Roland VA-76 Fill In Half Bar, Major, minor, seventh, Use the im fields to select Arranger

VA-76 – Selecting other Style divisions

Tip: The Intro is “renewable”, i.e. you can press the [INTRO] button again while the Intro is playing. Doing so on the fourth beat of the first Intro bar, for instance, will retrigger the beginning of the Intro in the second bar.

Fill In Half Bar

Certain pop songs in 4/4 contain bars that only last two beats. The usual place for such a bar is between the first and the second verse. Another favorite posi- tion for “halved” bars is at the end of a chorus or the bridge. Your VA-76 allows you to faithfully reproduce these “anomalies”. Set the Fill-In Half Bar function to [ON]. This does not change Style playback right away. Only when you press the [FILL] button will the Half Bar function be active and play half the number of beats of the fill you selected.

1.On the page that appears when you press the Key- board Mode [OTHER] button, press the [ARRANGER CHORD] field if it is not displayed in white.

2.Press the [Options] field.

3.Press the [Intro Ending Fill In] field in the left col- umn.

The display now looks more or less as follows:

4.Press the [ON] field so that it is displayed in white.

5.Start Arranger playback and press the [FILL] but- ton.

Notice how the Fill In is shortened.

6.Press the Fill In Half Bar [OFF] field to return to the normal length of the Fill-In patterns.

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

Major, minor, seventh

This is an “invisible” Style division function of your VA-76. In time you will notice that the Intro and End- ing patterns of a Music Style change according to the chord you play. There are three possibilities:

Major (M): Calls up the first (major chord) accompa- niment level.

Minor (m): Calls up the second accompaniment level.

Seventh (7): By playing a seventh chord, you activate yet another accompaniment level. Try this out by first playing a major and then a seventh chord.

In other words, the number of certain divisions (such as the Intros and Endings) is in fact multiplied by three!

Note: The VA-76 is equipped with a function that allows you to freely assign various chord types (7/5, dim etc.) to one of these levels (see page 105).

Using Aftertouch to select Arranger patterns

Another way of switching between Types, Divisions, and Fills is to use Aftertouch. Obviously, only one of the following options can be selected because multi- purpose assignments like for the Keyboard parts (see page 189) would send the Arranger haywire.

Note: Selecting “Arranger” does not cancel the Aftertouch settings you may have made for the Keyboard parts.

Here is how to activate the switching function for the Arranger:

1.Press the [CONTROLLERS] button.

2.On the page that appears now, press the [After- touch] field so that it is displayed in white.

3.Use the [i][m] fields to select Arranger.

In the case of the Keyboard parts, these fields are used to select the part whose Aftertouch you want to pro- gram (see page 189). Here, however, we want to spec- ify an Aftertouch function for the Arranger, which is why we need to select Arranger. The display now looks more or less as follows:

Note the [ON/OFF] switch. You must press it to make it read [ON] if you do want to use the Aftertouch for selecting divisions. If you prefer not to use the After- touch, press this switch again to make it read [OFF].

4.If necessary, press the [k] field to select the second page with Arranger functions.

5.Press the field that corresponds to the switching function you want the Arranger to perform.

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