I think I can make a pretty fair style, or better I should say I've made a scant few that worked well for me. Part of it was the challenge of being able to do it, but also came the realization that there is a lot that has to go into it to get it to sound and work right, and it serves me little purpose when I want to create a new, natural sounding song, because it takes me longer to make the style than if I did the song from scratch.

There are more than enough styles out there to cover most of the material I do for the occasional ( rare right now ) live show, so like many others for the most part I'll leave the stylemaking to the pros, although I have used the PA80 style sequencer quite a bit for arrangement and quick playback of patterns ( particularly drums ) that I can't find in the styles.

With the ES, I really don't need to use the PA80's style sequencer much anymore. It's quicker to make some patterns in the ES' pattern sequencer than in the PA80's, and melodic parts or bass lines / rythyms, can be assigned as user arps. The advantage for studio / compositional work is that I can mix and match quickly. I'm not locked in like I am with a set style, so that I can instantly use bass line c with drum pattern b, and then use bass line b with drum pattern d, etc, without having to morph a style. Arps can be set up to recognize fingered chords ( like an arranger ), or individual notes, including the order in which they are played. This gives a little more flexibility.

The other reason is that for me, the PA80, while it has nice drums and synth sounds, doesn't quite match up to the Motif ( I know all a matter of taste ) in a lot of the other sound groups, especially acoustic instruments.

AJ

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 11-01-2003).]