" Too few even acknowledge the importance that a good bassline makes to the structure of a song, and the nature of direction it can show. Arranger play, with it's short repeated SMFs (that's all a style is, after all), never gets the bassline to indicate a chord change.

In a real bassline, the bass player knows what the next chord is, and shapes his bassline to go towards it, thus giving the changes a sense of structure. In an arranger, the bassline never knows what chord is next (until you actually play it!), so it bassically (!) just sits there, until, whoops! now it is playing another chord. No connection, no shape, no flow.......

For me, it is one of the most glaring differences between a real rhythm section, and arranger play. Now add in the fact that ALL the arranger parts are doing the same thing, to a greater or lesser degree, and you have the REAL difference between arrangers and SMFs. At least, to my ears, it is night and day. So, in a nutshell, you gain the ability to change form and structure with an arranger, at the cost of smooth flow and a sense of coherence. " ....


Just my thought... I find there are many songs that can be covered with styles, however, songs that have distinct "bridges" (musically speaking), can not be covered with a generic style... The crowd, imo reacts differently if they recognize the song immediately, hence the midi file does this the best..... Ketron made "song styles" that had bridges built in to the variation of the style, which was cool to use in real time and have the audience identify the song quickly. So I just pay attention to the crowd//
What's interesting is that Yamaha/Roland /Technics never called their styles "song styles",even though many styles, sound like songs. Yamaha-Korg-Roland have always had "song books / one touch " features giving you suggestion for which style will be musically correct for the song you are looking for. Ketron's song styles can be very handy for real time performance.
Here's an example of ketron's song styles : SONG STYLES 1 - 9SD0S1 - Songs Styles
A WHITER SHADE OF PALE
DON’T BE CRUEL
HOLD ON I’M COMING
JOHNNY B. GOODE
LONG TRAIN RUNNIN’
STAND BY ME
WE HAVE ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD
WHEN A MAN LOVES A WOMAN


When it comes to playing with midi files vs. styles with other musicians- I find that muting parts of midi sequences is the best when jamming with a drummer or guitarist or bassist...

I'll be back.. Dan O


Peace ...

The T2 has a style that sounds like "takin care of business".... but I couldn't or wouldn't use that style more than once ,
for a live performance..

[This message has been edited by DanO1 (edited 01-28-2007).]