Personally, I definitely do not remember any included style creation software on any Roland I bought. RA90/G800/G1000/G70/BK7m/BK9…

I seem to recall the Prelude was supposed to come with software. Never saw one. Nobody thought much of it at the time, and it was PC only, so as a Mac user I couldn’t test it.

Quite honestly, Roland have never really supported style creators the way that Yamaha and Korg did. But, back in the real world, I have to confess that I really have NEVER heard a user created style that compared favorably to the ROM styles, it’s a MUCH harder task than most players think it is..!

First, your emulation skills need to be top notch. Can you create drum patterns that sound like they’re played by a drummer? Can you create fills that flow naturally from one variation to another? Can you create all the intros and endings to the quality of the ROM styles?

Can you emulate guitar playing really well, strum patterns, funky picking? Are your horn chops and string lines authentic? How’s your percussion…?

It’s no coincidence that the primary request over at brands that DO support style creation is easy SMF import so you can cut and paste from existing MIDI files created by talented players. And all in all, style creation from SMF’s is a VERY hit or miss affair.

There’s no magic bullet, creating a high quality style is HARD! The cost of an arranger compared to its workstation siblings has always been high because you are paying for hundreds of highly professional styles. Coherent, nicely flowing variations and fills, expertly played intros and endings.

It has always been a dream of amateur players to create their own styles, but quite frankly, most give up pretty quickly when they finally realize the playing curve and technical hurdles. I think Roland realized this and decided that putting a huge amount of work into style creation software wasn’t going to pay off (particularly as most players want it for free!). Supporting it as computer OS’s and CPU’s changed at a dizzying pace would cost even more.

For me, the most useful part of a style editor is the ability to create a ‘Frankenstyle’ by mixing and matching Parts from existing ROM styles, and the BK9’s style editor allows this. I also got VERY excited about the PA5X’s ability to live play two styles at the same time, so by creative muting of different Parts in each style, you can do the whole ‘Frankenstyle’ thing live, in real-time! It’s probably the one totally new arranger feature I wish every manufacturer would copy ASAP…

It bypasses the need to have formidable playing chops to create a style from scratch, and massively eases the technical skill required to create a style from scratch.

Nowadays with high quality audio backing tracks being a fraction of the price of a good professional style, those performers looking to get backing that is close to the original record are covered far better by audio than waiting for a professional style that might get close.

You know how many great demos by members here I have heard that use their own completely original style? Zero… in over 20 years.

I think Roland made the expedient decision not to go all out on style creation software.