Fran has hinted that Roland may be coming out with a new arranger. What feature additions would be worth an upgrade to you assuming that this rumored board will be a step up from the E-A7?
A few of the following could make me return to Roland:

Improved screen(s)
Number one on my list. Roland really needs to get the screen size to levels that will compete with the other manufacturers. At least a 7-inch screen is needed or a couple of four inchers if they stay with the two-screen format. I personally don’t care if it is a touchscreen or not, but I know I am in the minority on that point. For example, on the Korg you can touch something and use a virtual slider to change the value. But I must have fat fingers because I find it easier to just use the value dial so much of the benefit of the touchscreen goes away IMO.

Value Dial
While I am on the subject, any new Roland arranger needs this. There are just too many instances where the E-A7 would benefit from ease of use by having it. Naming files comes to mind immediately.

Harmony
Roland really needs to implement this feature. It is so much easier to have the harmony on-board. I believe I read that they used to have a harmony unit so they must have the basic technology in place or just license something from TC Helicon or Digitech.

Sounds
How about adding some new sounds taken from the Supernatural series? E-A7 already has some great sounds but a few of these thrown in wouldn’t hurt.

Chord Sequencer
I don’t use this feature myself, but I know many like Diki (remember him?) consider it essential.

Dedicated Foot Controller
Roland needs a foot pedal like the Korg EC5, something that can be setup exactly how the user wants.


Unlimited User Programs

Didn't make sense to limit this as the E-A7 did. Should be limited by memory only.

I guess if it does come to market we will definitely get to see what Roland has up their sleeve this time around. Other then that at this time it's all rumor. Should be interesting what ever it is and different then anything we've seen so far from them..
either from Italy or Japan .....Roland are forward thinkers.

All they need to do is bring out a G70 type instrument with the latest tech and larger screen.

Bill

Roland has everything in their home to make a perfect arranger...

- the keybed of the RD2000 with aftertouch
- the sound engine of the jupier 80 (10 sounds assignable to keyboard)
- all the sounds (pcm and super natural) of the integra 7
- an option to load acb sounds into slots..
- an upgrade to their ea7 arranger style engine.. maybe even somthing like ketron’s launchpad ..
- nice big color touchscreen, or two normal size color touch screens.(i love 2 touchscreens with 9 sliders/knobs/buttons in the middle as in the ea7)
- sliders, knobs and pads
- full masterkeyboard functions
- audio over USB.
- organ sounds from the attelier range
- V-piano sounds from the rd2000

I think Roland could blow everyone away, if they wanted to..
If done right they can cater to both the professional workstation market as the pro arranger market with a single instrument

All of the above plus intelligent break/fills and feature similar to Korg Kaoss

I would add a couple of things...
Option to have Bass Inversion ("on bass") via the footswitch as a MOMENTARY function. Press and hold the footswitch, bass line follows the lowest note played. Release the footswitch, now you can play chords any inversion and bass follows the root of the chord. If I choose to turn Bass Inversion on in the middle of a song, I don't want to press the pedal a 2nd time to turn it off. It should be momentary!
Chord Sequencer: YES!!
And finally... Roland's style control parameters are very sparse compared to the competition. Look at manuals for Yamaha and Korg. Search for terms like NTR, NTT, Close, Parallel, Retrigger, Repitch, Tension, etc. Nothing like this on a Roland! Some Roland styles sound very good. IF these parameters exist within the styles, they are hidden from the style creation workflow. Roland should make these details visible and give more control to the user!
My $.02

Bachus wrote:
"two normal size color touch screens.(i love 2 touchscreens with 9 sliders/knobs/buttons in the middle as in the ea7)"

I agree, that layout would be great, love the sliders in the middle.

Nice dream, but this describes a $10,000+ instrument that's not portable, and weighs a ton.

No, all of this can be done with a single high end ARM or stream processor (think ipad pro territory) and a high speed SSD drive with enough memmory.. its just a matter of adding all those readilly available software parts into a single OS, but no extra weight compared to an FA08 or Jupiter 80.. the weight mostly depends on the keybed... yes an 88 key is more expensive, i think the RD2000 weights like 20kg, which would then also go for this instrument. Thats acceptable for a high end 88 key stage instrument.

Since Roland tends to be cheaper then Yamaha i think it could be done for a price comparable to the Genos ...