Roland KR-3 Owner'S Manual Download

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KR-3 – Keyboard modes

ENGLISH

7.1 What is an Arranger?

Think of the Arranger’s Music Styles as your backup
band. Your KR-3 is capable of playing several “varia-
tions” (called divisions) of a given accompaniment.
All you have to do is decide what kind of music you
want to play: salsa, rhumba, pop-rock or big band?

You are the band leader, which means that you have to
tell the members of your band what to play, including
how many bars there are to each song part and how
the melody and/or solo should be accompanied.

There are two main levels: Basic and Advanced, each
consisting of two divisions called Original and
Variation.

As the name implies, Basic is the “normal” accompa-
niment level, with the basic ingredients of a profes-
sional sounding accompaniment. The Advanced level
may contain another version of the selected Music
Style or a more elaborate one. On either level (Basic
and Advanced) you can choose between the Original
accompaniment or an alternative (called Variation).
The latter usually adds one or two parts to the current
accompaniment.

If you want the accompaniment to become more com-
plex as the song evolves, here is a useful sequence:

Other elements help you refine the accompaniment.
Instead of abruptly changing to Advanced/Original,
you may want to play a short transition to announce a
new part of the song. That is what Fill In [TO VARIA-
TION] and [TO ORIGINAL] are for.

See “Switching Style arrangements (divisions)” on
page 27 for other Music Style divisions and functions
you can use to create a professional sounding accom-
paniment.

Each accompaniment (or Music Style) consists of up
to five parts:

Rhythm—

This part takes care of the drums and

percussion.

Bass—

This part plays the bass line of the selected

Music Style.

Accomp. 1~3—

These are the melodic accompani-

ment parts. Certain Music Styles use this feature, play-
ing anything from a piano line to a guitar line, an
organ line to a synth pad line.

The bass and accompaniment parts rely on the chord
or note information you play in the

chord recognition

area, i.e. the keyboard zone you have assigned to the
Arranger (originally the left half of the keyboard).

Also note that you can use the drum patterns of a
Music Style in other One Touch Program modes
(Piano and Organ). These patterns can be started in
the same way as entire Music Styles (with bass and
melodic accompaniments). See “Starting and Stop-
ping Styles” on page 25.

Settings

Press the One Touch Program [ARRANGER] button.

The KR-3 now automatically makes the following
settings:

• The Sync Start function is turned on. This means that

the Arranger will start as soon as you begin playing
with your left hand.

• The Intro function is activated so that Style playback

will start with a musical introduction.

• The keyboard is split at F#3. Use your left hand to

“transpose” the accompaniment pattern(s), and play
the melody with your right hand.

• It selects a suitable (preset) tempo as well as an Upper

Tone for the selected Music Style.

■

Additional notes

• To change the split point, see “Lower Tone on/off and

split point” on page 43.

• As in Split mode, the KR-3 automatically selects the

most appropriate pitch for the Tone assigned to the
Upper part. If you want to shift the pitch of the Upper
Tone in octave steps, see “Octave Shift: changing the
pitch by octaves” on page 20.

• See “Auto: changing the Arranger defaults” on page 43

if you don’t want the KR-3 to change the tempo and
select another Upper Tone every time you choose a
Music Style.

Piano Style Arranger — chord recognition on the
entire keyboard

If you press the [WHOLE] button after pressing the
One Touch Program [ARRANGER] button, the entire
keyboard will be scanned for chord information for
the Arranger. Let’s call this mode

Piano Style Arranger

mode.

The Arranger decodes every chord you play – no mat-
ter where you play it. Causing the Arranger to play
another chord requires that you play at least a triad

7. Playing with accompaniment (Arranger)

Basic

Original

Basic/

Variation

Advanced/

Original

Basic/

Variation

1st Verse

2nd Verse

1st Chorus