I've now evaluated Live Styler for a few weeks. I thought it would make my dream come true.
Well,, it almost does eccept some issues.
Here are the problems I've had and some sugestions to make it better for live playing.
In order form most to least important.

1) The screen that shows when the " ? " icon is pressed, randomly pops up on me and the style stops playing. Style has to be reloaded to play again. (demo limitation?)
(this is besides the occasional error that shuts down the program - Please note: I've repartitioned, reformatted, and reinstalled Windows XP just for this!! That's how important it is for me. I installed Live Styler and Vsampler standalone with no dx or vst support. I've found this to be the most stable.)

2)Style playing stops when a new style is selected even if selected through "Fload Style".
I don't know of any arranger keyboard that works this way. For me, it makes it unsuitable for live performance.

3)Pressing a fill automaticaly changes the accompaniment to that variation. It is good to have as an option (similar to the Ketron when the jump feature is selected - I'm not sure about the Yamaha arrangers) but this option should be able to be disabled.
.................

4)The right hand harmony, when selected to AOC (left hand chord recognition), sounds TERRIBLE.
It doesn't even follow the left hand chord properly.(demo limitation?) Maybe this can be configured with "midi spy" function but the manual doesn't mention anything about the midi spy button.
Also, the harmony only sounds while the left hand keys are pressed. It should continue playing even if the left hand is released, till the next chord is pressed.(demo limitation?)

5)The melody and drum volume sliders don't work. (demo limitation?)

6)When the transpose button is pressed, the chord display shows the original chord (the actual keys pressed on the controller keyboard) It would be good to have an option where it displays the transposed chord information. This is how it is on my Ketron X4.

7)A shortcut key for harmony enable/disable would be a good feature for live playing. A shortcut for the harmony type would be even better!

8)Live-Styler is MAGNIFICENT!!!

The first three issues concern me the most. Without them I cannot purchase Live-Styler for live use.

I e-mailed to Stellberg@Stellberg.de twice about one or two of these issues some time ago but I didn't get a responce yet. I imagine that Stellberg wants to continually make his program better and better thats why I still have hope.
Frank, maybe you can help me with this one? Maybe forward this post to him or something?
I would really aprreciate that.

I still think that Live Styler is the best soft arranger out there.
I tried OMB. It's also good, especially the harmony which sounds fantastic. I just think that Live-Styler has more options and features that make it suitable for live use. Maybe OMB will win in another version.

Comments, criticism , 2 cents,...Anyone?

Jick



[This message has been edited by Jick Duck (edited 11-23-2003).]