Programming User Styles; Concept - Roland VA-76 Owner's Manual

12. Programming User Styles

You can program your own accompaniments (Styles)
on the VA-76. Styles you program do not reside in
ROM, which is why we call them User Styles, or Styles
created by a user (either you or someone else).

12.1 Concept

There are three ways of creating new Styles:
• By converting portions of a Standard MIDI File into
an accompaniment to be played by the Arranger (see
page 155).
• By creating new accompaniments from scratch (see
page 165).
• By editing existing Styles, which requires that you
copy them and then alter the settings or notes you do
not like (see page 172).
The third option is the fastest, because you only need
to substitute those parts that, in one way or another,
do not "work" for the song you want to play. Program-
ming Styles from scratch is a lot faster than you may
think because the VA-76 is equipped with a number of
functions that allow you to cut down programming
time to the absolute minimum.
Patterns
User Styles and internal Styles are short sequences or
patterns (usually only four, sometimes eight measures
long) you can select in realtime. That is precisely what
we showed you in "Using the VA-76's Arranger" on
page 25. If you have ever worked with a rhythm pro-
grammer (the BOSS DR-770, for example), the pat-
tern concept may sound familiar. You program a
pattern only once and then use it at several points in a
song. In other words, one short musical phrase can go
a long way.
Pattern-based accompaniments usually consist of the
following elements:
• The basic groove, i.e. the rhythm that is the backbone
of the song.
• Several alternatives for the basic groove that keep the
accompaniment interesting and suggest some kind of
"evolution" or "variation".
• Fill-Ins to announce the beginning of new parts.
• The beginning and ending of a song.
As a rule, programming four to eight drum patterns
for a three-minute song is enough. Just use them in
the right order to make them suitable for your song,
and you're ready to play. In fact, what is called a "song"
on a drum machine, is called "Arranger" on the VA-76.
Drum machine songs have to be programmed before-
hand, while the Music Style patterns can be selected
on the fly by pressing the appropriate buttons or using
the Orchestrator/Morphing function.
The VA-76 allows you to program 36 different pat-
terns per Style, some of which are selectable via dedi-
cated buttons ([ORIGINAL], [VARIATION] or via the
display, see "Orchestrator and Morphing" on
page 62), or that are selected on the basis of the chords
you play in the chord recognition area of the keyboard
(major, minor, seventh).
Tracks
Unlike a drum machine, a Style not only contains the
rhythm part (drums & percussion) but also a melodic
accompaniment consisting of two to three musical
parts, such as piano, guitar, bass, and strings. That is
why the VA-76's divisions work with tracks – eight to
be precise. See also "Arranger parts" on page 95.
The part-to-track assignment is fixed. You cannot
assign the ADrums part to track 6, for example.
The reason why the ADrums part is assigned to track 1
and the ABass part to track 2 is that most program-
mers and recording artists start by laying down the
rhythm section of a song.
There are exceptions to this rule, however, so feel free
to start with any other part if that is easier for the Style
you are programming.
Note: Though there are six Acc (or Accomp) parts, most
Styles only contain two or three melodic accompaniment
lines. In most cases, less means more, i.e. do not program six
melodic accompaniments just because the VA-76 provides
that facility; too many accompaniment lines tend to blur
the arrangement. If you listen very carefully to a CD, you
will discover (perhaps to your surprise) that it is not the
number of instruments you use that makes a song sound
"big" but rather the right notes at the right time.
VA-76 – Concept
163