Roland VA-76 11.1 16-track Sequencer, General considerations, Selecting the 16-track sequencer

11. Song Composer (16-track, etc.)

VA-76 – 16-track Sequencer

11.1 16-track Sequencer

The Song Composer of your VA-76 is linked to a 16- track sequencer with full-fledged editing functions that allows you to refine your recordings in great detail.

Selecting the 16-track sequencer

1.Press the [SONG COMPOSER] button.

The display now looks as follows:

2.Press the [16 Tracks Sequencer] field to select 16- track sequencer. The display may now look like this:

General considerations

The 16-track sequencer can be used to record sequen- tially onto 16 tracks (one track after the other). Since the 16-track sequencer and the Song Composer share the same RAM memory, you can lay down your first tracks using the Song Composer (with or without Arranger), and then select the 16-track sequencer to add new tracks or change existing ones. The Song Composer indeed allows for simultaneous multitrack recording, which is not possible with the 16-track Sequencer where you can only record one track at a time, and where the Arranger is not available.

Tracks and MIDI channels

Tracks are assigned to MIDI channels on a 1:1 basis (i.e. Track 1= MIDI channel 1,… Track 12= MIDI channel 12, etc.). Since the Keyboard parts have been assigned to the MIDI channels in such a way as to allow for easy Minus-One playing using the Song Composer (see page 31), you should take a minute to study the table below.

Obviously, if you record a song with Arranger backing, the respective parts (ADR, ABS, etc.) are recorded onto the tracks that are assigned to their MIDI chan- nels.

Track (SMF part)	MIDI	VA-76 parts
	channel
		Song Composer	Arranger
10 (Drums)	10	M.Drums*	A.Drums
1 (Piano)	1	—	Accomp 1
2 (Bass)	2	M.Bass*	A. Bass
3 (Chords)	3	—	Accomp 2
4 (Solo/Melody)	4	Upper1	Upper1
5 (Not specified)	5	—	Accomp 3
6 (Counter-melody)	6	Upper2	Upper2
7 (Not specified)	7	—	Accomp 4
8 (Not specified)	8	—	Accomp 5
9 (Not specified)	9	—	Accomp 6
11 (Not specified)	11	Lower1	Lower1
12 (Not specified)	12	—	M.Bass*
13 (Not specified)	13	VariPhrase	VariPhrase
14 (Not specified)	14	Lower2	Lower2
15 (Not Specified)	15	MEL Int	MEL Int
16 (Not specified)	16	—	M. Drums*

(*)The MIDI channel of these parts depends on whether you are working with the Arranger (see page 65) or the Song Composer.

There is yet another track, called M, that is used for recording the time signature, the tempo, as well as general SysEx messages.

As you see, there are two Keyboard parts (M. Bass, M. Drums) whose MIDI channel (and track) assignments depend on whether you use the Song Composer for recording a song with Arranger or not. If you are used to working according to a given system, you could use Exchange to transfer the data to the desired tracks after recording them. See page 154 for details.

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