I'm also on OS version 1.06 (which as far as I know, was the latest available.) Just yesterday I was demonstrating for someone and encountered a situation where the keyboard wouldn't let me select another style. I know if you hold a rhythm button down too long, it can activate a temporary "lock." Perhaps that's what happened in this case, but a bit disconcerting. I never did figure out what went wrong, I ended up rebooting the board.

Another point of frustration... One of the performances I created myself mutes all but two of the style tracks. When I subsequently select a different style, most of the style tracks remain muted. So I have to open the part mixer and manually unmute them. That's a lot of scrolling and pushing on the rotary wheel. Is there a shortcut to unmute all style tracks, or to make it so that when I select a style it defaults to its factory settings for tempo, voicing, track balance, etc.? Thanks in advance! -Ted

Here is the big issue…. You guys are confusing selecting a style, with selecting a performance.

Selecting a style does NOTHING to the performance (other than change the OTS). The performance is kind of the “one ring to rule them all“ with very few exceptions unless you use arranger holds or 0TS holds.

As I mentioned earlier, the big problems you seem to come across is mixing and matching between using the performances and the performance list, and going old-school and selecting everything by hand. You really need to commit to one, or the other as you are beginning to understand some of the complexities of trying to use both.

As to the “bugs” that you claim to be finding, you need to be FAR more specific about what you are doing, and where you have your arranger and OTS holds set to before you start blaming the OS! As I said, I have been using performances and the performance list since the keyboard first came out, and I have yet to come across a “bug“.

We used to have a specific format for submitting bug reports, that involved repeatability at the old Rolland arranger’s forum. And the first requirement was repeatability…. We all make mistakes in haste when doing things, often leading to unexpected results. It is all too easy to turn around and cry “bug!“ when it turns out to primarily be operator error.

Long before you use the word “bug“, you need a full and thorough understanding of how the performance memory, arranger holds and 0TS holds all interact. At this point, reading about your issues, I would say pretty definitively that you do not understand the system yet.

For instance, if you are using the performance to turn off arranger parts, you will need to select a different performance to turn them all back on at the same time. If you need this In the middle of a song, you need to prepare two performances using the same style and store them next to each other in the list. Alternatively, take a look in the D-Beam Choices to see if you can achieve what you want with a wave of your hand. But this is mostly to turn on or off all ACC part at the same time etc., there is no way to select individual ACC parts other than switching to a different performance.

Perhaps when you come across issues, try to be careful about remembering what you did prior to the problem, turn off the machine, turn it back on again, do EXACTLY the same thing again, see if the same thing happens…

I will do everything in my ability to help you guys get through this, but you DO need to read the manual very carefully. Expecting style parts to mute and unmute simply by selecting another style shows you have not done so yet. Be patient, don’t project your expectations, and we will soon figure all this out. 🎹😎🎹

And yes, a lengthy ‘hold’ of a LOT of different front panel buttons can either ‘lock’ them or bring up an edit screen. Go through the lot of them to see what happens…! (You will see a small lock symbol on screen if they lock or unlock)

Learning these can go a long way to allowing you some degree of old school control without abandoning the Performance system or using hard to get to Arranger Holds. A lengthy press of the tempo button locks the tempo, another unlocks it.

You might also try repeated short presses of the Tone buttons, which will take you quickly to each subsection of each category (but not select them). This is a good way to quickly get to say all the alto saxes, or all the baritones, or all the trumpets when looking for a certain sound.

And don’t forget to use the Favorite Tones feature to quickly collect your favorite ten lead sounds, comps etc.. You can have a different set for each Keyboard Part, so this is a great way to have your solo sound favorites on UPR1, your comping or secondary leads on UPR2, your LH pads or comps on LWR and your favorite basses on MBS…

Time to get deep into the manuals, guys… 🎹📚💻🖥

So, guys… are you still having problems? Have you figured out exactly what it is you had been told were ‘bugs’?

Bit of a thankless task here trying to help people and them just ghost the thread…

Gosh Diki... My house had a plumbing leak in August, so there's large-scale reconstruction going on in my living room. I had to pack up my stand and monitors, etc. There are also endurance bike rides to train for, and NFL football on TV. Keyboard music is one of my many hobbies, so the time table isn't critical.

What I have been able to do, is to program an FS-6 dual footswitch to summon two different alternate performances on a MOMENTARY basis, and then return to a "base" performance as soon as the footswitch is released. If Bass Inversion on the BK-9 had been programmed like it is on the FP-50/FP-80, I wouldn't have to waste the registration selection feature on this functionality. (Recall our previous discussions about this.)

When all the dust settles, my approach will probably utilize almost all of the performance holds. Individual songs in my "gig list" will be set up as user styles with appropriate customizations to part voicing, part volume, etc., and custom OTS. Hopefully I'll also be able to make use of "favorite tones" for on-the-fly changes to the lead instrument. I'm not familiar with the favorite tone feature yet, it's one of the things I need to read about and explore.

Last night I literally sat down and read the manual through page 42. What an amazing instrument! So many of the features I really don't use, and the style structure and editing, I already understand. When it comes to performances and OTS, I really need to study! Thanks for checking in!!

Sorry to hear about your home problems…!

Personally, I don’t use the Favorite Tones much in my solo, but it’s really handy when jamming with others. Be aware, though, you can only use ROM Tones with their ROM MFX. If you find yourself always tweaking a Tone in a Performance (say a different MFX or a shorter release or different EQ) you can’t store the edited Tone in the Favorites. Shame…

Solo, it just makes sense to completely set up each tune without any holds, but start from a template Performance with all the parameters set the way I generally like. That way, when I have the occasional setup I need to be different from my usual settings, I don’t need to go and disable my holds before I can call it up, then call up another with the parameters back to normal before I reengage the holds.

If you are sure you will NEVER change a hold, OK, maybe, but honestly, why use them at all, just start from a template Performance…

One thing I’ve learned about the ‘progress’ of arrangers is, never EXPECT a feature from a different line (or the previous line!) to make it to the next one! There are so many different ways to skin a cat that each one of our personal favorite features is the one thing that bugs another! And there often doesn’t seem to be much continuity in some manufacturers’ design teams. For the Chord Sequencer (a Roland invention) to have disappeared from the line (after the G1000) through the entire V/VA/G/E series, only to make a brief reappearance in the BK-9 alone and to disappear again with the EA7 doesn’t seem to indicate any continuity at all!

All we can do is roll up our sleeves and find workarounds. Fortunately, you usually can with a bit of ingenuity (I like your dual f/s idea), but sometimes it works out better to reevaluate your entire workflow and see if it’s easier for us to change than the arranger! I railed against the loss of the touch screen for ages, but once I decided that, seeing as my Performance List slots jumped from 128 to 999, simply taking care of all the changes I was making using the screen by moving to a different Performance, I found I was doing a fraction of the work I used to have to do while trying to play at the same time, and now I seldom miss the touch screen.

It’s nice when our arrangers are flexible. But even better when we are! 🎹😎

I want the holds and the "momentary" performance functionality to be able to activate Bass Inversion in real time during a song. (This allows me to play that odd "slash chord" when the rest of the song consists of basic chords.) The other "momentary" performance will temporarily change the Arranger Type (e.g., chord recognition mode) from "Intelligent" to "Standard." This will allow me to play occasional open fifths, 7ths with no 3rd, etc., while still using Intelligent mode for the majority of the song.

In the books I've been playing from, "open" chords are pretty rare (except for Sus2 and Sus4 which are already recognized in Intelligent mode.) But I'm also thinking about your "trick" with the chord sequencer and the NTA.

Casio seized upon Roland's missed opportunity here... Casio "Fingered 1" mode is very similar to Roland's Intelligent mode. However- on the Casio, if you play [1+5] you get an open Fifth. On the Roland, playing [1+5] triggers a Major chord, which is really dumb, since you could already get a Major chord by playing only the root, or 1+3+5. What a shame we can't hack the OS and make small changes to things like this! I would probably be investing my setup time in a Casio MZ-X500, except that the MIDI implementation on that board is half-baked, and the keybed is rubbish!

I’m pretty sure that anyone used to a different system can make an argument for their preferred mode being logical too!

The bottom line is, pick any one system, you can find strengths and flaws, but over the years of using one system, you play to its strengths and play around its weaknesses until they become so ingrained you may not even realize you are playing around a weakness.

That’s kind of the nature of the beast… every chord, every note combination, is open to interpretation. CEGA might be C6. It might be Am7/C. CGD might be Copen2. It might be Gsus4/C. There really is no way that an arranger can tell without additional input (a bass pedal input, or a two handed chord with the root doubled, etc.). Chords are contextual, and that’s outside modern arrangers’ capabilities so far.

So we live with the system. And have to accept when it all goes wrong!

Technology has always pushed forward regardless. There are many typists that still prefer a mechanical typewriter, their careers were built around the rhythm of accounting for the travel of the letter as it struck the paper. But they adapted, or found a different career… Usually that adaptation creates its own strengths.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but holds aren’t linked to Performances, are they? That’s kind of the whole point of holds. So I’m still a little unsure if they are your answer as there’s no way to defeat them on the fly. You’re still trying to find a system that allows you to go old school when simply using the Performance system to do everything in one go is how the arranger is designed.

Even selecting styles is a massive task on the fly with many panel button presses to find a style not on the first couple of pages of the ROM categories, or a fair bit of scrolling if you keep User Styles in one folder so they can have custom OTS’s. Ditto for Tones unless you are content with the ROM sound with its ROM MFX. I wish Favorites had allowed editing, but no luck!

We are victims of our own desires! We all wanted more sounds, more styles, more effects, more more more! Now we are stuck trying to wade through all those choices on the fly and it seems that it just got too hard to do well without it detracting from the art of playing. 😎🎹

I haven't fully tested my assumptions yet. But it appears from reading the manual *and the addenda* that both Peformances and OTS have "holds." There's a lot of overlap among parameters between the two sets of holds. This could be why some people swear there are bugs in the performance workflow.

My plan is to have the Performances hold everything EXCEPT the Arranger Type (e.g. chord recognition mode.) So using the pedal to momentarily select an alternate performance will only change the chord fingering. It will work like the Shift key on a typewriter or computer keyboard. Releasing the pedal will restore the default Intelligent mode chord recognition.

I'm hoping to use OTS to change everything EXCEPT the chord recognition. Essentially this is the inverse of what I'm doing with performances. So selecting a different OTS will change the part voicing, Melody Intelligence, etc. In some cases also the selected style variation, triggering a fill-in, etc. The only thing this OTS-based approach WON'T allow me to do, is to easily use two different styles for the same song (because the OTS is contained WITHIN its parent Style.)

My intention is to choose the most appropriate ROM style for a song in my playlist. Save a copy of that style to the USB stick, named for the song. Customize the tempo, OTS, and rhythm part voicing appropriately. Save the edited OTS, and then save the whole style again to the same location (overwrite.) In some cases multiple songs might be based on the same ROM style. Hopefully I'll be able to customize the styles enough to prevent obvious repetition.

Regarding ease of access, I guess my thought was to save the custom styles in sub-folders on the USB stick. Right now I don't play that many different songs. Perhaps eventually I'll have to organize them by genre, or alphabetically.

With over 1500 ROM tones to choose from, I think I can find some that are suitable. Most of the time my part voicing will be selected by the OTS (which hopefully also save the FX.) But when I'm practicing, experimenting, etc., having some Favorite ROM tones handy will make things fast and fun.

I suppose my approach is different from most people's, and not strictly what the programmers intended. But the beauty of these instruments is that they are customizable, which allows them to acommodate a variety of work-flows and levels of playing skill.

What kind of number are we talking about when saying ‘not that many’ songs? Some say this for a few tens, some a few hundred, some say it for a few thousand! My gig playlist is about 400 distinct tunes, but I have other Perf. lists optimized for live band play, Xmas tunes, and different singers I’ve worked with. In fairness, a few dozen entries takes next to no time (maybe a day or so, which is FAR less time than you’ve spent just trying to figure out the bass inversion toggle issue) to create so you have everything set exactly the way you want.

The problem with using OTS is that they are stored in the style itself, not the Performance, so if you want a style to have different OTS for different songs, you need to create a user style for each. That means a lot more styles in the sub-folders (and using sub-folders necessities a LOT more scrolling and pressing to navigate on the fly) because you cannot overwrite a ROM style, nor place the styles under the style category buttons. They MUST go on the stick, which means a lot of navigation on the fly.

If you’re only doing a few songs (whatever that means!) I think you are making things massively complicated using holds and hand selecting styles when simply creating one or two Performances per song and that’s the ONLY thing you need to select. The Performance for one thing will call up the style no matter where it is. Which calls up your OTS. Which calls up ALL the settings. Which calls up any Tone you want initially before you engage the OTS. No holds needed.

And if you want to move to a different Performance (for another song or an alternate keyboard layout) without changing tempo, rather than using holds, a long press on the tempo button engages a ‘lock’ which can quickly be defeated again before your next song.

I think you are massively overthinking this, when the Performance list automates basically EVERYTHING, and reduces the whole lot to one button press.

By the way, how are you succeeding getting a momentary toggle out of the dual switches to move Perf. Up/down? I didn’t think that could be done, each is a separate function…