Tempo Track; Positions For Storing A Song - Roland Fantom-Xa Owner's Manual

Overview of the Fantom-Xa

Tempo Track

The Tempo track records tempo changes of a song over time. It can
be used for tempo changes during a song. If a song has the same
tempo from beginning to end, the Tempo track can be ignored.
When a song is first recorded on the Fantom-Xa, a tempo setting at
the time of recording will be stored at the beginning of the Tempo
track. Therefore when song playback starts from the beginning, the
song will always play back at this initial tempo.
Thus playback tempo is determined by the Tempo track setting. If
you modify the tempo during playback, the overall tempo of the
song will be controlled by the setting you make.
Beat Track
The Beat track records the time signature of each measure of a song.
Set the Beat track when recording a new song, or when you want to
change time signature during a song.
Pattern
Patterns are a place to store performance data separately from
phrase tracks. You can create up to one hundred patterns; as with a
phrase track, each pattern can contain up to sixteen MIDI channels of
data.
Patterns can be assigned to phrase tracks. This means that if your
song uses repeating phrases such as drum or bass riffs, you can
record each phrase as a pattern, and then use the Step Recording
window to assign the patterns at the appropriate locations (p. 130).
In this case, the phrase track only contains "pattern call numbers"
which specify which pattern is to be played. This is convenient, and
also lets you conserve memory.
The RPS function (p. 154) for immediate playback also applies to
Patterns. Patterns are therefore convenient for live performance, if
you've recorded necessary sequencer data as Patterns and take them
to the gig.
Patterns also make fine scratch-pads for musical ideas.
Songs and the Sound Generator
Mode
The Fantom-Xa's sequencer can be used at any time, regardless of
the mode of the sound generator (Patch/Performance).
In Performance mode you can use up to sixteen sounds, with each
part playing a different sound. This means that Performance mode is
ideal for recording or playing an ensemble that uses multiple
instruments, such as drums, bass, and piano.
In Patch mode you can play using the sounds that are assigned to the
Keyboard part and the Pad part.
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Positions for Storing a Song

Temporary Area
The sequencer has an area called Temporary Area that can
temporarily store one song. So we call this temporary song.
The song in Temporary Area is volatile and will be lost when the
power is turned off. To keep a song, you must save it to user
memory or memory card.
Memory Card/User Memory
If you want to keep the song in Temporary Area that you recorded
or edited, you must save it as a song file onto a memory card or into
user memory. Either method lets you save up to 256 songs.
A card and user memory can contain two file types. The three-letter
symbol shown in parentheses ( ) is a file name extension that
distinguishes the different file types.
Song File (.SVQ)
This file is a song created on the Fantom-Xa. It is called an MRC Pro
song.
Standard MIDI File (.MID)
Standard MIDI File is a standard file format that allows sequencer
data to be exchanged between most musical applications. Fantom-Xa
files can be saved as Standard MIDI Files. This also allows you to
play back commercially available music data (GM scores) that is
compatible with the GM/GM2 system.
fig.SongFile.e
Temporary Memory
Temporary Area
Memory Card
Song file
Standard MIDI file
User Memory
Song file
Standard MIDI file
Fantom-Xa