Rikki, the system on Roland's you are describing is from the older, G1000 days. They have a new system now, with four linear, that is increasingly more complex variations rather than the old system that had two variations (in a way) and a button that made them more or less complex. So still four variations, really, but more of a 1 and 1a and 2 and 2a rather than 1,2,3,4.

So the need for more fills wasn't so much there. Now that there is a much more linear progression through the variations, there are more fills to account for situations like going from 4 to 3, or 4 to 1, which would need a far more dramatic drop, and, say, 1 to 2 rather than 1 to 4, which need totally different 'builds'.

It is still not perfect (only 16 fills is that!), but it HAS to be better than just two fills for all four variations and their destinations.

In essence, Korg are usually making you use Fill 1 for 1 to 2 and back and Fill 2 for 3 to 4 if you want to keep things smooth. The problem seems to arise if you want to go from 4 to 1 or 2 and vice versa. A couple of extra fills could easily fix that. As to more fills being available for different chord TYPES, this, although nice (and available on other arrangers too), doesn't address the COMPLEXITY issue.

It is going to be very hard to think that, if you want a 4 to 1 fill, play a minor chord (or whatever). Songs just don't cooperate that way, most of the time..!

And to those that point out the 16 bar patterns (is that all the styles, or just a few?), again, that only works if your song cooperates and has a straightforward 16 bar structure, and you don't want to build or ebb the energy during the 16 bars. Otherwise, it's back to Bar 1 every time you hit a fill. We've discussed in the past about the problems with long (i.e. 16 or 32-bar patterns) that really only work with 16 bar structure songs, or every time you hit the fill, there goes the last eight or nine (or sixteen!) bars that you never get to.

I realize a lot of pop songs ARE that simple. But a lot AREN'T.

I just find it strange that, for all the really advanced features they've packed into the PA800/2XPro, not bringing the fill choices up to the variation choices seems a poor area to leave so untouched...