I wanted to share my recent findings with all of you since you who have been around for the past couple of years know I have been on a quest to find a good live sounding arranger board.

I had tried the Roland G-70 and found it just too cumbersome to use that blasted touch screen and never really worked with the Korgs because of the same issue. Last year I had to settle with the use of the Tyros line because of the buttons and controls which made it easier to navigate (this also included the PSR line).

Recently, because of some personal issues, I put my arsonal of boards up for sale. I still want something around though and started reading through the PA800 and E-80/G-70 manuals specifically looking for SYSEX and PC/CC message combinations to control either of these boards. This idea came about since I had worked with a programmer who had developed an application which worked with the Yamaha Music Finder Database to edit it on the PC. We were able to take his application and send setup messages via SYSEx commands to the T3 or any PSR board by just selecting a song on the copy of the MFD file on the PC giving the board the tempo, intro and variation; then go for it and play the song with it already setup.

Reading the manuals for both the Roland and Korg boards, this also can be accomplished very easily - well even easier by use of the CC/PC messages to send to the board to select the style and setup the intro and variation with tempo settings. The Korg, however, even gives a way to send appropriate messages to the board to select a SongBook entry and let the board do the setup directly. SB Editor is very accessible on the PC for use with screen readers so just setting up the entries on the PC and copying them over to the PA board is simple enough. There are different ways the control sequence can be sent to the board, either writing an app to select from a database of songs with the addresses of the entry on the PA board or just play simple MIDI files with only the necessary CC/PC messages to do the setup for the song to be played. This whole process would by-pass the use of the Touch Screen completely for song and style play and the musician would only have to control the variation changes and fills/breaks. This, however, does not stop us from having to use the touch screen for any editing of parameters or other processes which may not be a regular issue during a performance. All that still needs to have a sighted assistant available.

I find that the Roland G-70 and E-80 can also be addressed in the same manner but only by addressing the User Programs which can also be selected through CC/PC messages. The benefit is no SYSEx is involved only standard MIDI messages which can also be sent from a simple sequencer program on a PC, Netbook - whatever is available. Styles can be addressed directly on the Rolands since each style has it's own LSB/MSB location and sending certain values in Program Changes will setup the Intro and Variation to start with.

The concepts are in my head, but I feel all this can be done. I now wish I didn't sell off my G-70 to DIKI because I really loved the sound of that board. If I sell off my other boards, I may just get either an E-80 or PA800 to work with and fine tune this process and make it a reality.

Happy Holidays to all of you.

Vince

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Vince Mistretta