I've seen several posts at different times about how problematic it can be adding a module from one manufacturer to an arranger from another.

One of the prime problems seems to be 'glitches', dropped notes or other assorted weirdness when driving a module (or another keyboard) from the style section of an arranger. I think the main culprit for these is that different manufacturers use differing methods to handle fractionally 'late' chord entry on the master arranger.

All of us, at one time or another, fail to play the NEXT chord slightly ahead of the beat, to allow the arranger engine time to set up and play the correct notes for the chord. What happens next seems to be different for each manufacturer... How they somehow get the arranger to shift the 'wrong' notes (derived from the previous chord) to the 'correct' ones (from the fractionally late new chord) without them actually sounding 'late'.

So I thought that this might be a good place for the 'gurus' to post how each arranger actually does this trick, and whether there are any workarounds to help a module deal with this information.

Most of this information can be seen in a computer sequencer's List Edit display and some of it in a Piano-roll Key display.

So, if you have details about how YOUR arranger handles this problem, please post them here. Perhaps we can find out which manufacturers use the same system, which don't, and get some useful information about what different manufacturers' products 'play nice' with each other, and which DON'T...

Any takers...?

(I'll post back here soon with details on Roland, once I have confirmed up my facts)