Roland VA-76 owner manual Arranger Chord Mode, Bass Inversion, 102

VA-76 Owner’s Manual—More about the Arranger

point you set for the Keyboard parts will also be used by the Arranger to determine the upper (Left) or lower (Right) limit of the chord recognition area.

1.Press the Keyboard Mode [OTHER] button.

2.Press the [ARRANGER CHORD] field in the upper left corner of the display (so that it is displayed in white).

The display now looks more or less as follows:

3.Press the [LEFT], [WHOLE], [RIGHT] or [OFF] field in the center to select the chord recognition area. Your choice is reflected by the keyboard below the cen- tral display section, so you can’t go wrong.

4.Press [EXIT] to return to the Master page.

Note: Every time you press the Keyboard Mode [ARRANGER] button, the [LEFT] setting is selected.

Note: You can also use an optional footswitch for selecting [OFF] (see page 191).

Arranger Chord Mode

Another important choice is how you want to trans- mit note information to the Arranger so that it plays the Music Style in the right key.

1.Press the Keyboard Mode [OTHER] button.

2.Press the [ARRANGER CHORD] field in the upper left corner of the display (so that it is displayed in white).

3.Press the [Standard], [PianoStyle], or [Intelligent] field.

Standard— This is the normal chord recognition mode. In Standard mode, the melodic accompani- ment plays the chords you play in the chord recogni- tion area of the keyboard. If you play only one note in that area, the accompaniment plays only that note, i.e. it assumes that you deliberately chose to omit the third and the fifth of your “chord”.

To have the Music Style sound a major, minor or sev- enth chord, you can suffice to play three notes, by the way. Other, more complex, chords require that you press four keys.

Piano Style— Piano Style means that you can play on your VA-76 as you would on a piano. In this mode, it is probably a good idea to press the Keyboard Mode [PIANO] button (or to switch off all Keyboard parts except Upper1).

The Piano Style mode works as follows: the Arranger decodes every chord you play – no matter where you play it. Causing the Arranger to play another chord requires that you play at least a triad (i.e. the three notes that make up a chord). You are free to play more than three chord notes but remember that two notes won’t cause the Arranger to play another chord. Do not forget to select a chord recognition area (see above), because pressing Keyboard Mode [PIANO] selects “OFF”. “WHOLE” would be a good choice here.

Intelligent— Select Intelligent when you want the Arranger to supply the missing notes of the chord you want to play. See page 252 for a chart of intelligent chords and the way to play them. The VA-76 can han- dle virtually any chord you can think of – and playing them requires no more than three (for minor and sev- enth chords only two, and for major chords only one) finger(s)! This is probably the mode you will select most of the time.

4.Press [EXIT] to return to the Master page.

Note: The choice you make here also affects the “Arpeg” and “Chord” options of the D Beam Controller. See “Arpeg 1/2/3 Octv” on page 187.

Bass Inversion

The Bass Inversion function allows you to change the way the Arranger reads the chords you play.

If the field is not displayed in white, the Accompani- ment Bass part (ABS) plays the root of the chords that feed the Arranger, while the chords of the Accompani- ment 1~6 parts are voiced in such a way as to avoid semitone intervals (for complex chords) that wouldn’t sound very nice.

Bass Inversion gives you more artistic license because you specify the notes played by the ABS part. Switch on Bass Inversion for songs that rely on bass rather than on chord patterns (for example C – C/B – C/B , etc.).

1.Press the Keyboard Mode [OTHER] button.

2.Press the [Bass Inv] field to switch the Bass Inver- sion function on (white) or off (blue).

3.Press [EXIT] to return to the Master page.

Note: By default, this function is also assigned to the PAD

[2]button, which may be more convenient to use for quick toggles.

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