Spalding I know about the style part copying & intermingling but haven't had time to really indulge myself into it...can you elaborate a bit on this technique I would definitly want to get into it sometime down the road....I agree with you there are many things to explore that can make your musical experience very pleasurable.

Thanx

Seeing as you have asked so nicely (Smile)

First bear in mind that i have the PA1X which may be very slightly different to the PA800 but the principles are exactly the same.

Start with the keyboard in style play mode. You may be using a funky style lets say in the 'dance style tabs group' but there is too much going on in it . Perhaps you like the drums but the bass is too busy or the guitar too much in your face. You may prefer the strumming pattern from another style lets say in the '16 beat style group'
and the brass from one of the Gospel styles.

Make a note of the tracks you want to change ie drums,percusion, bass Acc2 Acc3 Acc4 acc5 etc

Make a note of the tracks you want to copy and the groups they are from ie '16 beat group groove style accomp 2 wah wah guitar or whatever

You should now have noted what you want to change and what you want to change it to.

We will start to edit the style that you feel most fits what you want but needs some editing so press record. Its the big red button on tyhe PA1X dont know for the PA800.... This will take you to a screen that asks you what you want to edit

1 select record/edit current style(that should be selected by the instrument as a default)and press ok
2. It will take you to the style record page press the reel(looks like a film reel) icon for recording lets say the bass. We dont need to record anything as we are going to delete the bass sound.
3 Press the menu button
4. select style edit . Press the delete all tab at the bottome of the screen .Make sure that you delete all. In practise you could just delete some of the pattern say from bars 1-4 but thats more advanced than i want to deal with right now !

5 Press execute and then press. Now press the copy from style tab at the bottom of the screen.

6. then press the select button as this will then show you all the styles in the group your original style is from. There are tabs to the left of the screen so you can quickly select the style that you want to copy from ( remember the styles you noted down at the begining. Then simply select the style you want to copy from, select the element of the style ie Acc 1,2,3,4 drums bass etc and select the element you will be copying too ie Acc 1,2,3 etc . In this example it will be the bass sound from which ever style you prefer . Press execute and voila it will be in the style. You can press the delete tab and delete the other elements that you wanted to change pressing execute after each change

7. choose another style from the copy from style tab lets say the 6 string guitar style from the 8 beat group of styles because you liked the guitar .

8 Select the element that you want to copy from and move to etc. You can do this repeated from this page remembering to press execute after each change.

9 When you have finished making changes press menu again and you will be on style record page again. Press the drop down tab at the top right of the page and save the newly composed style and you can even overwrite the factory style rather than save it as a user style. Press the big red record button off screen and it will then ask warn you that you can lose what you have edited unless you save it. Press yes to save and then you are back in style play mode. Select your edited style and enjoy !!!

This is all well and good, but doesn't seem easily do-able live onstage. I understand well about combining styles to make them more suitable (unfortunately, Roland's don't have multipads, so that option is out), but it seems a non-realtime function.

I was thinking that having a ROM style with a 'simple'/'busy' button might make things a lot more flexible. To get away from the repetitiveness of arrangers is always high on my list of arranger features to improve, and this seems like a possible step. But I guess we just have to do it for ourselves, these days...

I know it's a LOT more work for a style developer (although it wouldn't be TOO difficult to start with the busy style as the basis, and just start simplifying), but the musical results would be (IMO) well worth it.

One of Roland's MANY great features they dropped was Bass & Drums/Small Combo/Full ensemble buttons, that automatically muted certain Parts (sometimes, live, it is hard to find out WHICH Part is which sound to mute by hand) to give you those groups. A combination of this feature with Linked styles of varying 'busyness' could yield some greatly expanded flexibility in making a song 'build' more naturally...

I understand that all this CAN be accomplished 'offline', but it would be nice if the ROM styles had more of this kind of structure for instant use.

JMO, yada yada yada.....

Spalding thank you for explaining further about the process I have copied it to a MS word file and will get into it asap...its appreciated.

Diki....I was more interested in this procedure to make a custom style NOT for on the fly usage ....I'll agree that Roland had the Orchestrator option on some of their units like the Discover 5, VA7, which as you described allowed the played to ON THE FLY eliminate certain party to make it busy or not with just the touch of a button eg: duo, small band , big band etc etc .....but has sadly gone the way of the chord sequencer also.......maybe another form of thses will return down the road. Anyway there is more then enough real time edit features to keep me happy for sure on stage with the pa800.

I feel the same way as the author of the article about the g70 styles. To me so many of them are over done. I have yet to find a slow 4/4 style to use with "After The Loving". I'm going to have to beg Fran to send me some Roland swing and BB styles. I wish the combo button was available to mute many parts at once.

Tom

Tom try a slow 6/8

Hi Dreamer,
can't actually comment on the quality of the PA800 compared to the Tyros pads, but they certainly are better than the pads on my psr 1500.

The reason I luv the pads on the PA800 so much, is not neccesarily the quality
(though to me the repeating piano & guitar pads sound great) , but actually the way they work, & how they can be created & used.

On my PSR1500 for instance, with the repeating pads, the timing of hitting the pad is crucial. The pad always starts on the first beat of "it's" bar. If I hit it too late, the pad plays catchup, and on occasions, I end up with a completely blank bar where the pad doesn't play. Not much good if the pad is supposed to be supplying the main guitar or piano track.

With the PA800 pads, it doesn't matter when I hit it, the pad still syncs perfectly to the style.
Apart from the the normal 2 sync modes the psr has, the PA800 has an additional sync mode called "continued" where it will sync to the "beat counter" so if you hit the pad on the 3rd beat of the bar, the pad will start on the 3rd beat of "it's" bar instead of the beginning. Locks in perfectly.

Also I have the option of using the EC5 pedal board to assign the start of individual pads, & stop of all of the pads.
If I want to stop them individually, ( same as psr) I have to use the buttons.

The pads are matched up to the styles ie you may get a piano pad, a guitar pad, pecussion pad etc you could literally use all 4 at the same time & they won't clash with the style. Naturally you can use choices of your own or user pads.

The pad creation functions are brilliant.
Style to Pad,
Midi to Pad ( import /export) to sequencer
Pad to Pad
Event list editing
and if I want to replace a track in a style with a pad,
Pad to Style.
Really handy if I want to create a new style.

best wishes
Rikki

Hi Tom,
maybe some of the earlier Roland styles were simpler.
I know with my VA7 I received a collection of all the early Roland styles. Do they still do that with the current models?

I would imagine the G70 would also have the option of deleting tracks & resaving as a new style.

best wishes
Rikki

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Tom Cavanaugh:
[B]

Thank you, Donny.

Rikki, when you write that the pads match perfectly the styles, are you meaning that each time you call a style you have already a corresponding set of pads ready to go? And -if this is the case- have you seen if the same set of pads is assigned to more than one style? (I am asking because it's possibile that all the styles belonging, for example, to the 8 beat bank share the same multipads, because they are, after all, similar).

And -finally- do you (or anyone else) know how many multipads sets are there in the PA-800? Do they exceed the number of the styles?

Thank you for your patience, but I am trying to gather all the informations I need (and was unable to find in the user manuals I have downloaded).

Tom,
try to go to the Roland Arranger website and download the converted VA76 styles: they are excellent and really worth the while.

(Link here )