It seems to me that this is a big function of the arranger keyboard which is not talked about that much. I remember before the introduction of "interbreeding" with different keyboards via style conversion you were stuck with what you had in a KB or buy a new one. But now we have the ability to make our own or customize factory styles, yet I don't see this happening too often or is it talked about much. Are we getting lazy to create our own styles with our units?
I always wonder about this when I read a post saying "I can't find any good Waltzes, or Rock styles etc. etc. "
Try making your own sometime you might be surprised at what turns up!




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www.donnypesce.com

Donny,
I do quite a bit of style morphing and adding to create new styles.

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jam on,
Terry
http://imjazzed.homestead.com/Index.html

Donny,

I would be clueless about how to create a style on my X1. I have customized some styles. The X1 lets you mix and match parts by cutting and pasting. The Technics salesman once showed me how to make a style by playing it in. This looked like a nice feature. I'm not lazy but my time is limited. I have a full time job and at times three part time jobs all in the same week. When I do get time to practice I want to play not program. I don't have the time or desire to edit sounds, create sequences, or develop my own styles. I'm like Uncle Dave, I want the perfect keyboard that I can take out of the box and spend my time making music not programming.

Tom

Tom,

I see your point, But... how many times have you looked for that "Special Style" and couldn't find it? I know many Big Band styles especialy on Yamaha KB's that have that changing bass line in the 4th variations which disrupts the flow.
I always had to rerecord the bass line into the style. I used to love the Bass Lock & Drum Lock features on the Ketron units, it would let you mix and match to a degree.
I have some friends that make unbelivable styles for themselves that really sound great if you follow the procedure in the manuals. Its not easy, but it's very well worth the effort to have that "Perfect Style" no one else has.


Terry,

I love that Roland VA feature of Style Morphing. If only all this stuff could be in one Keyboard ......Dream.........dream....

Jam on...



[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 02-28-2003).]

I think the true reason we don't make our own styles from scratch is that we can not better the Factory Styles.
I find that making PADS 8 to 16 bar riffs loops in BIAB are much more productive. You can then just mute all ACC parts apart from Drums & Bass from a preset Style and then add up to 4 PAD Riffs as required.

Graham UK

Donny

I made some bossas and jazz with a mix of Tyros,Cvp209 and 9000Pro styles .
For ex: The tyros modern jazz with some 9000Pro Scat voices ( Tyros do not have)runs very very well.
At last, this is a job of patience...
Regards,
Chico

I have done quite a bit of style writing / morphing.. etc. In the end though, it is easier and faster to actually play the parts that I want for my own songs in real time than it is to create an entire style from scratch. I do mix and match quite a bit though. Also, I'll change a guitar part here, a bass line there, add or subtract from the existing drum tracks, etc.

For live play, as long as the drum and bass lines match the song I want to play, I pretty much can do the rest in real time. If I need to add a rythym part or two to customize a style because there are too many parts to play in real time or the rythym patterns don't sound right, I just do it. Example: I did not find any styles acceptable for Jim Croce's " I got a name" , so I customized one of the imternal PA80 styles until it sounded right to me.

It helps to have additional sequencing software and style creator programs to use, although I rely less and less on them as time goes on and employ more real time playing, even on drum tracks. Midi drum playing had been my achilles heel in the past, but I've worked very hard to improve in this area, because it's always faster when I can lay these tracks down in real time, even if I have to edit them a little later on.

It's tough to do on some heavy jazz / jazz fusion pieces ( and get the style to sound right to me ) , but what I will do is create just a drum style or a drum and bass style and then lay the rest of the tracks down in real time.

AJ

I used to make a lot of my own styles, on the Technics and Yamahas.
All I needed was drums, bass line, guitar strum and piano rhythm. Now, it has become more and more time-consuming, because now you have 4 variations, several fills, severals intros and several endings. Also the factory styles and converted styles are better than they used to be and it is no longer necessary.
A few years ago, I had to make almost ALL the Country/Western styles I needed. In fact last year with the Korg PA80 I had to make a couple. There was no style available to play "Good-hearted Woman" or "Blue Eyes Cryin' In The Rain" - type songs. Everything was too busy, too hokey, or too "rock n' rolly". Hope it's o.k. if I make my my own adjectives.
DonM

Donny,
The Tyros and the PA 80 both have very good style morphing capabilities.

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jam on,
Terry
http://imjazzed.homestead.com/Index.html

Don,
Lets hope you make better styles than adjectives. Making all the country styles a person NEEDS should be easy. How long does it take to make one style?

I heard this song today on a country station. It was something about how things were better before I quit drinking or something like that. I'd give it an 8.

Tom

Tom, I thought you knew all the lyrics to that song by heart.

As for making styles, I tried it several times, but I was hard pressed to come up with anything nearly as professional sounding and progressive as Yamaha's built-in styles and the Power Styles they sell on their MusicSoft website. Besides, I play a lot of country music at the Blood & Guts Saloon, therefore, one style should be sufficient.

Cheers,

Gary

Toby Keith

I used to come home late and not a minute too soon
Barkin' like a dog, howlin' at the moon

You'd be mad as an ol' wet hen
Up all night wonderin' where I'd been

I'd fall down and say come help me honey
You laughed out loud, I guess you thought it was funny

But I sobered up and I got to thinkin'
Girl you ain't much fun since I quit drinkin'

Now I'm paintin' the house and I'm mendin' the fence
I guess I've gone and lost all my good sense

Too much work is hard for your health
I could've died drinkin' now I'm killing myself

And I'm feedin' the dog, sackin' the trash
It's honey do this, honey do that

I sobered up and I got to thinkin'
Girl you ain't much fun since I quit drinkin'

Now I'm fixin' the sink and I'm mowin' the grass
And you've made me a list and I'm bustin' my.... well

All broke down, tail's been draggin'
It's a rough old life up here on the wagon

And I'm feedin' the dog, sackin' the trash
It's honey do this, honey do that

I sobered up and I got to thinkin'
Girl you ain't much fun since I quit drinkin'
Yeah I sobered up and I got to thinkin'
Girl you ain't much fun since I quit drinkin'

Don,
when you mention "custom styles" you're talking my language. This is why I've stuck around with Technics for over 15 years. I've become SOOOO accustomed to the "Technics Composer" way of doing things..it's really hard to break that habit. I really like doing stuff in chunks, and chain them up together, I'm struggling with my new keyboard (triton studio),for not having that feature.

I should've perhaps gotten a KN7K instead of perhaps a PA80. I want to know more about this "morphing" "40+ user style" that people have been talking about..is it anything resembles what Technics composer does?

KN Fan,

Im sure some of the Roland VA owners can elaborate more on the Morphing feature. I only tried it once when I played Uncle Daves in his studio.
The 'Morphing' feature enables you to substitute elements of one style with another as you go along. For instance, you might be jamming along in a basic rock style and suddenly feel like bringing in a hip-hop bass line, then changing the drum patterns accordingly until you are eventually playing a totally different track with the same tempo and chord progressions. This is a very well-implemented feature and, despite sounding rather complex, is incredibly easy to work.....


This is Way Kool !



[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 02-28-2003).]

I mostly use custom styles. It takes a lot of time and effort to create them. For me it's well worth the effort. The fact that I need to create custom styles is the biggest reason I went with PA80 -- 40 user slots and one can replace all it's internal styles with custom styles. Chord variations and the fact that fills and intros behave differently also help much when planning, creating and using custom styles on PA80.

Shiral

I think if there were more constantly updated style disks coming out, the synth market would be in deep doo-doo as far as using arrangers for music production.

Check out this page: www.seanbaker.com/songs.html

I made all these songs in the last ten years creating my own custom styles on the PSR-500!!!! I think "Haunting Love" showed off the best what a custom-made style can do.

If I ever get the dough together for either a PA80 or SD-1 then look out!!! I just think in terms of arranging/sequnecing songs, arrangers are more natural and intuitive in the process than synth workstations.



[This message has been edited by seanbaker (edited 02-28-2003).]

KN

I'm not certain what the Technics does, so it's hard to say if the PA80 does the same thing. What the PA80 does is allow you to easily mix any individual component of any style or variation with any other styles / components. Also the style to midi tool ( freeware ) allows you to make styles or pieces of styles out of midi files or pieces of midifiles if you want to work with an external sequencer. Generally I prefer to work directly with the PA80's internal sequencer for making new styles or new parts for existing ones.

I chose the Motif vs The Triton and all the others mainly because of it's great sounds ( although the Triton stuff sounds great too ) but also at least in part because of it's other features including the pattern chain record function. Editing is easy too because Yamaha provides a freeware patch editor for the computer. Where the Motif isn't as strong as the Triton is in the arpeggio dept. The Fantom is excellent for modifying arps too ( using algorithims rather than trecorded midi data ), and I like that the upper keys can trigger fills. The big drawback.. Motif allows for user arps.. Fantom does not. Maybe the next version Fantom S ) which will also include sampling, will allow user arps. With those two features and maybe a few updated sounds, the Fantom becomes at least a possible contender for me vs the Triton series for a second workstation.

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 02-28-2003).]

Currently working on some new Tyros styles with Megavoicing, also do a lot of stuff for Yamaha PSR's and so on.. Haven't tried other platforms though but I started style creation on the PSR730 before moving through 740, 9000 and currently Tyros.

Regards
Simon
SVPworld



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________________________
Simon G.K. Williams
simon@svpworld.com
Creative Music & Multimedia
http://www.svpworld.com
________________________

I have gone as far as remixing baroque style string parts in styles like "tribal age " and "16 beat 1" on the SD1 . Very cool and affective .
Dano


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Piano Man's Keyboard City
624 Frederick Rd .
Catonsville Md. 21228
410 747 0200
danosmusic@yahoo.com

The VA7 and VA76 are the Kings when it comes to style morphing in real time at that...

Sean,

Very KOOl website with some fantastics musical creations , I love "Big Girls Blouse"

thanx for sharing

I would love to be able to make my own stlyes. In fact I would be satisfied to be able to take converted styles and adjust them so they would sound good on my instruments. For example I have the Roland G1000 styles converted to Ketron X1. They don't sound bad but are way out of balance (guitar too loud bass not loud enough etc.) Plus I've got many many converted styles for use in my Yamaha 9000Pro but most are not useable due to the wrong voices sounding or they need volume settings adjusted. I've read the owner's manuals and many posts on this forum and the Yahoo groups. But, so far I can't figure out how to do any of this.

I downloaded the programs "Midi 2 Style, One Man Band, and Style Maker". I cannot begin to understand how to use any of the three. In the instructions they start talking about the CASM. What's that?

I am ready, willing and (I hope) able to do style making and adjusting if I could only find some clear step-by-step instructions. Anyone know of a source for this information?

[This message has been edited by deatonent (edited 03-01-2003).]

Thanks Don/Blues for your comments.

I should probably be a bit more clear with what I do with Technics composer. Instead of creating your typical 1-2 bar "styles", what I do is record a song (original or not) in chunks. Say..a song is divided into an intro, Verse I, Verse II, and ending. I'd need at least 4 User "pattern" (and I program each to contain anything from 2 bar to 4 or 8 bars each)...and I play the portions of the song real-time. I think Tyros kinda have the same thing (from reading all the posts in this forum), but I don't have the opportunity to try the Tyros here in my area, nobody carries it. PA80's "TOTALLY RE-programmable" 40+ user pattern styles, may have been the answer for me, but I picked the Studio instead cause I was too impressed with the sounds.

Even our fellow Synthzone member, Scott helped me a lot in brainstorming..

At this point I'll have to make the best of my Studio.

KN_Fan

Hi Simon, any Mariachi styles?, I'm willin gto pay for them.

Thanks!

Here are my $.03 About making styles.

1) the best keyboard for creating styles are General music ones. This is understandable because they have the best sequencers and sequencers and style makers share 70% of the functionality.

2) In order to make a practical and successful style, one must create one with 4 variations, each with its own fillin and at least one awsome intro or ending. (another set of intro and ending will be good)

3) based on 2, it is time consuming because you need to do each single part.

4) Styles are measured sometimes by the ending or the intro... that is what is difficult about it, one requires vast creativity and excellent musical skills

5) creating a style is more difficult than creating a song. There are limits and requires more use of tools such as quantization (which is a must), micro editing, trial and error...

6) Creating a powerful style on General Music keyboards is very easy and very powerful. The tools are there to help you every step of the way

I have a dream (actually two):

a) that we the community of arranger keyboards start producing our own high quality styles that surpass the factory ones and start trading with and helping each other.

b) In order to do that, styles must be standardized like midi songs and when they are standarized, style sequencers software is written to take advantage of this.

KN,

I'm sure you'll do fine with the "Studio". I understand the thought of.. " I want this board for this feature but I'd like feature B from Board B too. Workstations are no different from arrangers, in that each has it's particular strengths and things that they do a little ( or a lot ) better than the next one. Both the Motif and Triton Studio are great choices in my mind. Truth be told, the Fantom has some features and a few sounds that I like a lot too. If I only had the money, I'd have 'em all. Better yet, I wish I could combine the best of the three in one board ( yeah right..lol )

What I lack in features that I want in my particular board is often compensated via software. I think what you described above could be more easily accomplished with the help of software ( that is if you don't object to or have a logistical problem with going through your computer ). Have you ever seen the program " The Musical Wizard " ? It is a pattern sequencer that allows for either detailed step recording or real time recording. IT used to cost about 50 bucks or so, ( back when it was the "Drumz Wizard" ), but is now released as freeware as the creators still provide it but no longer support it. It might be a good program for doing what you describe above. The link is: http://www.mclink.it/personal/MC3796/ . If it will help you, that's great, and if not, it costs you nothing. Cheers KN,

AJ

Thanks AJ,

Same like you-wish I can buy all three keyboards (KN7000,Tyros/PA80,and the Triton) (okay..it's four )

I'll check that software out-now, I have a Dell (dimension 2350)-I should perhaps buy a MIDI interface for this so I can hook up my Studio...correct? Can anybody recommend a basic interface?

I basically just need to hook my Dell to the keyboard and start recording (I assume MIDI files only then).

Thanks,
KN