This issue, amongst others, is one of the reasons I like to encourage people to ask for more ARRANGER features to be developed for our keyboards, rather than taking the state of the art at the moment, and freezing it, and then adding workstation feature after feature, with no fundamental improvement in the actual arranger part....

Why can't we have more variations, more fills, more break/fills, more control over what happens after a fill, etc., etc.?

Why not allow 64 bar variations, and if a fill-to-same is pressed, jump forward to the next 16 bars of the same variation? In fact, there are very few arrangers, if any, that even have dedicated fill-to same fills, yet alone options to what happens next.

Why not have a fill dedicated to each and every transition?

Why not have a break/fill for each and every variation?

Why not have a 'swing' control for simpler 8-beat and 16-beat styles so you can vary the feel? (They used to have this one back in the day)

THESE are all fundamentally ARRANGER features, and to be honest, I've seen very little new on arrangers lately. Oh, yes, they are packing them with more and more questionably useful workstation features, HD recorders, samplers, full 16-track sequencers, dubiously useful database features, tons of non-arranger features. But where are the fundamental improvements to basic arranger technology, lately?

About the only major improvement has been the move from two variations to four, but they didn't increase the fills to allow for this enough. Roland have four Variations, but only seven fills. You need 16 to cover ALL the transitions. I would gladly trade an HD recorder for enough fills that EVERY transition is smooth and natural.

I would gladly trade a full-featured sequencer (we've ALL got computers capable of FAR better sequencing, or you wouldn't be reading this!) for longer variations and better fill-to-same rules, or a dedicated break/mute for every variation.

I don't know about you, but I've already GOT a couple of workstations. I don't need workstation features on an arranger. Where are the fundamental improvements to arrangers?