The chord sequencer was present in the G1000, G800, and other arrangers way back to the PRO-E and E-20 I think...(I had the PRO-E and if my memory is still good, I remember it had that feature....)

The difference between the VA and E series , compared to the G800 and G1000...The G series functioned in true realtime..

You know... I've got a sneaky feeling that if Roland had put the controls for the CS right next to the keyboard, instead of up in the top left corner, people would have used it a lot more... Generally, the further away from the keys, the less attention people pay to things

I lobbied Roland long and hard for the return of the CS. I even pointed out that there were four perfectly placed buttons closer to the keys than the G1000's were that would have done the job perfectly. In style Mode, you have ABSOLUTELY no need for the 'Mark/Jump' buttons, an SMF feature. They could have easily retasked those... I even had an article about ways it could be even BETTER. First was, you could save the Chord Sequence on a G1000, but you had to load it up separately. So I thought a CS, 'Linked' to automatically load when you loaded the Registration (UPG). Now, you have Ketron's Riff feature, but your own changes already pre-loaded (in case you didn't play them during the song)...

And, with a touch screen, there's no reason why multiple CS's couldn't either be pre-recorded or grabbed on the fly, and allow you to switch between them. One for the head, one for a vamp, one for a solo... Maybe it starts to sound a bit like using SMF's, but you have to remember, you could STILL change variations, fill where you felt like, heck, even change the style completely...

Last was some kind of 'Auto Quantize' at it's simplest, or a sequencer NTA track, where you could tidy the timing of the CS, so any timing 'glitches' from being fractionally late or early could get edited out. Particularly handy when you are making an SMF from style play, and you don't want to get overloaded with all those 'false' notes with portamento of zero to the correct ones (ever look at a piano roll of arranger play in a DAW sequencer?). Roland's resolution on it's chord recognition is to the 1/16th. Handy if you DO need a chord change that syncopated, but bad if your chord input is a hair sloppy. This would have tidied things up great...

Roland ought to, by this time, at least realize they tossed out the baby with the bathwater. Just about everyone who DID use the CS has complained about it's loss, and many that never used it are starting to realize how great a tool for helping get the best out of arranger Mode it can be. Even Ketron's Riff Mode (sorry I forgot they only put it on the SD-5, you would have though they could have rolled it into an SD-1 OS update) helps raise awareness that there IS a good reason to have something that can take over chord duties for a while, while you concentrate on something else...

But until it grabs YOUR chord changes, for me at least, it doesn't quite capture the spirit of the Roland Chord Sequencer.

Thanks Mr Dave.

Guys, maybe we all should start complaining,
maybe one of the companies will add it.
( won't hold my breath, haahaa)

My memory is less than brilliant nowadays, but, somewhere in the back of my mind, I vaguely remember being able to put a chord progression into a KN7 multipad.( been 5 years since I sold it) Can't remember if it controlled only the pad or the style as well
( if it's not the case, I've finally gone totally loopy).

If it was the case that would be a handy function to be able to assign to a multipad.
Have the pad dictate a chord progression rather than follow.

best wishes
Rikki

Well, you've got a Chord Sequencer in your Korg, don't you, Rikki? Don't Korg's still have that Chord Track thing from the PA80?

Difference, of course, was that Roland allowed on the fly input of chords, and the ability to go in and out of it without interrupting normal play, but anything that allows us to stay in style mode and yet still hand off the chord input at least for a while is a good thing...

You know, I don't feel as resigned as some of you. Yamaha's SA technology created such a stir, was such a hit even with non-owners, that Korg went ahead and basically copied it, and Roland are working on it. If enough buzz is created by a certain feature, you can be sure that your manufacturer will at least LOOK at it to see if it can be added...

One MORE thing the CS allowed you to do (as if you needed more!)... want to solo AND walk a bass around at the same time? Can't do that if in style mode. Play the head the first time through with chords, record the changes, then switch off ABASS and keyboard recognition. Now the CS changes play the ACC, while you walk and solo... Cool!

Hi Diki,
never owned a PA80, could there be a function I'm not aware of on my PA800??
There is a lot of stuff I haven't totally worked out.

What I've been doing is just recording midifile of a "variation with a chord progression" , then replacing an existing variation or Intro with one that has the chord progression in it. ( my version of a riff).

best wishes
Rikki

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Diki:
[B]Well, you've got a Chord Sequencer in your Korg, don't you, Rikki? Don't Korg's still have that Chord Track thing from the PA80?

Hi Rikki and Diki,

I am a new Pa800 owner and would love to grab a live chord seq, is that possible ???

Best Regards
Paul

You see what I reckon you could do is this:

We all know you can load up a complete midi file as intro 1..Why not record that midi file from the PA800 using the style you have chosen, record the chord progression, it might be 8 bars 16 bars or even 32 bars, and then save that as a midi, save it to the style. Granted it will be in a specific key but it would give you a pseudo CS???? And I THINK intro one is also governed by the transpose function...

Just an idea and it may not work...but it was something I thought of when I had the PA, just never got around to trying..

Dennis

Nothing currently will grab a chord sequence live, on the fly. They all need setting up in advance. We are currently discussing ways to do this. Only way to get it 'live' is to buy an older G1000 and earlier) Roland arranger.

I have heard from one of Roland's top European demonstrators that STILL (or at least, last time I heard from him) uses a G1000 in preference to a newer G70 (for his own, private gigs), then he MIDI's it to a TD drum module, VK organ and Fantom rack to get basically the G70 'sound', but you can still use the Chord Sequencer.

Roland need BADLY to revive this feature... at least they would have ONE feature that they could claim absolutely no-one else has (OK, there's quite a few, but this one relates to live play! ) that is as revolutionary as SA and Mega guitars.

What makes you think everyone wants or needs this Cs feature ...I for one wouldn't use it....never did on my G1000 either I think I'm a majority, as I never used a sampler either for my style of playing an arranger...there is a reason Roland dumped the chord Sequencer...they know what their doing for the future & the companies needs to make a profit..will they bring back the CS I highly doubt it, will they design new technology in their new units of course they will.Time to move on its 2009.

[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 06-04-2009).]