What is an Arranger Keyboard?
Nowadays music keyboards can be classified in four big groups:
- Synthesizers (we have talked about synthesizers here)
- Arrangers
- Workstations
- Controllers
In this post I would try to explain what is an arranger keyboard.
Arrangers are mainly used by live solo musicians but can be used also in studios or even to put ideas together while composing music. An arranger in fact have a feature called auto-accompaniment, this means that the arranger keyboard will play backing tracks that automatically match the chosen style and rhythm.
Usually the performer select a music style, change the tempo if needed and start playing. The left hand is used for chords and the right hand for the melody, the arranger recognizes the chords and change accordingly the backing tracks with the recognized chord.
Styles are usually splitted in variations and they have also intro parts, fill-in parts and ending parts. Style can be adjusted (volume, backing track instruments, tempo, instrument volumest, and so on) to best match the music that the performer is going to play.
Arrangers are also extremely useful as a tool for composers who have to produce music quickly in a style they may not be familiar with, even people who don’t know how to program drums or play guitar can use an arranger to simplify the composition process.
Arrangers comes with many features depending on the model and the price but often they have a builtin sequencer to let you record and edit your performances, they have a group of pad buttons to quickly trigger sounds like drums or short sequences, and they can also allow the creation of new styles (or edit the builtin ones).
Just to mention some arranger families:
