Roland VA-76 owner manual Selecting other Style divisions, Sync Options, Sync Stop

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

Sync (Options)

If you’ve never used an arranger keyboard before, the status of the [SYNC] button is the single most impor- tant function to look out for after switching on your instrument. After all, if it is on without you knowing it, playing just one note on the keyboard may cause the Arranger to start even though you don’t want it to.

Once you get to know the VA-76 a little better, you will appreciate this function, and you may want to take advantage of its Sync functions. Sync Start means that the Arranger starts as soon as you play a note or chord in the chord recognition area of the keyboard. (If the Keyboard Mode [ARRANGER] button lights, this area is the left half of the keyboard. See page 101 for details.)

The VA-76 also provides a Sync Stop option. This will cause the Arranger to stop playback as soon as you release all keys in the chord recognition area. This is great for songs where you need breaks (i.e. one or sev- eral beats of silence).

And finally, you can choose to activate both Sync Start

and Sync Stop.

Whenever you configure the VA-76 via the Virtual Band function or by pressing the Keyboard Mode [ARRANGER] button, the [SYNC] button lights.

This means that the currently selected Sync Option has been switched on. As long as you do not select another Sync Option, this will be Sync Start.

Here’s how to set another Sync option. This setting can be written to a User Program (see page 127).

1.Press and hold the [SYNC] button until the follow- ing page appears:

2.Press the Sync field that corresponds to the desired Sync function(s).

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

You can now use the [SYNC] button to switch the selected Sync function off (button dark) and on (but- ton lights).

Note: Whenever you use One Touch or Virtual Band to con- figure the VA-76, Sync Start will be selected.

Note: See also page 100 for how to prevent the VA-76 from reverting to Sync Start and switching on the [SYNC] button when you take advantage of the One Touch memories.

7.2Selecting other Style divisions

As stated above, you can “professionalize” your perfor- mance with the Arranger by selecting different accom- paniment patterns. Let us agree to use the word Division for any Music Style pattern the VA-76 can play. We’ll need that term for programming User Styles.

Here’s a quick overview of how the VA-76’s Music Styles (and the ones on Zip/floppy disk) are struc- tured:

Fill In

To Variation

Fill In

To Original

Press the [ORIGINAL] button to select the “normal” accompaniment. ORIGINAL A is the simplest of the four possible accompaniment patterns, while VARIA- TION D is the most complex. B (“Basic”) and D (“Advanced”) can also be selected by pressing [ORIGI- NAL] or [VARIATION] twice in rapid succession. The combination of ORIGINAL and VARIATION with the four ORCHESTRATOR options already provides a total of eight accompaniments per Music Style (multi- plied by three, see the next paragraph).

As you see, you can use the [FILL] button to go from ORIGINAL to VARIATION, and back. In the first case, you will hear the Fill-In To Variation pattern. When going back from VARIATION to ORIGINAL, the Arranger will play the Fill-In To Original pattern.

Note that you don’t have to use the [FILL] button: you can also switch divisions by pressing [VARIATION] or [ORIGINAL].

Note: See also “Using the VA-76’s Arranger” on page 25.

Note: You can also press [INTRO] in the middle of a perfor- mance. In that case, the indicator will flash until the end of the current bar and then light on the next downbeat to indi- cate that the Arranger is playing the introductory pattern.

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