Hi Starkeeper,
basically my main arranger setup will still be my
CLP170 piano as controller plus I use it's piano sound for lead voice
laptop/omb/hypercanvas for auto arranger functions & styles

Okay , I'm pretty limited in what I like to play. I love piano, and I really only use the styles to add a backing.
The styles help to make me sound a bit fuller and play some of the left hand arpeggio's I'd have little hope of playing myself. I'm a bit too old to start from scratch again. I just want to have a bit of fun.

At this stage, a controller like Frank's wouldn't really be of much use to me when piano is my main melody voice and I can't go past the piano sound on my clp170.
The reason I'm going down the software route is for uniformity of sound for the styles. I've had so many keyboards over the years, and each time I've updated/replaced one, I've gone through the exercise of
re-tweaking the styles. What I'm hoping to do , is slowly go through, and tweak the styles I'm currently using to work with the hypercanvas. If in a year or so I find a much better softsynth then I can either tweak the styles again or just use the new softsynth for newer styles. Either way I'll still have the hypercanvas. I can also have a number of softsynths in my laptop, whereas it gets a bit ridiculous trying to keep all of one's keyboards. ( I'd probably have over 50 by now, if I'd kept them all)

The DGX is for a bit of portability. At the moment I don't have anything that will play a style outright ie that doesn't need tweaking. I only got my Hypercanvas a couple of days ago, and my styles are going to require a fair bit of tweaking to work with it. Plus a bit of A/B comparison doesn't hurt when tweaking styles. The
1 intro/ending and 2 variations isn't a problem for me. I usually edit a style to suite a song. I'm not imaginative enough to use more than 2 variations in a song anyway. If I need more , I'll use OMB.

OMB is definately worth looking at. Apart from being an auto arranger, it has some really remarkable psr style editing tools.
It allows you to do stuff that the top end keyboards can do, plus some
ie create style from midifile
step edit all the style parts ( not just the drum tracks)
allows you to import & export style parts
ie
if you like the Intro2 from style 8beat1 and you'd like to use that Intro2 in style 8beat2, all you have to do is "export" intro2 from 8beat1 and "import" it into 8beat2. What a great way of setting up styles for the way you want.
Also has another great feature for importing & exporting tracks ie similar to above, but instead of a whole style part, you import and export individual style tracks ie drums , bass, guitar etc again if you like a drum track from one style and you would like to use it in another , you just do the same as above but with the track "import/export" function.
Possibilities are endless especially with converted styles which sometimes don't work properly. If you have an intro that doesn't work, replace it with one that does from a similar style. If you have a style part where the drums don't work, find a similar style, use the drums from it.
A great way of creating Intro's & endings is to use a Fade In or a Fade out. Omb allows you to do that to in it's Stylemaker section.
If you're having problems with individual drum velocities or mapping, check out the Convert function in Stylemaker/track /convert, it allows you to convert a b2 bass drum (35) to a c3 bass drum
(36) plus change it's velocity at the click of a button for the whole track, plus you can save the setting for the next time you need to use it.

Some of the above functions may help you too to get your softsynth working.

Jos does have a demo on his site, I think all the stuff is functional, but you probably can't save.

best wishes
Rikki

Hi Starkeeper,
what has actually gone wrong with your setup?
I have the Synergi Fonts but I found the drums a bit too full on so I decided I'd try & edit them. Then I also discovered something had gone wrong in the download ie some of my instrument banks were mixed up and worse still when I resaved my edits, my 24mb font had grown to 130 mb's. My laptop was doing strange things to them. Frank made some suggestions, and I did manage to get the font back to 30mb but I decided to go for the Hypercanvas instead.
I tried the same edits in the desktop computer ( which has an sb live card ) and it saved them perfectly, only problem is I don't use desktop for music.

You are using Synergi if I'm not mistaken? I actually preferred the drums in the smaller bank Synergi200le. They weren't quite as full on( don't know how else to explain it)

I've found drums are the biggest hassle when changing from the original sound source. Even if the synergi setup is xg it doesn't mean that the individual drums are playing at the correct volume in the mix could be all wrong ie hhats could be drowning out bass drum etc etc
I was going to fix it by editing the volume of the individual drums in the font. But then I ended up with the problem I mentioned earlier ( my laptop not being font friendly)

I have 2 alternatives now. I can edit the individual drum volumes in my hypercanvas & save them, or I can use OMB and use the track conversion function I mentioned in the previous post.
Either way I'll have to do some drum conversions as Hypercanvas is GM2 not xg.

I'm sort of looking at this as a more long term project ie do the styles as required.

The dgx is going to come in handy for auditioning styles for new songs, then I'll convert the style to the hypercanvas.

If I can be of any help , let me know.

best wishes
Rikki

"what has actually gone wrong with your setup?". That's the problem, I don't know exactly what's wrong. My ears tell me that something is wrong or missing. I live in two places, and my Yammie is not in the same location as my desktop with SB live, so I can't compare (do an A/B). (My wife doesn't know that I own a Yammie)
Live-Styler gets an error, every once in a while, that is a smaller problem. I could try re-installing or maybe it's because it's a demo version.
Thanks for offering to help.
P.S. Oh, what software do you use to host the softsynths? Buzzmachine?
Starkeeper

[This message has been edited by Starkeeper (edited 10-14-2004).]

Hi Starkeeper,
that brings back memories. I had my first synth hidden under the bed for about the first year. Hubby didn't discover it till we actually moved houses. He found it amusing ( not at first), and he's never let me live it down. Fortunately for me he was never interested in my keyboards, as long as I wasn't out of pocket too much, when I bought and sold , he didn't care.

I used to get a lot of my stuff on loan first. Try before I buy. Neat way to do A/B testing.

One thing I used to do before I sold an arranger ( if I was planning to convert any styles) was to record the drums (on audio tape at a set velocity. ie step record them all the way through from bass to jingle tree, whaterever the highest & lowest notes are at a fixed velocity of just say 100.
Then I could listen back to the recording and try and do a bit of an A/B test if things weren't sounding right. Not as good as having the keyboard on hand, but it might help.

If you need to email me it's rikkisbears@hotmail.com

Personally I don't use Livestyler because I like the editing features in OMB. So not sure what would be causing your errors. I had the demo version also, I had a few problems with it playing some of my piano arpeggio's correctly. Could well have been that I did something wrong in my set up.

I'm using Forte Ensemble with Midi Yoke.

best wishes
Rikki

[

Rikki,
Where did you buy forte ensemble?
LOL. My wife wants me to bring my keyboard stand home. I told her, "no, no, no, I need it to hang my close on"
Kevin

[This message has been edited by Starkeeper (edited 10-15-2004).]

Hi Starkeeper,
there is a demo available http://www.brainspawn.com/products/forte/

I'm not sure if you actually need this unless you're using a dxi plug in like Hypercanvas, or Live Synth Pro etc if you're using the fonts directly via your sb live card is it a requirement? ( I could be wrong)
My laptop ( which is my music computer) doesn't have an sblive card , so I couldn't run the fonts directly.

Just out of interest, have I got this straight?
your psr is not at home
your computer is at home ( do you have any type keyboard at all at home?)

What I'm wondering is, are you actually after better quality sounds( than what your psr has) , or are you trying to match the psr sounds with the fonts, so that you can still do some musical stuff at home in your computer, save it and play it back in your keyboard & vice versa?
ie your problem is your computers in one spot, you're keyboards somewhere else so it makes it difficult for you to get anything done. If this is the case let me know , I may have another solution email me at
rikkisbears@hotmail.com

If it's a case of better quality sounds and you want to use the fonts you'll probably have to either edit them or edit the styles.

best wishes
Rikki

Rikki,
We have an updated computer at home (with SB Live card), and I have a Roland EM-20 arranger at home, which has limited styles. I use it as the MIDI controller. The Roland cannot create or input new styles, so would like to be able to use styles and yes would like to upgrade the voices as well. I also prefer Yamaha over Roland styles. I thought this could be done more economically then purchasing a new keyboard. I'm also thinking that for the future, every time a new voice or style becomes available, I won't have to buy a whole new keyboard, just to get 1 voice.
Starkeeper
Starkeeper

Hi Starkeeper,
basically sounds like you're trying to do exactly what I'm trying to do.
Seems like you're definetly going to have to go through the process of tweaking the styles to work with the synergi fonts.
As I mentioned previously, I'm using OMB as my arranger as well as for editing styles.
Normal instruments shouldn't be too big a problem, just change the volume of the individual tracks ( bass, piano etc ) till you get the mix right.
The drums are a bit more of a problem. Even though they're xg the individual velocities may not be correct.
I'm using a function in OMB called Convert in the track function of the stylemaker section. It allows me to change the velocity of individual drums and save as a bit of a template.
It's a bit of a long process, but it seems to be working with the Hypercanvas.

Try the demo of OMB and you'll see all the stylemaker functions available.

best wishes
Rikki


[QUOTE]Originally posted by Starkeeper:
[B]Rikki,


[This message has been edited by rikkisbears (edited 10-18-2004).]