While older styles tend to be a lot more generic and general purpose (personally, I hate songstyles. I’d much prefer a decent SMF or audio track if I want to sound really close to the original), they tend to be quite weak in the guitar programming and dynamic sound or the drum kit, because most of them come from an era before guitar modes and multiple level drum samples.

Back in the day, there was very little difference between a high velocity drum part with the volume turned down, and a low velocity drum part with the volume turned up. One sample per drum sound… Nowadays, with drum sounds like snare and Tom’s with four or more samples per sound, where the velocity and volume sit becomes critical. Most of the older styles I occasionally use had to have a ton of time editing spent n them to get the same level of dynamics as the latest styles.

In fairness, Roland (until they quit making TOTL arrangers) tended to have fewer recognizable songstyles than most, but it has become a disturbing trend with Yamaha and Korg.

One trick I have used from time to time to spruce up an old generic style is to replace the guitar parts with a ‘borrowed’ guitar part from another similar but current style, which should be a lot better with the modern guitar modes.

I have to confess, having done some style editing on Korg’s, I’m not sure I’d bother much, as Korg don’t have a global way to mess with velocity dynamics on individual drums, you have to do it not only on each variation, but also on each CV (chord variation). That’s an insane amount of work just to do something like bring up the velocity on the snare and lower its volume!

Korg need to copy Roland’s Makeup Tools editing system. This is a one step process for an entire style with a Roland… The easier you make something, the more likely the players will use it!