Not sure about Yamaha, but one of the things I’ve always liked about Roland’s was, they didn’t change their style format ever… or at least as long as I’ve used them, starting with an RA90. If a Roland could save a style, if it wasn’t burned into ROM with no backup options at all, you can still load that style into a modern Roland and it plays!

Mind you, there’s a fair bit of nostalgia looking back at the early days of arrangers. It’s a lot easier to remember the few styles that DID work out perfectly (often not remembering the myriad that didn’t!) and it’s convenient to forget about how we used to have to reshape our repertoires to concentrate on songs the styles did well and not perform the songs that they didn’t!

One of the things I really like to do is turn off all style parts other than drums, bass and rhythm guitar. Does the style now sound too busy? Too song specific? Surprisingly, often the answer is no. We sometimes forget that we now have two or more extra Parts than we used to in the arranger’s early years. Strip even modern styles down to the early levels of complexity, all of a sudden there’s a ton more room to breathe, to play, to sing or dance!