Through EMC styleworks software, almost all brands of arranger keyboards can be converted to another brand. Contact Fran Carango, a member of this forum for more information. Fran sells this software here in the United States, or he can tell you how to get in touch with the Company who I believe is in germany.
The styles a found in many of todays arranger keyboards although really good suffer at times because many of the styles sound like the same band members have tried to record all of the styles. If I were to play a style in a funk genre, I want the band to sound like all these musicians play "funk". If I want a Polka Style, I want all the musicians to be from a European country and have grown up playing Polkas all their lives. In other words, some Companys hire their style creators with better concepts of the music they are creating than others. This is most evident with Solton products. In my opinion, their style programmers did a great job of convincing me that each style has been created by a band who plays that kind of music. Their big band styles sound like a 1940's dance band, and their Latin styles sound like a Latin Band, etc. etc. When I listen to the Yamaha 9000, and I like this keyboard alot, I get the feeling that each style was played by just one band and that is less exciting then the Solton's styles. I hope I have explained this well enough. I know I've talked about this a long time ago when I first got excited about the Solton X1. I've told Yamaha Engineers as well as other keyboard Mfgs. that they all could give us these same exciting styles if they just hire the right programmers. I guess this is not as easy as it seems. When Yamaha sends their Engineers to my store and they listen to what it is I like in different keyboards, I think they are listening and I think or at least hope that the next PSR generation keyboard will meet my standards of what a pro arranger keyboard should have in the style catagory department.
George Kaye