget tv quizzes
That’s hilarious 😂
These arranger-type keyboards are huge in the performance (and sometimes recording) of Arabic music. Usually you'll see two stacked, and companies like Korg have regional models with all manner of distinct rhythms (Iraqi, Egyptian, etc.) and instruments and, yes, tuning switches so you can go between different maqams (modes), which you mention at around 22:00 - (Ben, if you're reading, curious what you listen to!). They have such a particular sound that's immediately recognisable, and often there are all kinds of heroics with playing wild solos at weddings (which often turn into rave-like events). Aside from the blue-collar working musician you mention, they are huge internationally and everywhere from Eastern Europe and North Africa to Southeast Asia you'll find them in almost every restaurant or event. Respect to the humble arranger keyboard.
I went to Istanbul a few years ago and one thing that stuck with me was that every restaurant and bar that was substantial enough to have a door, had a guy in the corner playing a keyboard, usually accompanied by a woman singing. There could be as little as four tables, two of wich was occupied, but there was always a band playing.
Guests would join in and the microphone would get passed around as the singer took a smoking break.
What a cool and fun culture that is.
Definitely seen them here and there around Europe too in restaurants and used by street musicians.
This episode should be called “Guy encounters instrument tool that does all the things that he had to figure out how to do the hard way.” This one was so fun to watch!
It's great that he's multitalented enough to actually show off all (most) of the things that this device can do on his own and make it easy to watch.
@@arnehurnik Those were also my thoughts on this too! If anyone could just sit with something as crazy as an arranger kbd and get in a flow right out the box, it would be this guy!
@@drumandbassonvinyl And I remember when I got my PSR-S710 (upgrading from my E323) and I was so intimidated with the featureset that I stopped practicing for a few years.
Child psychology is truly stupid.
Back in the eighties and nineties in the Netherlands you could find these single man ‘bands’ playing somewhat cheesy but surprisingly skillfully arranged live music on large organ like contraptions in malls and similar places. I suppose these ‘organs’ were the spiritual predecessors to this type of keyboard.
the way true organists can work their feet on the bass pedals is something else though, very tricky
I enjoyed you enjoying the game show sounds more than you should have more than I should have. This was a fun one!
Brain hurty juice
I enjoyed this comment more than I should have.
Enjoymentception?
This reminds me of the kind of equipment my grandfather used to gig with. He was a guitar player and had a guitorgan and then some other midi based guitar. This is back in the 80s and 90s when I was kid he would go and do one man gigs where he had printouts of the program numbers to put in his midi processing machine that did the whole backing band that would follow what he was playing. I don't know what he would be using today if he was creating the same kit from scratch.
Let me give you a little background on Arranger Keyboards. You say they are for the blue collar working man, and yes, in a sense, but that's not where it started. Back in the early 1970s Baldwin came out with something called 'The Funmaker/FunMachine.' It was a three octave, single manual organ which had another octave for trigger chords. It was intended for the home user. Up until that time, if your home had a keyboard instrument in it, it was either a piano or one of the venerable Hammond Organs. You could purchase a 'drum machine' for the Hammond, but you still had to do everything else, but it did put you a step up on most other home players. Baldwin came along and added a bass pattern and strum patterns to the drum patterns, all selected by a single octave to the left side of the keyboard, and you played one finger to select the chord. I don't remember how you did minor chords or seventh chords.
Anyway, the concept was to add something new and different to the home player.
After that, Yamaha, Wurlitzer, Lowry, and even Hammond all started to produce organs with these 'auto accompaniment' features. They were very basic, nothing like what we have today. No sample synthesis, not even stuff like FM synthesis. All it amounted to was 'Boom chicka boom chicka boom boom.' 🤪😛
Fast forward ten years or so, and by then, both Yamaha and Casio had developed single keyboard 'slab organs.' The IC, or Integrated Circuit, was small enough to allow companies to start to put a lot of features into these keyboards, but the sound synthesis was still poor, but some of the FM synthesis trickling down from the DX-7 started to make it into some of the Yamaha organs, and they started to sound a little better.
I want to clarify something else, too. These instruments were all aimed at 'the home hobbyist.' The person who enjoyed music, but was not a professional, or even semi-professional musician. This is the individual who when they get home from work wanted to pull out some sheet music, sit down and play for their enjoyment and relaxation. These weren't designed for a gigging musician
In 1993, Korg introduced the original i3 Interactive Keyboard. It blew the competition away and sent a huge wake up call to Yamaha, Roland, and Casio, which by then were really the only other manufacturers of arranger keyboards (although they weren't called that back then). I remember seeing the original i3 and I wasn't able to believe what I was seeing. The sounds were 'realistic', at least compared to the FM synthesis of the other products. No built in speakers, you had to run the outputs to monitors or something to hear. You could actually go in and edit the sounds. The sounds were sampled! This was the beginning of the 'Arranger Keyboard' line and concept. With two sequencers built in, you could load a SMF via 3.5" floppy and set up a play list, or, you could create a backing sequence using the accompaniment section, and then play along, or record over top of it, something that had not been fully explored. In 1993, there was an article published that pushed both the 61 key i3 and 76 key i2 as devices for songwriters, jingle writers, etc. Use the capability of the keyboard and backing tracks to flesh out a song. This is the first time that the word 'Professional' was used with an Arranger keyboard.
My first journey into these keyboards was actually selling them, mostly Yamaha and Casio, back in the 80s. The first keyboard I owned for myself was a Korg iX300, 32 notes of polyphony, 14 megs of sample ram, 104 styles. Quite a jump up from the i3 of only four years previously. The sounds had also gotten better, using the AI2 software synthesis engine that was also found in the 'pro-level synths' of the day. The two lines were coming closer.
It wasn't until the early 2000s with the introduction of the PA series of keyboards that things really started to converge. The PA1X was a 76 key keyboard (a 61 key version with speakers was the PA80) and technology was used from the professional level series of synths. About this time, the sounds and the styles were good enough for that 'blue-collar' musician to start doing single player gigs or a gig with themselves and maybe a singer/guitar player.
I currently own an older PA800, which is about 13 years old or such. I want to buy a PA5X, but don't have the money for it right now. The funny thing is that the price on that keyboard is about the same price as a three generation old Yamaha CVP Clavinova with 88 weighted keys. (I can buy a currently new Yamaha CVP-701 from Guitar Center for $5K)
If you want to see what an Arranger Keyboard can do today, I would point you to Alois Muller in Germany and some of his videos. In Europe, these keyboards have found much more positive reception than they do here in North America, and a lot more people play them. Alois speaks German, but if you watch his TH-cam channel, you can select the Auto Translate feature to understand what he's saying, mostly.
www.youtube.com/@AloisMueller
These keyboards started out for the home hobbyist, and over the years have moved closer to professional grade, and are regularly used for small venues and one or two person groups. They were never intended to be 'professional' keyboards, but they could easily do the job, depending on the type of music you're playing. For me, I prefer The Great American Songbook and have no need of synths and the ability to shape my sounds, but if I did, I could with the current crop of keyboards at least to some extent.
Finally, the thing about these keyboards is that I can sit down, open a song book, pick a song, pick a style, and play immediately. Do it with great sounds, great styles, and even record to something like Cakewalk and do it easily and still come up with a good product I could share with friends and family.
My mind was blown by this video. I never fully understood just how much of a musical Swiss Army knife these synths are. How you explained its features and utility was both easy to digest and 100% on the nose. I can well imagine a solo musician or the MD in a worship band becoming a sonic air traffic controller, directing everything from this beast.
Lovely work.
Arrangers can absolutely be used by single musician live. But what they're used a lot as well is for ARRANGING. Like for reals. You have an idea for a song, a simple structure, melody chord progression what ever, and you need to QUICKLY and easily get the flesh over the bones and TEST your ideas and what works and what doesn't.
You can either start programming stuff in DAW, playing instruments in track by track instrument by instrument... or you just press few buttons on an arranger and you can very quickly get the core idea if it'll work or not.
There's something to be said about creative flow wit these, they're meant to absolutely never stop you from being creative and always get what you need quickly and easily right at your fingertips.
They're more powerful for someone who wants to create than any Kontakt library, because with some 1000$ library you're not usually expected to be paying it live but to PROGRAM every single note and try and replicate real instrument or orchestra and go deep into key switching and CC's to get very accurate representation without real musician.
Arrangers are not that, they expect that what ever you're doing doesn't require the highest of highest fidelity or accuracy, OR that when you've done arranging, you'll spit out notation, hire some session musicians and they'll come over to realize all the instrumentation that you weren't able to do and replace all the arranger stuff with real instrument.
Arranger is either the whole package, or it's the first step to speed up the process.
I bought myself Kronos 2 because no matter the amount of Kontakt libraries, they're NOT for what I need, which is to be able to get the idea across fast and simple so that I can present it to real musicians and then we'll replace the tracks I did as placeholders with real ones with sensibilities of real musicians and players. I'm just a composer, arranger... I'm not there to play all the instruments or program every single note in meticulous detail... real players of said instruments can do that after I've gotten my idea across.
My main instrument for composing is still piano. If it doesn't work on piano, no amount of fancy studio work or arranging is going to make it stick. But sometimes it's great to be able to do a bit more, faster, than just the piano.
Literally all of that can be done by any workstation. Arranger keyboards are for LIVE arrangements.
You should try the Sofeh Sunrise Music Studio which emulates KORG Pa - it's the most complete software arranger, but nothing compares to the real thing yet. I've tried them all. Beware - it can be buggy and confusing and needs a bit of setup.
Here in the Balkans arrangers are a HUGE part of all pop-folk like in Arab countries. Musicians program custom styles and there's a big market for selling / buying styles. Arrangers have been extremely popular here since the 90s - even old models are modded to replace the floppy with a USB drive. I've been dreaming for one, but even used it's too expensive. Here the KORG Pa is most desired.
Is there any tutorial in English for it? Software seems to be really powerful but interface is somewhat confusing for people who don't used the real thing.
@@mikolasstrajt3874 I don't know. On their website there are a bunch of articles and videos, but I've learned on real arrangers from friends in my own language. Sorry I couldn't help much. On the site there are 2 versions - one for computer and another for smartphone - their piano interface is very similar so it may be useful to search about both. The interface will remain confusing though, it's just not very good, but that's the best there is currently.
Your enthusiasm with this is infectious! Highlights something that about music making that people don't point out very often, namely, how FUN it can be. Keep on keeping on!
I remember music that sounds 100% like the stuff made with the "Oriental Version" from one of my cousin's first weddings. His wife was Tunisian and VERY late in the night a guy with one of these Keyboards showed up and just blasted us all with this music. Her relatives loved it, being from Tunisia and his relatives, being Austrian and very drunk, also loved it!
I am obsessed with arrangers! Good arrangers are deep and complex.. and only limited to your own understanding of the device and your own level of creativity. They are so useful for idea generation, arranging, and even increasing your knowledge of theory and Chord structures! Also exploring mixing genres! Midi is the key!
Buy a Yamaha Genos. It's miles better. 🎉🎉❤
Yes! A good arranger can be mind blowing! The Technics line were amazing! Yamaha Tyros is also cool, but way overpriced. Roland has some too.
@@lorencarlin2087yes! Some older instruments like GEM. Also excellent!
I agree. Yamaha Genos is far better. Specially with sounds.
@@shakti.rathore I tried the Genos 2 and the Korg Pa5x and I opted for the Korg, the styles are more usable for composition, the Genos 2 only has styles literally copied from existing songs...it is true that some sounds sound slightly better on the Genos 2, but nothing insurmountable or that cannot be improved with the synthesis options, plus the Korg is much more complete when it comes to programming your arpeggios, effects... it has a vocoder, a Sampler and is a thousand times better built than the Yamaha Genos2...not to mention speaking that the Genos 2 is out of price, if I had to choose based on its sounds I would not choose the Yamaha, I would go directly to the KETRON EVENT... However, I am still very happy with the Korg... creating new styles is very simple, and you have almost everything and very well done for editing... in the Genos 2 you go crazy when programming!
When I was in Turkey, every restaurant had a guy behind an arranger workstation, it was a tape/sample of a song playing, and every keyboardist played along with the loudest, most annoying (after a while, like 10 seconds…) patch that was available. The patch at 23:20 was one of their favourites… got instant ptsd after hearing it again 😂😂😂
Yamaha QY 700 is a mixture between sequencer and arranger. It does 'arrange' type things but still you can program your own sequences. I think this is the reason it is still used by square pusher
Yamaha is the best company in this musical space - QY, Motif/Montage and of course, their arranger boards.
These arrangers have come a long way. I gigged with them for years. The Yamaha Genos is the king of them all, but $$$$
Such a beast. Great machine, a bit like all the QY series. Although, of a different era.
Squarepusher is also just one of those people who finds a system that works and sticks with it regarding music tech
@@jbognapI remember when Yamaha was on top of MIDI game with XG, both in keyboards/modules and in computers. I even bought a used SW1000XG card and used it extensively. And I also remember following the Tyros line in the early 2000s when each generation would bring in more realistic sounds, especially winds and guitars. These days it's not such a big deal but back then it was groundbreaking.
This unit will actually play TWO completely different styles with all the associated instruments and effects AT THE SAME TIME layered on top of each other! You can cross fade from one to the other as well in real time. I believe you can even layer styles that are in two completely different time signatures!
Whats kind of bonkers is ive spent the last few weeks getting my head around a yamaha psr-sx900 to help someone who has one. Like you, had quite a mind melting experience when i realised how absurdly powerful they are.
Musician content aside, the greenscreen backdrops and Benn flying atop the keyboard edits put this at a new level of hilarity. General MIDI but with param control on steroids CAN BE Fun! Loved it as always.
There's an Android app called Org 24 I stumbled on a few years ago that I knew was an emulation of something deep and likely used in the Arab world I could never place its origins until this video, and now its obvious it's one of these.
Thanks for sharing the little rabbithole that is Org24 - Sofeh Sunrise LessGoo, lol!
As a kid I had years of fun with my PSR8000 workstation. These devices obviously evolved a lot, but it could do many of the things shown here about 25 years ago.
Was fun to watch, great idea's and creativity once again.
I have a PSR 6700 that I had as a young teen, which was pretty much the pinnacle of arranger keyboards at the time (early 90’s). It was so much fun and I composed loads of tunes and renditions of songs on it, saved to 3.5 floppy. Although I still have it, it needs some maintenance (unresponsive buttons and broken keys), I found one cheap on eBay last year and bought it. Still an incredible keyboard, and huge, and heavy (24kg/53lb). Kris Nicholson has a load of good videos of it.
Prior to that I had a PSR-3500 and a PSS-470
Wow Benn! I’ve been playing arrangers for 30 years and this is the most fun yet informative demo I’ve ever seen. Thank you.
It can be used as a DJ device. It can play full MP3s and audio files. And it can play two of them and use the cross fader to fade from one to the other like any DJ mixer.
I picked up an old tyros 1 a few weeks ago and I can’t stop playing it- it’s getting connected to my analogue gear this week! Thanks for this and let’s hear more!
I have an old Yamaha psr530 the sequencer has "virtual arranger" which is kind of quantised randomisation...from 30+ years ago.
I loved the sound of that fretless guitar :)
i love your channel!
I play in a band, but I've always been an arranger keyboard kind of guy because of how the registrations, layering and splitting let me make changes while I'm playing.
At the moment I'm using a Yamaha PSR-SX700, and because I can have multiple sounds across the keyboard, and I can use a footswitch to make changes, or only sustain certain parts, I can make it sound like I'm playing 3 or 4 keyboard parts at once. Occasionally I get accused of pretending to play live, because someone in the audience can play the keyboard, and they can't work out how I'm doing so much at once.
I like having speakers, because if I'm practicing at home, I only need a sustain pedal and a power supply. Keeping wires to a minimum makes me happy.
The auto-accompaniment side of the keyboard very rarely gets explored.
Yea, I write music for others and go to peoples homes to work on their ideas, so I bought a Medelli arranger as a "DO EVERYTHING keyboard"" that I can throw into the back seat of my car. Like you, I was extremely surprised in how useful these keyboards really are. Despite all my gear, I find myself returning to this as my starting point for so many projects. I always thought that they were just for "kids" to play in their living rooms, but the the higher quality ones are actually quite nice and ultra useful for a wide variety of professional tasks. I use mine constantly. Thank you for your superb presentation.
Thanks for giving the Medeli some credit… mostly bad reviews by Yamaha snobs out there
You did a great job of showing the potential of an arranger keyboard. I really don’t recall hearing the guitar input effects in any other video, so you may have provided a demo of a feature that no one else has. You are correct in that many of these keyboards are used by keyboardist that are either solo or in a duet and many times they are covering a large spectrum of musical styles. So the band in a box concept works great for that. The real key and where skill and talent comes in is taking the instrument beyond just a backing accompaniment and working with the sounds and the various parts of the songs. Also having a good understanding of how a real instrument sounds like when you choose that sound for your lead/solo. I started with arrangers back in the mid 90’s and have been amazed at how far they have come. Yes they are not as popular in America as they are in other countries, but there is still a following here.
Watching Benn have so much fun with this was great. The video backgrounds were the cherry on top.
I’m so glad you made this video because I’ve similarly been thinking more about arranger workstations recently for the exact reason you showed, that even though I’m neither a professionally gigging musician or a particularly gifted pianist they just look like so much silly fun. Personally I’ve been leaning toward the Roland Fantom series so I’d love to see you do a video on one of those.
Misread as “not a professionally giggling musician”
Awesome video, usually not that into the gear videos, more into the science and business ones but this one was really awesome, had a big smile on for the duration of it :)
Oh man, Band in a Box brings up memories: a music teacher used to use it to help us learn improvisation on the guitar like, 10 or 15 years ago. It was easier than setting up a whole band just for it, and more versatile than just playing over mp3.
I love BIAB, been doing goofy stuff with it for years. But it's too clumsy for live performance. An arranger keyboard can bridge that gap.
Benn is making psyop videos so we buy all the 4k$ keyboard arrangers and he keeps all the cool synths to himself smh
True
Cool is the enemy though.
Arrangers have always been great fun, and a great way to lay down ideas on the spot.
Hey Benn, where can I book you for a wedding? 😂 Also I'm looking forward to the 12 hour Loopop video covering all of its functions.
I'm looking forward catching Benn's next set at the Holiday Inn by the airport.
Just loved seeing how much fun and giggles you had with this thing even if it's not what either of us want or need it just looks hilarious fun
I'm gonna need a full 3+ minute version of that first jam. This whole thing was a blast. Thanks Benn!
A pro arrangement instrument is used by pro song makers and arranger professionals who demo and try out ideas before they are fully cut into a studio session. An arranger machine like that allows a songmaker to be constructive and creative at the construction phase of a song without the need for a full band of session players at the studio. Of course the ease of use makes it a natural choice for amateurs and weekend warriors as the presenter described.
FINALLY someone in the proffesional music space giving these arranger keyboards a chance! You're correct about alot of music youtubers don't really bring up or mention these keyboards and i never underatood why. These keyboards can be very powerful and can absolutely be uaed to create original and non-cheesy music if you use them correctly! Great video!
On one hand there is the question of weather it's worth buying an arranger keyboard even if you don't use auto accompanimants but on the other
hand it has to be said that arranger keyboards do tend to have more emphasis on realistic sounding acoustic instruments compared to a synth/workstation
which tend to be a mix bag, you might get some instruments like drums or a flute and a decent sounding piano on something like Montage but then the synth
station might not have a brilliant saxophone whereas arrangers always have realistic sounding saxophones. Another advantage an arranger has are physical
sliders for the drawbar organ sounds although that is also possible with synth/workstations.
@@LittleRichard1988 Yeah I forgot to mention that doing EDM on an arranger is kindof tough. It can be done with the right imported samples (if the model supports it) or even the built in synth patches if your clever with the cc parameters. But in the end arrangers aren't quite ready for modern EDM. That might change though. The newly released Yanaha Genos2 having a FM engine might show a sign of were arrangers are headed!
@@WinslowCat Now I absolutely need to hear EDM done on an arranger, preferably an old one. Or perhaps the 'point' is that I need to buckle up and make it myself since I have a passion for making things do what they shouldn't be able to do. It should be possible, even without any sample swapping shenanigans, I have gotten gut bustingly funny but working results with those sort of multi-organ-mostrosity things that I don't even know the name of, two sets of keys + foot pedal-key-things. I knew a guy with one of those like 30+ years ago when I was very young.
@@WinslowCat Couldn't you just hook the PA5X up to a computer and access the huge range of VSTs like Omnisphere, Serum etc to accomplish that?
@@SteveinJersey1234 Sort of the point though is to have an arranger that can already somewhat do all of those things. Besides, some producers (I myself) like to use real hardware and not deal with a DAW. For me, to make an arranger more powerful I pair it with an Akai MPC Live II. And for me personally that gets the job done!
I was very curious about these. Thank you for doing your usual amazing job! Funnier than usual actually with the background videos. I loved the slow-mo stock car!
What I find most interesting about arrangers as a composer is that you can quickly review compositions across many genres and tempos. What your original song style plan might work best completely different than that, and it could take you just minutes to find that out on the arranger. I still prefer using a workstation to create the song, but an arranger is a great tool to explore song possibilities.
Dude I could watch hours of you playing around with arranger keyboards, So FUN! patiently waiting for the next one with a constellation of gear to create the ultimate automatically harmonizer ochestra
A friend shared this video with me so I could check out the arranger and what it can do, so I was really surprised when I saw a couple of my animations in the background. That was a very entertaining video and I was definitely surprised by what an arranger can do.
Arranger keyboards have always been underrated here in the US. They’ve been very popular over seas for decades now. I remember a time when if a person wanted good acoustic sounds on a keyboard workstation, the arranger typically beat the synth workstations most of the time in this area. Arrangers are very good song writers keyboards, and this has been one of their strengths for a long time. Sure, they’re good for the “one man band” musician, but as a composition tool for more traditional styles of music, they’re still an excellent tool for it. They not only have the typical linear sequencers, but most (including mid level arrangers) have full custom style recording, and the ability to mix and match style parts to help with certain instruments (like guitar strumming) that’s difficult to emulate on any keyboard. The weakness of the arranger has always been modern music like EDM, rap, hip hop, ect. Here in the US.., the semi pro and pro arranger market has always been aimed at the 50+ crowd. The crowd that tends to have more expendable income, prefers traditional styles of music, and no real desire to do extensive programming, like voice editing. That’s why arrangers have always been coveted as the best “out of box experience”. Just plug it in and play. Korg IMO has been the best at bridging the gap between arranger and synth with the PA series. The PA series really is a hybrid keyboard. They offer extensive and deep editing like you’d find on their synth workstations. Other manufacturers can’t come close to a PA series arranger. Even the old Korg Micro Arranger has more in-depth synthesis editing than a Yamaha Genos. The original Korg PA 80/50 had Triton based sound engines and could load some Triton programs (with a few limitations). I’ve always kept an arranger in my set up because of how easy and intuitive they are for song composition. Most of my work is DAW’s using VST’s, and even though I have several synth workstations, I also own several arrangers just for the purpose of out of box playability and scratching out song ideas. I’ve taken full backing track audio from my arrangers straight into my DAW’s because of how good the arrangers are for creating quality backing tracks. You can do this because even lower budget arrangers now offer the ability to record audio via USB to a thumb drive.
Yes I learnt piano from the age of 4. Yes I have worked in the industry. But now I play when I can squeeze it in at home, and love improvising with a backing, casual multi-tracking - I have a Yamaha 'Arranger' Digital Piano (OK with the voice effects and brilliant speakers). Just such a joy to see someone not being a snob, being open minded and appreciating what enjoyment these can give, beyond beginners!
Great video ... first of yours I've seen, now subscribed!
I never have seen anything like this. Not a clue these amazing machines even existed. Thanks for educating me once again Benn!
This is probably the best description and demo of an arranger I've ever seen and I've been in pro music retail for almost 30 years now. 😉
Benn, Thank you for posting this video and taking this journey for all of us who "Had No Idea" that these things even existed. I really enjoyed this video. It was extremely entertaining to watch.
I adored the little giggles you made when you discovered something new on the keyboards. You didn't want to like it, but it was fun and you couldn't hold it in. Wonderful, honest "review."
The part that really sells it for me is the lens flare when Benn plays his fretless guitar. Well, that and the bored girl in the background when he's playing Autumn Leaves.
In the early 2000s I worked in a small-ish music shop, and a 70+ year old guy came in to check out and buy a Technics KN-6500 (or 6000? 7000?) - and the stuff he made happen made my 20 year old modular-synth loving self blown away. Parallel universe indeed! I was bummed when Technics stopped making instruments because of their digital pianos (and the glass-jawed but lovely sounding & feeling SX-P50 stage piano), but it must have been HEARTBREAKING for users of their arrangers!
I had a rough day and this made me smile constantly. Ben is such a gift. What a fun, weird episode!
A friend of mine has a Yamaha Tyros 2 he uses as a one man band and sings along. When he demonstrated it I was sold. Would never have thought I will be into arranger keyboards but now I have a Yamaha PSR-SX600. It is an entry level keyboard but boy, what fun it is!
I remember in early 2006 around 20 month after buying my Yamaha PSR-295 from new not long after it came out when me and my Dad went into a music
shop to buy some strigs and a guitar book for a beginner ( as my Dad and my Dad's Mum were always pressuring me into taking up the guitar as well as
people around me bitching about how guitars on keyboards and sound modules are nothing like the real thing ). Anyway when I was in the store I saw either a
Tyros or Tyros 2 that was on display and I also took a free Yamaha brochure and I remember I used to lust after the Tyros at the beginning with the hope of
maybe someday I would get a Tyros or a Tyros 2, personally if I did buy a Tyros or Tyros 2 it would still be my current keyboard and those still sound OK even
today ( this was before I even had a DAW ). But when I finally got Cubase SX3 in 2008 and was opened to the world of VSTs that meant I could easily upgrade
my sounds without having to change my keyboard and I sort of came to the conclusion that arranger keyboards are really a niche market for one man bands
although this time last year I did come very close to buying a Yamaha Tyros 5 but due to unforseen circumstances that never happened so I'm pretty much over
ot with arranger keyboards especially as I have Halion 7. Another reason I never upgraded from my Yamaha PSR-295 is because I used to be part of a music
and drama workshop where we used to do shows once a year and I wouldn't have been comfortable taking a really expensive keyboard out of the house ( I wasn't
really comfortable taking the PSR-295 out of the house but as the warrenty had just expired on it I didn't mind so much ). Technically any keyboard with accompaniments
is an arranger keyboard.
The ease and speed you can create a complex arrangement is impressive.
This is cool. I’ve never paid attention to arrangers and never really understood the point. I don’t think it’s for me, but I now feel like I “get it”.
I picked up an old Korg i30 (one of if not the very first arranger models they released, back in the mid 90s) for $50 at a thrift shop 9 years ago and it's still my master keyboard. It's amazing how little the workflow has changed between it and this model.
Anyhow, the real magic in these things comes when you start programming your own custom arranger patterns. Even early Korg and Technics arrangers have really deep (and abusable) pattern programming that's very unlike any other kind of sequencer.
I had a similar reaction after I shoehorned an old Ensoniq MR-61 into my shed-based studio about a month ago. While it's not an arranger, it can send MIDI out on 16 channels simultaneously, and the Idea Pad is a brilliant concept. It has opened up entirely new ways of interacting with the embarrassing number of synths I've accumulated.
This looks like so much fun! So in theory can you use one of these to import a bunch of stems and B versions of stems and fills and just go nuts remixing your own tracks live? because that would be so so sweet. To be fair I can imagine there being less involved ways of doing that just inside of Ableton, as I do now, but still.
When I started playing Keyboards for half of my bands sets when we finally got a lead guitarist other than myself it let me branch out to help the band grow. I picked up an arranger keyboard for simple things like wurli and piano sounds and a Midi keyboard to use with an iPad for synth, Organ and Leads. I didn't buy a $5000 dollar one I picked up a simple Casio arranger because it had weighted keys and a Arturia Keylab 88 for iPad synths. The Casio has USB midi so if the Arturia fails I can use the Casio with the iPad and if the iPad fails I can just plug the Casio in direct and use its boring stock sounds so its all redundancy in case of failure because in live music EVERYTHING goes wrong!!!
I started with arranger and i still got one..the Technics KN-3000.
I learned a lot of things from this machines.
I even made my own electronic demo back at 2000.
that hand snare reverb sync thing at the end every time, one of the most underrated salutes here on YT!
Respect Due. This was a fun watch! I have wondered for years what arrangers really do. Never really tried to find out. Super cool.
There are 2 vintage arranger modules (no keys) that may be quite interesting, the Ketron X4 and GEM WS2. Being quite old, these modules don't break the bank.
What makes them interesting is the amount of user styles that can be loaded at once, 48 for the Ketron and 32 for the GEM. And the fact that you can quite easily program your own custom styles in a DAW and then play them into the arranger module.
The internal sounds are not bad, but these modules work best as fully programmable midi pattern sequencers, triggering external gear.
The trick is to go a bit beyond the intended use. Especially in improvised settings, styles tailored to a song can be a powerful tool. For example, the sub pattern for minor 7th chords may instead play the full chord progression of your chorus, allowing you to do other stuff. (the fill sub patterns are best for this).
I always thought it was surprising that there's never been something in the same spirit as this, but with more of a focus on song composition. Like, I would love to have a keyboard with a built-in touch screen that exposes Logic, and everything is done through software but where I don't have to bring around a laptop.
Isn’t that a workstation keyboard?
Love the videos Benn. I laugh every time and the content is gold. Thanks for making these. 🥳
Yup, Ben. I am a user of both worlds, too: non arrangers and intelligent arrangers keyboards & modules. Thank you for sharing your thought and views on these musician arranger gadgets. Music is FUNtastic! Hoping one of them you will be sharing your thought on the Ketron Event, too.
Now I want one.
It honestly looks like fun and helpful to get down some ideas.
The best part of this video is the pure joy the device brought to Benn.
love to see it
Lovely perspective, thanks for sharing.
So much infectious fun! After a hideous experience coming home from Heathrow with its underground signal failure ride the bus crap, this was the pick-me-up I needed. You are funny and smart. Bravo!
Great video about arrangers. I have been using them since 2004 as standalone instument and found your video great. I use Arabic versions many of which are exclusive to the middle eastern market and have a physical scale on the panel. There are competitors to this as Yamaha Genos(not montage) and Ketron Event which I also enourage you to check out.
The fact that you're playing the guit the same 'wrong lefty' way like I do... totally love it. We're a strange breed :D Loved the vid!
Okay the over head CAM plus face view is amazing! Much appreciated.
The smiles on your face tell the whole story... it's ridiculous but it's insanely fun. To be fair I started my musical journey with a Yamaha PSR520 (good keyboard for the time) and many of those beginner keyboards had many of the same features, just the size of the ROMs are now bigger so they have better sound quality. It also had chord display exactly like this, and that was back in 1997. I love the gameshow sound effects on this instrument though. I'd buy it just for that.
A tiny company called Sofeh has a virtual arranger keyboard called ORG24 which loads Korg styles and sound sets. It is available for Windows and IOS/padOS plus Android. I think it really hits the sweet spot in the iPad version.
The editing is this fantastic hahaha thx for sharing!
I have a Yamaha MODX since 2020. I had no idea how to buy a synth, let alone a work station like this. I am so lucky, it was a once a decade kind of purchase
Looking at these devices makes me realize how important process is to me. It also reminds me that my music is timbre centered.
I hate the idea of these as instruments. They are great tools for those who need them, but probably not music I'd go out of my way to listen too. That's just me though.
Love it! So much fun. Much more decent in musical quality (the instrument) than expected. So many cheesy but fun possibilities! Reminds me of 90's Amiga MOD cheesiness, style-wise
The vocal harmonized seems to be better than all the plugins I’ve tried .
Ben you just put a smile on my face every time I watch you! God bless you man!
9:40 This is the smile of someone that is just having a blast playing an instrument, which is what making music is supposed to be about! Even the cheap ones that still look fresh out of 1995 are just so fun to muck around with.
Im on board for the Arranger journey! These things are flipping awesome
The unsure chuckle at the beginning giving way to childlike joy during your performance of PAN FLUTE ON THE BEACH was really inspiring to watch.
As was hearing "god I hope they have some sort of speed metal"
The backgrounds were fantastic - candles, pumpkins, bored sofa people, birthday donut - nice work!
I have a Casio ct-x700 arranger, which was my first instrument. It surprises me just how much it can do, given its price.
Roland FA-08 has been my mainstay for ages now, these things are beasts tbh
That was shocking hilirious fun and you've got a serious talent of comedy. Thank you Benn!!
0:05 - nobody makes fun of modular synth nerds more than modular synth nerds
I had a cheap Yamaha arranger when I was younger. Never understood how to actually use it back then, I simply just flipped through its factory sounds and tinkered. I wish this video existed back then, I would've had so much more fun with it!
The video background at 16:00 was just to funny!! Nice work Benn, as always
Awesome as always ❤
One very important aspect (using external MIDI instruments for sound generation) was mentioned here, but as the synthesis engines in arrangers get better and their EQ/FX capabilities improve, that might be actually less important.
The most amazing feature is that you are not limited to playing Cowboy Polka with Waldorf XT, but can program your own styles. You can cannibalize Intros & Endings (pressing an Intro/Fill/Ending button twice makes it looping). Fills don't have to be 1 bar long, you can program 8 bar long climaxes and you can prescribe the rules of how Fills resolve into Variations. Speaking of resolutions: you can program your fills into the harmony, because each Variation has 6 chord variations, so e.g. you can make the 4th and 8th bar of dominant 7th + b9 chord variation more "busy" than the regular dominant 7th and use the harmony to drive your arrangement (Fills have two chord variations).
And of course you can do it in your favourite DAW and export MIDI files to be used as styles, so you are not limited to the recording/editing capabilities of your arranger.
All that would be jjust a template for your song and you can decide in realtime that you would like to extend one section or change some chords, modulate to a different key. You can decide while playing the track.
I've been using arrangers (Yamaha QY70, Korg microArranger, Korg Pa3X) with external MIDI instruments for quite some time and this is the fastest way (well, if you don't count the learning curve) to make your song (or their arrangements) complete without locking yourself into what has been recorded so far.
Have u ever used a mpc with a synth hooked up to it, works best w 2 people, alot of times we wld just want to use the sounds from the Program mode like this but there's some crazy stuff u can do when u start bringing in more instruments and all!
Good video!
Among arranger music software, one of my favorites is ChordPulse. It's not the equal of BIAB(which is old, pretty comprehensive and has the UI of something that is those things) but the interface really drives at the heart of a harmony-driven writing process and lets you set up a basic fills-and-breaks arrangement in a few clicks.
There's a lot of trade-offs among arrangers, and it's not really in terms of the sound quality and sequences, but in what you want to commit to muscle memory, vs leave to a preset. And that's something that becomes clear as you work upwards from Casio's SA mini keyboards(which are, TBH, excellent) towards the higher-end stuff: you get more dedicated interfaces for things, and as with complex synths, it can cause some analysis paralysis.
I like Chordpulse because it's perfect for composing midi sequences to play through my Roland SC-88 Pro, it's similar to older versions of Band in a box in that it's
midi only as Band in a box used to be midi only until they introduced the so called "real tracks" in the late 2000s but if you have no use for "real tracks" and specifically
only want midi tracks then it makes sense to get Chordpulse as once you buy it you have free upgrades for life. I also still use auto accompaniments in my keyboards
including my Yamaha PSR-295 as a sketching tool for midi sequencing and I have also ordered a Casio MT-500 so I can create an arrangement starting from it's raw
and lofi sound then it might be cool to end up with a polished end product. The Casio SA keyboards are also fun as every kid in the 90s had one or knew someone
that had one!
This video is crazy good. Thanks !
You know, when I was a teen, I would go to local music shops and absorb all the lovely rackmount synths that I could never, ever afford. And then come home, dial up to the Internet, and download all the demo RA files. I loved 90s ROMplers so hard. Still do. And I kind of missed that classic ROMpler sound, since so many of the plugins on the market are either additive/subtractive synthesis, or super-ultra-uber pristine multi-tens-of-GB sample packs for the most real piano everrrrr, etc. There was a ROMpler-sized hole in my heart.
This thing has the vibe of a lot of those old synths, just... grown up a bit, and sounding a little bit cleaner.
I am pleased.
I bought a used Korg M3 88 in 2009 for $650 and very quickly it became obsolete as Omnisphere and Zebra and NI stuff started being my go-to stuff. Plus it’s like 150lbs. I had the M3 out again last night and the combis and sounds are just excellent, and they load up really quickly. I mean - I have Komplete 14 CE and the string, piano, brass, woodwind etc sounds are comparable on the M3. Not quite Spitfire audio quality, but pretty close. The thing with these arranger/workstation synths is - they’re fun. Like keyboards were when you were little and you had those Casiotone and Yamaha PortaSound keyboards (I still have my Yamaha PSS-480 (with midi out!) and it still gets used in midi for a laugh - I’ve had it controlling Kontakt and Maschine for example). Plus these arrangers/workstations can be a really great standalone synth and controller outside combi/song/sequencer modes. Now back to my M3. Great review!