Don...so let me understand this because this is instrumental in my style of playing. I've only ever known keyboards with "fill buttons." Now manufacturers are still generating fills in some way, but no more actual "fill" buttons to hit (like in the PA1000 I looked at)?

Hi Rikki...I just noticed what you wrote here. That's exactly what happened to me. One day I noticed that you have two more "fills" if you loop the intro or endings. Many of the songs I posted utilized this unconventional method. If you play them right they sound as good, or, in some cases even better that the actual "fill" pattern.

That's the way to do it. "play around" on an instrument looking for ways to do things that are not in the manual. It's called "creativity!"

Some arrangers, including the E-A7, Genos, etc., have assignable switches that might also be assigned to trigger fills.

If your arranger doesn't have this, there might be another option... A company called MIDI Solutions makes an electronic module called a Footswitch controller. The module has a 1/4" jack and a MIDI din jack.

A footswitch is nothing more than a momentary, normally open switch. You can buy push-buttons just like this from online electronics suppliers.

With a little soldering, you would wire the push-buttons to the 1/4" jacks on the MIDI Footswitch controllers. Now comes the brilliant part... At least Roland and Korg have MIDI implementations that are complete enough to trigger any of the fills with MIDI messages. So you push a button, it completes the circuit, and the MIDI Solutions module tells your arranger to play a fill. Using this method you can add "fill buttons" to an arranger that doesn't have them.

The only remaining problem is the ergonomic considerations of mounting the push-buttons. The front fascia below the keys puts them in reach of your thumb (i think.)

Sometimes as an end user we have to get a little imaginative to make these marvelous musical tools do our bidding!

Hi Mark, it really is quite amazing what can be done.

The main difference between the various style parts is variations have 6 cv’s, fills , intro’s / endings only have 2.
Any of them can be up to 32 bars long, and be programmed to have a chord progression, like intro/ending 1
Main difference is where you end up after the loop finishes , ending your styles stops, intro/ fill , your style moves onto a variation, unless you tap it twice and then it keeps looping.

It’s great being able to set up custom styles. I would definitely miss not having the fill buttons, even though on factory styles I normally have the auto fill button engaged.