Why not make the rest of the pattern (beginning at Bar 9) another variation? Then you could just fill to that variation. If you want multiple variations to impact the fullness of the arrangement, that can easily be addressed with sliders, track mute, or even registrations. With MOTL hardware or better, there's more than one way to approach this problem!

I forgot to mention this in my previous post, but Yes!, this is another irritating shortcoming many (all?) HW arrangers have. And once again shows how really basic their arranger engine is (I am talking specifically of Yamaha's firmware, the one I know the best, after our own!).

With Groovyband Live! we have also covered this use case.

When you need a fill you have many options:

1) Press the MAIN VARIATION button you are in (i.e: if you are playing MAIN 2, then press again MAIN 2). Then you will trigger an "inline" fill, and when the fill is over the MAIN looping pattern will continue from the point it left. For example: you are at measure 4 beat 1 of a 8 measures MAIN. You press the MAIN button, a fill will play immediately for the remaining of beat 1 + beat 2, 3 and 4. Then the MAIN variation will resume at measure 5, as nothing had happened. Quite convenient, no disruption at all, just spice up your performance with that extra bit here and there.

[By the way: "measure", "bar", what is the right term in english? The original italian word is "misura".]

2) You have 8 FILL buttons (one for each MAIN 1÷8). You press one of those to trigger a fill and then go to the corresponding MAIN. Example: MAIN 1 is playing, you press FILL 6, a fill-in will immediately play and, at the end of the measure, MAIN 6 will start from the beginning.

Groovyband Live! knows you are bridging from MAIN 1 and MAIN 6 and hence plays an appropriate fill that takes into account both MAINs (i.e.: if MAIN 1 is "simple" and MAIN 6 is "complex", then the fill will have an intermediate complexity, to appropriately glue both MAINs).

3) You can explicitly call for a fill closer to the playing MAIN, or closer to the next MAIN (we have a button for this, you can "book" your choice any time in advance of the actual press of a FILL button).

4) We have also a SYNC FILL/BREAK button, that can "book" a FILL/BREAK synced with the next measure start. If you call a SYNCED fill or break at any point during a measure, nothing happens until the beginning of the next measure, when automatically the fill or break will play in full for the whole measure. Very handy if you have no time to neatly press the fill/break button a few instants before the measure start!

5) We have 2 BREAKS (simpler, busier). So more variation and options to tailor your arrangement to the song you are playing.

6) You can trigger a fill (or break, or whatever action you desire!) be pressing harder the left hand keys. Very handy if you have no time to take away your hand from the actual playing. If you wish you can also set multiple thresholds: one action if you play "hard", another action if you play "even harder". You can freely set the velocity threshold(s) to match your preferences.

7) We have HALF BAR fills that will (surprisingly!) play only for half a measure (and not the whole measure as usual). This only works for divisions with an even number of beats (i.e: not for 3/4). Very handy to correctly play some scores.

8) We have also a BEAT RESET function that is TEMPO aware (= your music keeps the tempo, and completely finishes the currently playing beat, before resetting the loop to the first measure). With this function you can correctly and **seamlessly** manage any "odd measure" in your score, or even reset your accompaniment if you (or some other player/singer in the band) missed the "right downbeat start".

* * *

To sum up, we have put a lot of thought into the software features. Our developers are primarily musicians and knows what are the actual needs of a performer.
What we have demonstrated here for this particular topic, can actually be applied to almost every feature you are used to in a traditional HW arranger: we have perfected it to the "next level".

Additionally we also listen to our customers, and if the idea is good we implement it in no time.

This is not the case with every "big name" manufacturer, where sometimes it is not even possible to have someone to talk to.

With the SD9 Pro AjamSonic (latest OS), you can set the fill such that once complete, the arranger can either continue where you left off within the current arranger or restart from bar 1 once complete or go to another arranger. I'll try and illustrate this in tomorrow's live show along with some more 'hidden' features KETRON does not promote a lot!

Do the ROM styles with longer phrases do this automatically?