I think the dual style player feature is pretty groundbreaking, especially when combined (if possible, I’ve yet to confirm this) with seamless style switching.

Of course, I don’t think any style makers have fully realized its implications, but it is the death knell for the old ‘4 variation and some fills’ paradigm that has ruled arrangers for decades. Rather than switching or blending between very different styles, this opens up the ability to have more subtle variation changes, more variety of fills, and even things like half-time and double time options without giving up your available variation changes.

Of everything I’ve seen so far, this is the only one I’d label TRULY ‘groundbreaking’. And unless Korg are hiding their light under a bushel, I don’t think they realize the implications of it themselves. For years I’ve been kind of ‘meh’ when it comes to styles, simply because four patterns and some fills rarely matches the variety of expression in real live and recorded music (at least in legacy music… modern music seems content with a far more restrictive selection!).

But literally unlimited style change live (because of seamless load style switching) and thanks to two style blending, in effect EIGHT Variations and eight fills and two breaks active at any one time - that’s quite the step up.

Like I said, I’m not sure style creators have yet realized this implication, but for those willing to roll their own, it’s not too technical a deal to take an existing style and change a few things, alter some fills, change a guitar pattern to one from another style, change a bassline or comp, save as a new style, then load that into one of the Player slots. And voilá! A far more diverse style to jam with…

Just speculating at this point until the things get used by real people, but if the Songbook can load both Players seamlessly on the fly (this is what I'm unsure of right now - I can see how loading one while another plays is doable, but what if both styles are playing?) it would be easy to extend this idea almost limitlessly.

I have to admit, this has got me curious. Anything that helps alleviate the boredom of repetitive styles is good in my book! I’ve been saying for decades that four variations don’t cut it. FINALLY someone fixes it. And hasn’t yet quite realized how it could change the landscape… 🎹😎