I'd like to devote this thread to Dikki's repeated requests for Roland to bring back the live rec chord loop sequencer feature on their arrangers, of which last appeared on the Roland G1000. I feel that the benefit of this feature is so great that ALL arranger keyboard manufacturers (not just Roland) should implement this.

I admit I owned a Roland RA800 (module version of the G800) yet never used that feature. Why? Merely because I NEVER was made aware it even existed. I also suspect the reason other Roland arranger owners never utilized it either was because they too didn't know it was available..

Ok, so what's the big deal about this feature? Because it frees us up (at any point in a song when playing in arranger mode) to switch to traditional keyboard/piano style playing, removing the responsibility of our left hand of having to trigger arr chord recognition, allowing us to instead, play pianistic LH arpeggios, bass lines, fills, and play non arranger specific chord voicings, and/or dedicate our LH to triggering pitch bend & mod wheel. Having a live rec 'chord loop sequencer' will provide us the arranger keyboardist the best of BOTH worlds: playing in auto accomp arranger mode in combination with traditional keyboard playing style. I hope others here, in addition to Dikki and myself, understand & appreciate the tremondous benefit this important feature has to offer the arranger keyboard player and press for this feature on future arranger keyboard models as well. Feedback & comments encouraged. Many thanks to Dikki for first bringing up this topic.

Scott

Can't argue with that, my brother.......

Only people not calling for this feature are players who've never used it. It's revolutionary.....

Thanks, Scott. It's lonely out here.....

Hi Scott,

I agree with you 100%. I still have my old Roland ProE Intelligent Arranger with the MSL-15 multi-style card that had this very useful ARRANGER LOOP feature.

In Roland’s own words – The Arranger Loop is a real time sequencer which allows a chord progression played on the Arranger to be recorded in Real Time and played back repeatedly in Real Time without stopping the Style.

What is recorded is only the Chord Progression. Other features like Style Select, Fill-In, Break Mute, Melody etc must be performed again during playback.

I too found this an indispensable feature. As you said it frees up both hands to freestyle over the backing chord progression.

Later I bought the Korg i30 Arranger. It had a somewhat similar feature called BACKING TRACKS which would record all your chord progressions through the entire song including fills, variations, styles, etc.

I would love to have the Chord Loop Sequencer included in the next OS update for the Tyros2. This is a simple enhancement.

What I do as a workaround with the Tyros2 is to record the Chord Progressions as a MIDI Song using Easy Record. Upon playback I can now conveniently setup 4 locate points using SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 on the front panel and loop between any two at a time.

I use this method to learn difficult phrases within a song.

Thanks for bringing up this issue!

Tapas

Agree with you Diki, the one on the G1000 works great. Surely it's not hard for people like Yamaha and Roland to implement into their latest offerings?

Pretty please

What about the "new" rift feature on the new Ketron sd5. Is that similar to it?

So what does this feature do? Does it recognize the chord progression that is being played and then mimic it?

That is pretty cool. It really should be a button and NOT a foot switch setting or a menu option as well.

If I recall correctly, It's kinda' like playing with a live midi file. You create the chord progression and timing the first time around, hit the switch, and it continues with the same timing and progression while you play the entire length of the keyboard like a piano, etc...

I believe the reason the feature died with the G-1000 was no one used it--another neat idea that just didn't go very far.

Cheers,

Gary

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Travlin' Easy

Just to correct a little misinformation......... Tapas, the G1000 allowed, as an option, to either record variation changes and fills, or not. Your choice.

As to no-one using it, well, Roland had it on most of their high-end arrangers (and some mid and low) from the Pro-E days all the way to the G1000, so they obviously thought it was a good idea, but then suddenly dropped it with the V-series (which sold poorly and never really replaced the G1000 in most arranger aficionado's minds) with no explanation or apology. Everyone who used it extensively is now stuck with their older arrangers, because absolutely NOTHING is capable of replacing this feature......

Come on, Roland......... Swallow your pride and bring back the one and only feature you managed to develop that really DOES blow away the competition!

I think, and to be honest - this is just conjecture, Roland must have made a big change to the personnel of their arranger R&D team after the G1000. SO many different things and new ideas all started to appear around the same time, the V-series almost felt and sounded like a different manufacturer's product, and it's OS was totally different to all the G and E-series arrangers that had come before.

It is my opinion that Roland must have cleaned house rather drastically, and many of the key R&D people must have moved on, and left a new team in place with a very different outlook on what an arranger should do. Unfortunately, sometimes the baby gets thrown out with the bath-water, and a new team loses sight of the core features' usefulness, especially if they've never used said feature before.

It is time for ALL Roland arranger users to speak loudly with one voice - You made a HUGE mistake dropping this feature, and should re-introduce it at it's earliest opportunity. You already have the code, it's a simple enough concept, and to be perfectly honest, it's FAR more useful on an arranger than a full-featured sequencer. Anyone in their right minds uses a computer for serious sequencing, but there is no way to do the Chord Sequencer except in the arranger itself.

Show us how much you care about what the actual BUYERS of your product want, and re-introduce the Chord Sequencer. I, and many, many others, will guarantee to buy the first new arranger with this feature..........

Unless I'd read this thread I wouldn't have thought there was much call for this facility - but seeing as I did read it!!! I thought I'd see if Tyros(2) could be configured to do anything similar.
FWIW:
If a chord sequence is recorded to Multipads Tyros can be configured via Midi to play the styles according to that chord sequence (if required the MP can be recorded so that it loops.)It seems to work best in Fingered mode with split point set to C1 so that most of the Keyboard length is available for playing along with the sequence.
In principle it involves intercepting the Midi-Out data transmitted by the MP's and routing it back to Midi-in (via cable)and setting up a midi template so the Chord Detect feature can come into play and control the Style, without the panel voices interfering.

How reliably and effectively this could be used in practice would need to be assessed.
Trying to do something "different" with midi is never straightforward
John