Thanks Scott
I just got off the phone with the Technics guy - Eddie - pretty knowledgable - and he seems to think the pads are still chord specific - that is - they change as the chords change no matter how long the sequnce is. His feeling is pretty straightforward - in that you either use the arranger or use the sequencer - not both at the same time.He says thats not what the arranger is primarily for.

You know - it seems to me - new as I am to arrangers - that having the capacity to trigger a lick, or a passage - that doesn't switch when the chords do - if you so choose - should be absolutely essential. Some of the beauty of any music or passage is the different sonorous effects that result from playing the same thing against a changing background or vice versa. And while the chords of a tune stay basically the same - its nice to pre-record a little section every now and then which spices it up.

A good example of this is on the Korg Triton and possibly Karma. It is called the RPPR function - and it is basically a way to access a pre-recorded lick triggered by the press of a certain key.

I would think - that via Registrations or something similar - it should be possible to cue up both the arranger and the sequencer - for simultaneous use in some situations - doesn't sound that hard to me.

MH