Roland VA-76 More about the Arranger, Arranger and Music Styles, Starting a Music Style

7. More about the Arranger

VA-76 – Arranger and Music Styles

7.1 Arranger and Music Styles

Think of the Arranger’s Music Styles as your backing band. Your VA-76 is indeed capable of playing several “versions” of a given accompaniment. All you need to do is make up your mind about the kind of music you want to play and to select a Music Style that comple- ments it. You can choose how many bars there are to each song part and how the melody and/or solo should be accompanied.

Arranger parts

Each accompaniment (or Music Style) can consist of up to eight parts:

A. Drums (or ADR): Accompaniment Drums. This part takes care of the rhythm. It triggers the drum and percussion sounds of the Drum Set assigned to the ADR part.

A. Bass (or ABS): Accompaniment Bass. This part plays the bass line of the Music Style you selected.

Ac1~Ac6: These are the melodic accompaniment parts. Depending on the Music Style you selected, only a few of them actually play something, which can be anything from a piano line, a guitar line, an organ line to a synth pad line. Not all Accompaniment parts play chords.

The ABS and Ac parts rely on the chord or note infor- mation you play in the chord recognition area (see page 101), i.e. the keyboard zone you assign to the Arranger.

Starting a Music Style

Music Styles can be started in several ways:

1.Press the Keyboard Mode [ARRANGER] button.

2.Press the [START/STOP] button (so that it lights) to start the Arranger right away.

If you start the Arranger without playing a chord in the chord recognition area, you will only hear the drums of the selected Music Style. In most cases, how- ever, the VA-76 has already memorized a chord, so that you will hear the full accompaniment.

OR:

3.Stop playback of the current Style (see below), press the [INTRO] button (so that it lights) and then the [START/STOP] button to start Style playback with a musical introduction.

The length of the Intro depends on the Style you selected. At the end of the Intro, the Arranger starts playing the Music Style division you select while the Intro is being played. In other words, you can select whichever Type (Orchestrator Basic and Advanced) and Division (Original, Variation) you like to be played upon completion of the Intro.

OR:

4.Press the [SYNC] button (if it currently controls the Start function, see below) and play a chord (or just one note in Intelligent mode, see page 102). The Arranger starts as soon as you play a note in the chord recognition area (see page 101).

Note: Do not play chord changes while the Intro is running. Unlike the “normal” patterns (Original, Variation), Intro patterns usually contain chord changes. Chord recognition is not deactivated during Intro playback, so that the begin- ning of a song may jump from one key to another.

Note: You can also start and stop the Arranger with the D Beam Controller (see page 187).

Stopping a Music Style

There are three ways to stop Style playback:

1.Press [START/STOP] to stop playback right away. OR:

2.Press [ENDING] (so that it lights) to activate the Ending function. The Ending (or coda) pattern will start at the beginning of the next measure (next downbeat).

Note: Do not play chord changes while the Ending is run- ning. Unlike the “normal” accompaniments (Original, Variation), Ending patterns usually contain chord changes. Chord recognition is not deactivated during Intro or Ending playback, so that the ending of a song may jump from one key to another.

OR:

3.Press [SYNC] and release all keys in the chord rec- ognition area of the keyboard. The accompaniment stops immediately.

There is no need to restart Style playback manually if you also activate Sync Start (see below). Sync Stop is only available if you activate it. See “Sync (Options)”.

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