Right now, I would rank Roland's arranger offerings below the other major manufacturers. OTOH, Roland is in an excellent position to make a favorite by adding vocal harmony and XV/JV slots. Is there anyone else that might drool over a Roland arranger with SC8850 sounds, 2 XV expansion slots, 2 JV expansion slots, Roland styles, Variphrase, and vocal harmony?

Cliff, you are dreaming. But as long as you are, I will add to that my two cents' worth of suggestions:

1. make keyboard 76 keys (and keep the speakers) - I bet they can do it without increasing the size of the VA-7, though they may need to move the joystick

2. add panel buttons for:
a) variations (to same, to opposite)
b) beat reset
c) lock style, lock tones, lock effects, lock transpose, lock keyboard mode
d) make super-tones selectable with Bank/Individual BUTTONS, rather than having to go to touch screen
e) add part selection buttons (to alter tones), rather than be constrained to the touchscreen

3. add Upper3 voice

In short, give me a G1000 with vocal harmonizer, speakers, touchscreen, better buttons, and expansion slots (though these are optional to me) - and I will be happy.

Have fun dreaming,
Alex

alex,that's my dream and I think it's every one's dream and what I would like to have also is a good composer like the mc-50mk2 with more memory on board :-}

Thanks Alex and Vic for expanding the fantasy. I want the expansion slots for the world and asian sounds ROM. Maybe the 64MB piano. Of course, if these sounds were built in. . . .

I like 76 keys. Five octaves is often too few even for pop music, especially when 1.5 octaves are dedicated to autoaccompaniment. I agree there is usually far too much space wasted on the sides of many keyboards. I like the Yamaha S80 with its controllers in behind the keyboard instead of to the side. Although, I would keep a pitch bend wheel just left of the keyboard.

I agree that important controls should be more available than they are on the VA-7. More buttons are better (if well arranged).

I could forgo the speakers, but why not ask for a line of arrangers with different models. I am always afraid the speakers will burn or wear out before their time.

I did not want to ask for too much on my first post, but I do have some other items on my wish list. An external effects loop (in which my Wavestation AD would be the effects unit). Foot controller inputs that can be either switches or pedals according to what you insert (like on my Roland A-50). In any event, why shouldn't I be able to have two foot pedals?

Am I dreaming? I do not know that at least my original requests are unrealistic. I do not see the VA-7 as competitive in the Pro (as opposed to the "Contemporary") market, despite the quality sounds. It is the only high-end arranger without vocal harmony at least being optional. There is a large group of us for which vocal harmony has become a make or break feature. Yamaha is putting its crown jewels (the plug-in slots) into the PRS9000Pro; Korg is putting its crown jewels (Triton sound engine) into its PA-80. I think Variphrase is cool, but not enough. I would not be surprised to see Roland leverage its sound ROM cards in the arranger market. Or--maybe I am just dreaming.


[This message has been edited by Clif Anderson (edited 09-14-2000).]

Alex K:
"make keyboard 76 keys (and keep the speakers) - I bet they can do it without increasing the size of the VA-7, though they may need to move the joystick" hahaha
You are TOTALLY wrong. The room is COMPLETELY filled with chips and things. There IS a reason why they make it 76 keys that easy!

VA-7? Dream? Every LITTLE kid could have said that there should be buttons on the keyboard instead of in the menu! That is not a future dream, that is ROLAND DESIGN STUPIDITY !!!!

Ilija

Put
XV5080, MC-80, G-1000's arranger section, smart touch screen, great controls, knobs for real time control, sliders for each tracks volume (ofsoure, assignable), 4 MIDI ports and a great master keyboard funtion set with customized voice listings for modules, 5 part vocal harmony, Sampling with Flash Memory (64 MB atleast), onboard digital mixer with 16 tracks of EQ and dynamics, atleast 3 MFX busses, 2 master effects, a master 15 band EQ, Mixdown to CD burner...... all in one easily portable keyboard with a good amplification system....

uncle dave..
"but I'll repeat myself with this statement", in what style and at what tempo?

I am not a big fan of compromises and shortcomings. All Roland has to do is combine stuff they aleady have in really obvious ways to provide a far more useful keyboard with little additional cost. If I were upgrading to a new arranger now based on available, announced and rumoured products, I would go with Yamaha (PSR9000Pro) or Solton (X1/X4). If Roland would follow a few of the suggestions in this thread, I would go with Roland.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Uncle Dave:
...I can easily listen to one or two variations in a pattern and still make exciting music...
And, indeed, I do - or actually I make my music with the one or two sounds which I can easily switch between for my solo (RH) parts. However, when I bought my G1000, I was actually charged for 1146(?) sounds which are built into the instrument, so it hardly seems fair that I should be forced to be only using a few of them.

Ilija:
"You are TOTALLY wrong. The room is COMPLETELY filled with chips and things." - is it potato chips or corn chips? or is it cow chips? Seriously, though, in these days of super-miniaturization, at the time when the power of a recent supercomputer can be packed into a hotebook computer, it should not be a problem at all to shrink the contents of the keyboard a bit to free up some room for the extra keys.

Best regards,

Let's face it, folks, there is no good technical reason for Roland or any other high-end manufacturer not to make an instrument of our combined dreams. In fact, since Roland already owns all of the technologies which we were listing above, combining them should be as easy as a pie.

The handicapping of the functionality of the arranger keyboards is usually driven by marketing, rather than engineering. As Korg rep has recently pointed out, they would be shooting themselves in the foot if the PA80 had included all the features of the Triton - who'd want a Triton, then? So IMHO it is highly unlikely that a major manufacturer like Roland will produce a full-featured instrument; in fact, I am waiting to see which functions are missing in the PSR9000Pro, as I am sure there are some.

In fact, the high end of the arranger keyboard market is going to be driven by small companies, like Solton (and GEM?), who only make arranger keyboards; albeit they may not have the resources to stay abreast of the music technologies.

So, we will have no choice, but to make a constant compromise.

Regards,
Alex



[This message has been edited by Alex K (edited 09-14-2000).]