Additional Music Style functions | Roland EM-55 instruction

EM-55 Owner’s Manual

9. Additional Music Style functions

Apart from the basic Music Style functions covered on page 13 and following, your EM-55 also provides the fol- lowing functions.

The following are only available after pressing the [ARRANGER] button (its indicator must light).

Session Partner functions

The EM-55’s SESSION PARTNER section can also be used for “playing” with the Arranger parts, or adding a ninth accompaniment phrase to the Arranger’s 8-part accompaniment. Let’s have a look at these two func- tions:

Muting Arranger parts (Track)

The EM-55’s Music Styles comprise eight accompaniment parts: Drums, Bass, and Accomp 1~6. If you take a close look at the SESSION PARTNER section, you will see that these names appear above the numeric buttons [1]~[8]:

The ACCOMP parts contain melodic accompaniments (piano riffs, sax parts, guitar chords, etc.). If you like, you can mute these Arranger parts during playback – and save these settings to a User Program (see p. 47). Here’s how you do that:

ENGLISH

(1)Press the KBD MODE [ARRANGER] button (its indicator lights).

ARRANGER

(2)Select the desired Music Style (see p. 14).

(3)Press [START/STOP] to start Arranger play- back.

(4)Press the [TRACK] button (the upper indi- cator lights).

•or because the corresponding track contains no data.

Not all eight Arranger tracks are indeed used by all Music Styles or Music Style divi- sions (Intro, Variation, etc.).

(5)Use the SESSION PARTNER [1/9]~[8/16] buttons to switch the desired Arranger

parts on/off.

Note: Once you start muting or switching on exist- ing Arranger parts, the EM-55 leaves the currently selected Orchestrator level. Your realtime changes always have priority.

Note: The on/off status of the Arranger parts does not change if you select another Music Style while Arranger playback is running. If, however, you select another Music Style after stopping Arranger play- back, all (existing) Arranger parts will be switched on again.

Note: You can also change the volume of certain Arranger parts. See “AccDrums, AccBass, Accomp: volume” (p. 43).

Now take a look at the SESSION PARTNER [1/9]~[8/16] buttons. Some of them light, while others don’t. There may be two rea- sons why a [1/9]~[8/16] indicator does not light:

•either because the corresponding Arranger track is switched off (something you did by pressing the button in question, or by selecting another Orchestrator level, see p. 25)…