Upgrade Path: Stage 4 versus Electro 6

[surferEd]

I've owned an Electro 5 and currently own a stage 3 88...love them, the 88 is staying home as it is getting too heavy for me.
I've always felt a little limited, as I play keyboard bass while playing bread and butter stuff on the right.
Bottom line, I could not have a single patch with sampled bass, piano, strings and flute all at the same time.
I do have other keyboards, but I just figured out this weekend that song mode could have solved my problem, because I'm never playing flute and strings at exactly the same time. My friend is also using a foot pedal that helps with the switching.
Question: Does the Electro 6 have a way of quick switching multiple sounds on the fly (in a single patch)....setlist mode on my electro 5 would not have worked.
and if I do decide to jump for the stage 4, what is there in place of song mode that would let a guy playing two handed have access to more than 3 sounds in one song?
(I hope this is understandable).
I play in a trio and run sound and lights....I control the patch changes with OnSong on my iPad...

[M_a_c]

Hm... Sounds like I would like to have an external controler that switches all my keys with the push of one button in your place...

I use the Stage4 with the Electro6 above (former a Electro5) and lefthandBass is a common duty for me in one of my older Projects... I play the Bass on the left Stage4 with Piano and Synth on the right, while the Electro6 offers me Organ and additional Synth... If a song needs more that one Set of Sounds, I simply programm it on the next storage-place and switch it (within the song) with the 8 Programm-Buttons on the Stage / the 4 Programm-Buttons on the Electro... Works fine for me...

... and I use OnSong too with sorted Sheets that I wipe ahead by hand...

[Scheper]

If you need more sounds than a single NS4 program can handle, you can easily create an additional program to incorporate those extra sounds. Switching between programs is effortless—simply use the eight buttons or configure patch changes for a smooth transition.

Alternatively, if you’re looking to switch sounds within the same program, you can assign them to Layer Scene I or II. This allows you to control which layers in each section are active.

[cphollis]

Another way of looking at it is the NS4 has an organ sound, a piano sound -- and three synth/sample engines which is where most of the sonic variety arises. That's five distinct sounds, which I find is plenty of variety for most situations. If not, I'll use sequential program, e.g. "Rosanna 1", "Rosanna 2" and so on.

Switching between one program and the next can be done with a rotary, a button press or a foot switch -- or OnStage, I believe.

[anotherscott]

I've owned an Electro 5 and currently own a stage 3 88...love them, the 88 is staying home as it is getting too heavy for me.
I've always felt a little limited, as I play keyboard bass while playing bread and butter stuff on the right.
Bottom line, I could not have a single patch with sampled bass, piano, strings and flute all at the same time.
I do have other keyboards, but I just figured out this weekend that song mode could have solved my problem, because I'm never playing flute and strings at exactly the same time.
...
if I do decide to jump for the stage 4, what is there in place of song mode that would let a guy playing two handed have access to more than 3 sounds in one song?

For your exact example, your NS3 couldn't have bass, piano, strings and flute in a single patch because it would have required 3 synth sections, and the NS3 only had two. But an NS4 program has 3 synth sections, not 2, so that problem is solved.

As for the NS3, yes, Song Mode could have solved the problem. Also, placing the two relevant Programs in the same bank would let you switch between them with a single button press. Also, you could get that one extra sound in to the same program if you grabbed it from an external source... e.g. you could have gotten either your bass, strings, or flute sound from, say, an attached iPhone or iPad, invoked through the EXT secftion of the program.