Yes, those problems turn out to be when you have sys-ex enabled in the transmission page. When you modify the styles and SMFs, the Roland generates a LOT of sys-ex, and as these are non-synchronous, they can, if heavy enough, disturb the clock signals. But filter it at transmission (which you ought to do anyway) and the problems go away.

Hanspeter at the Roland-aranger.com site finally figured this one out.

Back on topic (it's a good job I don't troll the Yamaha forums to post all their problems and bugs, isn't it, Ian? ), Kingfrog...

I think that if you want to do audio loops synced, the Korg is your only choice (other than the MUCH more expensive Lionstracs MS, and best of luck finding one of those to play!). Roland have only JUST started to go down the mp3 player path, and their implementation is primitive, to be kind! No synced up playback, or anything like that.

Plus, it is a more fully featured synth engine, user patches, detailed voice editing, sampler (although check how fast it loads - most stuff short of a computer doesn't load up fast enough for the 'any song, any time' arranger approach, IMO), all the Triton stuff you are used to...

Given your 'WS first, arranger second' priorities, you honestly don't have much of a choice in your budget range (the MS is very scarce in the US, hard to tell what your issues might be if you had a hardware problem - not a lot of dealers to repair it!).

A PA2X it MUST be...

But try them out first. SOME who have played it found that some of the fills in some of the styles were 'jerky', due in part to the fact that there are only two fills (and a break fill) per style, compared to six or seven for Yamaha and Roland. Nothing you can't edit out (but you can't ADD fills), but it IS one limitation compared to it's competitors.

But the need for synchronous loops leaves you one more choice.... Have you played the Yamaha MotifXS yet? It has some very sophisticated chord following functions on it's loop and arpeggiator functions, a full sampler and some killer sounds. This is about the only thing I'd say fills your criteria other than the PA2X...

Have fun, but TRY BEFORE YOU BUY!