The thing about guitar parts is... unless it's a solo, I've got other, more important things to do (more important to me, anyway! ) than take up all my attention just to get a strumming pattern going. Guitar strums and picking patterns are accompaniment, NOT the featured sound most of the time. As such, I need them in the style section, NOT on the keyboard to HAVE to play...

This is where Roland dropped the ball. It's actually not too tough to get a good strumming pattern, but that's both of your hands used up! Go off to another solo sound, and there goes your guitarist

Roland have some incredibly useful ideas wrapped up in this gizmo... Firstly, it's the first chord recognition system I've played that took any notice of WHERE on the keyboard you played the chord. Most regular arrangers just figure out the chord and bass note (but NOT inversion), but this actually works out how high up the keyboard you play the trigger chord (and what inversion it is), and gives you a chord in the appropriate part of the neck. Brilliant! Finally, a good reason for an extended chord recognition area - guitar chords YOU chose in realtime whether they are 'open string' nut position or 'full barré' up the neck.

Now, if only they take that concept, and use it for OTHER accompaniment sounds (horns high or low, piano chords that move around a bit more, bass lines in the basement or upstairs etc.) we would start to see a quantum improvement in control over your accompaniment, and less repetitive patterns.

It also introduces (for Roland, at least) the ability to have performance 'noises' like fret squeak and guitar knocks be added to your playing in an SA-like manner. Again, something Roland should keep developing for other sounds and techniques...

As I've been saying for a while, I don't think we have anywhere NEAR tapped MIDI for it's expressive possibilities. More complex chord behaviors like this, and positional and inversion recognition capabilities could make for a far more 'musical' accompaniment than we have at the moment, without resorting to audio loop slice technology, which, although very good sounding at what it does, cannot do anything more than what was recorded in the first place. MIDI offers the ability to edit, change sounds, change almost anything with far greater flexibility than audio...

Yamaha's Mega technology was the first breakthrough, and still sounds amazing to me. Korg have started a new era with it's Guitar Mode, and Roland, once they tie Guitar Mode to the style section, have a very interesting system too. To be honest, it's things like this, that have turned what used to be one of the weakest areas of arranger sound into one of it's best features - great, accurate guitar strumming and picking. And it's things like this that are the future for arrangers, IMO, not dead end technology like audio loops.

Something the USER can edit and change to taste, not 'take it or leave it' audio loops. Try to imagine how good an arranger could sound, if accurate chord and pattern techniques for each instrument (keys, guitars, horns and strings) were as good as what just guitar parts are now!

[This message has been edited by Diki (edited 06-13-2008).]