I'm not sure about Yamaha having any patent on providing direct access "fill in" buttons - my old Korg i3 & i30HDD both had two such buttons (although, to be fair, I beleive Yamaha have a financial stake in Korg). I seem to think that other brands have more than one such button also.

Whilst I may have identified a possible solution, it still means that the instrument is harder work than it should be, straight out of the box.



The dynamic changes available on the VA range are not what I mean.

The VA still only has the ability to respond to chord changes with one of 3 versions of a particular style division, namely Major, Minor and Seventh. There is also no real user control over which version is triggered when a more complex chord is played. Whilst the instrument will recognise many more chord types than this, it will still only respond with one of the three pattern types, because that's all it has.

Again, older i-series Korg instruments (and maybe the current ones also) were far superior in this respect. They had six chord driven versions of each of the four main style variations , four chord versions for each of the two Fill In variations and similar facilities for intros and endings (I forget how many).

For any style, you could then map which chord driven pattern would sound for each of 32 recognised chord types. The resulting patterns played could be drastically different from chord to chord, if you wanted, or could be more subtle - such as just changing the bass line to be more musically appropriate for a certain chord types beyond simple majors, minors and sevenths. You could even, say, programme a style so that you could trigger a complete one (or half) bar break which you could call up by playing a certain chord type at the same time as hitting one of the fill buttons. The same button would otherwise then produce a normal fill, when used with any other chord type except the one you had chosen to trigger the break.

The VA has nothing remotely like this. From the manual, it looks like the G70 doen't either.



I bought, and still own, the VA76 for one reason only. It does an excellent job when used as a deluxe midifile player for backing tracks combined with a full, two handed, live part setup for each song. My older Korgs would not do this, otherwise I would still have them. I tolerate it's overall very average sound quality, and many other failings, to get this one convenience.

I use the VA in midifile player mode combined with a Digitech VHM5 vocal harmoniser. The end result is rather like a higher quality Discover5.

My description of the VA as "abysmal" relates to it's behaviour when used as a true arranger keyboard - i.e. in "style play" mode.

I would class it as unusable in this mode for any sort of live work, because it is so impossible to control the styles properly, whereas I found the older Korg i3, in particular, to be oustanding in this respect. Even getting the VA to reliably trigger a half-bar break at the correct time is not easy. Also, having to hit the "Fill In" button twice to stop it from shifting to a new variation is just plain stupid.

Even that lot would not be so bad if the buttons triggered reliably. The buttons often fail to trigger if you give just give them a quick tap. Then, if you press them more firmly, they sometimes stick down. This is a characteristic of every VA model I have played, not just my own instrument.

Whilst the use of the FC7 footpedals gives more control, it is still inadequate overall.

This lack of easy and instant "one click" control over the various style divisions even makes the VA a poor tool for roughing out a sequenced song, for later detailed editing. Although I was well aware of the instrument's many limitations when I bought it, this aspect proved more disappointing over time than even my intial low expectations led me to anticipate.

Whilst the G70 looks a lot better than the VA in many respects, I am disappointed with the relative lack of control over the style divisions. I still think they have made a simple job difficult here, for no good reason.

To conclude, I am satisfied that the VA does the particular job I bought it for. I just wouldn't use one as an arranger keyboard!

[This message has been edited by MikeTV (edited 12-18-2004).]