Hi Chony,
you shouldn't need it.
My PA800 imports & exports midi file style parts onboard.
ie
If you're trying to use a song based midifile for variations, you'd have to make sure there are" no chord changes" in the part you want to use for your variations
ie it doesn't transpose automatically, you'd have to manually transpose to get rid of chord changes in the section you want to use.
For intro's & endings chord changes are ok.

If you're actually creating your style from scratch, but prefer to do it in a pc sequencer rather than onboard

For variations you have 2 options

1. Record your variation based on the
maj7th chord.
After recording, save as midifile type 0 & use the import function in the style record section of the keyboard. Then set your note transposition table to i series. etc etc
This way you can get away with doing
1 cv ( 1 chord variation type) for each of the 4 variations.
Similar to recording for PSR's.

Option 2
If you have a really complex style,
you can record a cv for maj parts, min parts, 7ths etc (up to 6 seperate chord types).
Each of these cv's have to be imported as midifiles into the style record section seperately.
Sounds like a lot of work, but one you get the hang of it, it's really quite simple.

For Intro's & endings, if they have a chord progression, it is recommended to do a Maj, & a Minor cv.

There are 2 cv's available for intro's, endings & fills.

There are up to 6 cv's available for variations.

If you have a style that you wish to edit in a pc sequencer ( rather than onboard) you use the export function. This saves the style part as a midifile.

For simple editing , I normally just do it onboard. It has an event list editor. Plus some other functions like changing velocities on a track, cutting bars from a track, deleting note data. It's not bad.

The onboard sequencer has a few more functions than the style editor, including copying. I had to lengthen, some of my variations, so I exported the style part as a midifile. Loaded it into the onboard sequencer. Used the copy functions to add additional bars. Saved as a midifile & imported it back into the style section.

It's basically a workstation.

You can even copy pads into style tracks & vice versa.

I've literally converted some of my
psr 1500 styles ( no megavoices) to PA800 format by just changing the .sty extension to .mid
Chopping it up into individual style parts & importing them as individual midifiles into the style record section of the pa.

If there's xg drums involved, I transpose them to GM mapping in Powertracks 12.
befor chopping them into invidual style parts.
PT12 will split a drum track into seperate tracks for each type of drum note, ie all bass drums on 1 track, snares on the next etc etc
Makes altering velocities & note types easy.
Instead of editing notes individually, I can do all the snares in one go, then bass drums etc.

I don't have an expensive pc sequencer, just xgworks, PT12 & OMB.

best wishes
Rikki


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