Roland VA-76 owner manual Song Composer the basics, Formatting a disk, 132

VA-76 Owner’s Manual—Song Composer (the basics)

10. Song Composer (the basics)

The Song Composer of your VA-76 is a Standard MIDI File player/recorder with the additional advan- tage that is can double as 16-track sequencer whenever you want it to.

The VA-76’s Composer reads GM/GM2/GS compati- ble Standard MIDI files.

Note: You may be confused by the words “Song” and “Stan- dard MIDI File” we use in this chapter. There is absolutely no difference because the VA-76’s songs are saved to disk as Standard MIDI Files.

Note: The Chord Sequencer on previous Roland models has been replaced by an even more userfriendly recording func- tion (2nd Trk). See page 66.

10.1A few remarks about recording songs

This section only contains a few hints about recording your own songs. See the “Song Composer clinic” on page 65 for hands-on information.

Formatting a disk

Songs that you record are first stored in the VA-76’s Song RAM memory. When you press the [EXIT] field while a Song Composer page is displayed, however, you will be prompted to save it to disk. That is why you should to prepare a floppy or Zip disk. If you pre- fer to use a floppy disk, choose a reliable 2HD (high density) disk.

Though the VA-76 can also read MS-DOS-formatted disks, it would be a good idea to format all disks you intend to use with the VA-76. This is especially true of Zip disks: during formatting, the VA-76 indeed also creates a number of folders where your various files will be stored. An MS-DOS-formatted Zip disk does not contain these folders, which might create prob- lems.

Note: Be careful never to format the Zip disk supplied with your VA-76. It would be a pity to lose all the precious mate- rial it contains.

1.Insert a Zip or floppy disk into the (appropriate) drive.

2.Press the [FUNCTION MENU] button.

3.On the display page that appears now, press the [Disk] field.

4.Press the [Utility] field in the bottom row.

The display now looks more or less as follows:

5.On the display page that appears now, press the [Format] field.

6.Press the field that corresponds to the disk type you wish to format (Zip or floppy).

7.Press the field that corresponds to the type of for- matting you want to use:

Quick— Choose this option to “initialize” new (usu- ally MS-DOS formatted) disks. This is a lot quicker than the Full option.

Full— This option is only necessary for disks you used on platforms with a different data and formatting structure.

The display now responds with:

(In the case of a floppy disk, the “ZIP” will read “Floppy”, of course.)

8.Press the [YES] field to format your disk. Press [NO] to return to the previous display page without formatting.

Note: If necessary, see page 62 for how to eject the Zip disk.

132