I must confess, I tend to use four Parts set to the Keyboard setting rather than go with the Song Parts. That way, you still get the EQ and MFX settings (although you only get 2 MFX to play with) and they don’t get reset.

But one of the things I tend to do when working with a DAW is to quickly turn each MIDI Parts into audio as soon as I’m happy with them. The big advantage here is that you can now apply high quality compression, EQ and effects via plug-ins rather than use the somewhat limited synth effects available.

It’s pretty old school to want to do the whole production using the arranger’s sounds, as many VSTi’s seriously outperform the arranger’s sounds. I tend do do a scratch track using a style and capture that using the on board MIDI Recorder, save as an SMF and then open in the DAW. If the Midi Set is set to Style Parts, the effects etc will work on playback from the DAW.

But usually, from this point onwards I am only working with the MIDI data and sending it to better drum VSTi’s, piano VSTi’s etc.. If anything from the arranger really floats my boat as is, I just solo the Part and record to audio (possibly taking off the effects if I want control over that later in the mix process).

Perhaps it’s worth looking into that rather than limiting yourself to only the Roland’s sounds? Even a fairly budget drum VSTi like EZ Drummer will give you far superior results to the Roland’s kits. Ditto organs, pianos, guitars, strings, horns, you name it.

The arranger makes a really good fast way to get a decent scratch track to start building on, but little of it usually works for first call quality sounds if you want a pro quality demo. It might seem a little more convoluted, but the end results will be easily apparent, IMHO…