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Noticed tonight that Studio Sets presets 065-069 are new and set up with the keyboard groups, had some real fun trying those out and recording straight into the sequencer with groups.

I really dismissed this update, but this grouping function is an absolute revelation, fantastic stuff!

Had a play at placing the same drawbar organ but with different drawbar settings across multiple parts, and then creating groups so i could hit different drawbar configs while playing - and with the patch remain it worked really well, seamless.

One i put on a heavy reverb offset too, and that was really trippy to be able to quickly bring that in, you could easily save a synth preset in a studio set and have one with long release and another short, an flick between them on the fly, and it would save as the offsets are saved on a studio set level believe?

Of course, you can even use the keyboard groups to bring in a different organ as the bass notes.

It's really fun to play, and i'm proper excited! :) lol

The groups function really is a great idea!

I was messing around with this function today, long reverb & delay tails with no cutting out, it's great for long ambient Brian Eno/Steve Roach style pads, set 3 or 4 in a group with a long release and plenty of reverb, & while it's still droning on, bring in another group with a slow attack set on the offsets page. And because the parts get switched off before the next group starts, it doesn't hit the polyphony when still fading out. I have a feeling this feature will be used a lot :)

Exactly that Lunar!! I used to use Part Mutes, and the polyphony was such an issue that i stopped.

Being able to hold that note and bring in a new group is fantastic, and it will play out until you release it, i've not noticed any kind of sound hiccups either.

I can see me using more ethnic/lesser used patches with high timbres with these groupings as it's lovely with that bit of high end tinkering away, pretty much as per the ( i suspect?) Japanese-infused presets that came with the 2.0 update. I'd never reach for mallets and the such (i.e. prst 065), but they sound lovely over simmering pads. :)

Skijumptoes, I was messing with a group that had the Metal Pad, Translucence pad and Lunar Strings (I suspect probably not named after me) in one group, 2nd group had a D-50 bellpad, valley air, a heavily tape-delayed arpeggio & the Integra Jupiter-8 strings with various octave settings and long attack/release times. It sounded amazing & nearly sent me to sleep.

No glitches or having to mess with the voice reserve settings. 8-note chords & no cutting out with this little trick; Those pads and chords will hit the polyphony fairly quickly, but set up a group with all parts off, release the keys, while the sound is still going through a long release, change to the empty group & then back to the original group, and it "resets" the polyphony count. This really is a major upgrade for the FA, studio or live, this is a powerful and versatile feature.

With careful setting of the Offsets, and good timing, this function can almost act like individual part volume, and 16 "scenes" per studio set, that's a lot of control.

Skijumptoes wrote:.

I really dismissed this update, but this grouping function is an absolute revelation, fantastic stuff!

Yeah, see!!!!

Had a play at placing the same drawbar organ but with different drawbar settings across multiple parts, and then creating groups so i could hit different drawbar configs while playing - and with the patch remain it worked really well, seamless.

That's another great use for it. Takes up all your parts for as many different settings as you want, but still could be amazingly useful.

One i put on a heavy reverb offset too, and that was really trippy to be able to quickly bring that in, you could easily save a synth preset in a studio set and have one with long release and another short, an flick between them on the fly, and it would save as the offsets are saved on a studio set level believe?

Yeah, so you see how this "solves" the MFX problem - you turn delay on by switching to a group with that synth in with delay, then change to a group with that same synth in it without delay when you want to turn it off. You still have to save a non-effected version of the same sound in a user slot, but at least this is something you can now access live with the pads (or virtual pads) rather than having to be on the Effects Edit screen for that Part to turn the MFX on and off.

As I said before, game changer. If the price of the keyboard is the same for new buyers, this makes what was already a great synth for the money into an amazing bang for the buck for live players.

very cool, stevel. I will check this out!

I with you here guys. As i said in the software 2.0 thread you can do funky stuff with this switch.
You can do medleys if you are in a cover band i can imagine. This is awesome.

This is a fantastic new feature and has transformed this keyboard into a completely different instrument!
It is unusual for Roland to update a workstation and add features they normally just bring out a new product, so it is indeed a welcome change!

Well done Roland for supporting and making this the instrument it can be !!!

One last thing needed to make keyboard groups extremely convenient - the ability to switch between them with Ctrl1/Ctrl2 pedals. Sometimes tempo is too fast or both hands are occupied, to be able to hit the pads button for switch to different group.

techie wrote:One last thing needed to make keyboard groups extremely convenient - the ability to switch between them with Ctrl1/Ctrl2 pedals. Sometimes tempo is too fast or both hands are occupied, to be able to hit the pads button for switch to different group.

Can u make this via effects screen with pedals assigned inc/dec and then placing the cursor to part number change and setting up the groups conviently?!

Even better would be the ability to change keyboard groups via a midi pedal board. Anyone found a way of doing this?

The keyboard groups are simply setting the keyboard toggle for each part by using the pads as macros.

If you get a midi foot controller that's capable of sending those settings, it would be easy.

Alternatively use a computer to route a standard midi foot controller to the SysEx data required - Not sure what's out there really, as the pads work for me. But the importance is that SysEx is required to swap those groups not your average Midi CC - like controller.

quick way to get sysex on any controller is to start an empty sequencer, manipulate controller, stop sequencer, check microscope for sysex string of controller part

PS: make sure transmit data is on in system menu