The game changer with the new Korg is the ability to simultaneously play two different styles, along with the ability to turn on and off individual Parts in each one.

If you think about it, that basically ups your available styles by several orders of magnitude as you mix and match on the fly.

The demos of this feature have been a bit lackluster in my opinion, as few of the demonstrators did much more than select two full styles and mix them together. But the REAL power of this system lies in selecting two styles, then muting certain Parts in each of them, so you get say bass, percussion and electric guitars from one, and the drums, horns and piano from another…

Even with say only a half dozen styles of a very similar groove, that’s hundreds of possibilities all sounding a bit different.

I don’t know the full details of the system yet, but for people that use the arranger section much, you just got gifted thousands (potentially) of new styles. Most arrangers have in the past been able to do this by laboriously importing Divisions from other styles into one ‘Frankenstyle’ in the style editor. But the process was cumbersome and slow, and you couldn’t audition it until you’d done the work.

But this system is so easy to work, no more excuses!

I do think there are a few OS niggles about the system, though. Primarily, you need two hands to start both styles at the same time. This is ridiculous! When would you NOT want both styles in sync??? 🙄 And okay, if on the odd occasion you did, wouldn’t THAT be the function you used two hands for?

Also, so far I haven’t seen if there’s any control over which style’s Intro/outro/fills play. Your odds of finding two styles where they match is slim to none! Some way of prioritizing one or the other is essential.

To be honest, I am a little confused that the two style system hasn’t set the arranger world on fire! 🔥 It is a complete game changer for the arranger world, and opens up exponential growth in available styles. And, as this OP shows, it seems that style fatigue sets in pretty quickly no matter how many you provide! Given that you can create doxens of new styles just by mixing and matching the Parts from two styles and two sets of multipads, style fatigue should be a thing of the past…