Tracknet

I am not sure what you mean by saying:

"But, when these VA7 styles are converted for a keyboard, e.g. PSR2000, whose styles haven't that "chord variation", what's happens?"

As I said earlier the Yamaha arranger keybords support the same type of "chord variation" capability as e.g. the VA7.

What happens when you do the conversion is entirely dependent on how you do it. If you do not program the variations then obviously they do not exist. If you use an automatic conversion program then it depends on the capabilities of that program.

Anyway, the results of an automatic conversion program are nowhere near the original quality. A lot of tweaking is usually needed to get a good result.

Kari

Kari, I mean about these previous statements:
"Korg arranger’s keyboards offer up to 6 chord variation in style what actually does that you hear a different ACC every time you change a chord say from major to minor or from minor to, and you can actually have different instruments assigned for each chord variation"
"Roland VA7 has different variations for Maj, Min and 7th chords for every section of a style (intro, basic, advanced, fills, ending). This means, for example, that it will play an entirely different Intro depending if you play a major, minor or seventh chord"

So, what I mean is:
If you get a Roland or Korg style (with these chord variations), and you convert it to play it on PSR2000, will have you similar chord variations on your PSR2000 as you have playing it on Roland or Korg kb?

Tracknet,
the answer is yes, but only if:
1- the PSR 2000 has indeed this option (i. e. to play different variations depending on the chords played -Maj, Min, 7th - which I don't know)
2- the conversion program you use can handle this feature, like Kari1 wrote.

[This message has been edited by Dreamer (edited 10-26-2002).]

Tracknet

Below is the list of chord types Yamaha arranger keyboards support (at least the high end ones). You can select for which types of these the the track you have made (by some means e.g. recording it with a seguencer program) is used. You could select just one of them or any combination you want.

This you can do separately for each section like the intros, variations and the endings.

I suspect that there is a limit for different chord types/chord type combinations for each section, namely you should not exceed the 16 midi tracks available. However, I haven't experimented with this.

Here's the list of chord types:

Maj
Maj6
Maj7
Maj7(#11)
Maj(9)
Maj7(9)
Maj6(9)
aug
min
min6
min7
min7b5
min(9)
min7(9)
min7(11)
minMaj7
minMaj7(9)
dim
dim7
7
7sus4
7b5
7(9)
7(#11)
7(13)
7(b9)
7(b13)
7(#9)
Maj7aug
7aug
1+8
1+5
sus4
1+2+5

Kari

Hello Dreamer so you are saying that it is possible to record different chord variations in PSR2000 and they will change according to the chord you play, that is great so basically PSR2000 offeres 3 chord variations comparing to Korg's 6 am I right?

As far as I remember (and it has been a while since I have had a Yamaha instrument), the PSR series used to record all the accompaniment in C7maj, and automatically change the chord type to a Maj, 7th, or a Min, depending on the chord you played; however, they DID NOT allow you to record DIFFERENT patterns for different chord types. You may want to double-check that the Yamaha keyboards now work differently. The Rolands do indeed let you record different patterns for different chord types.

Regards,
Alex

Concering support for different chord types in Yamaha styles we have to talk about two issues:
First, what is the style format itself supporting, and second, what are the possibilities to use the different style options in the keyboard itself during recording.
As Kari has already stated, the Yamaha style format is supporting different tracks for different chord types, but unfortunately this is used by Yamaha only to a small extend. Basically I detected the ability during converting Roland styles to Yamaha format ;-).
The disadvantage is, you can not use this style feature during recording or manipulating styles with the keyboad itself. You have to use special programs which have the ability to work with the so called CASM section of the style. This section is defining all the relations between style tracks, chord types and used instruments.

Ulrich

Arbaz,
actually I did not say that. I wrote that I don't know if the PSR 2000 supports this feature. For what I know about Yamaha arrangers, they seem to have only a limited amount of memory dedicated to storing your own styles, so I have a feeling that you are not allowed to record very complex styles with a lot of variations.
Again, I cannot swear on this, because I have never owned a Yamaha arranger. I hope that an actual PSR 2000 user will reply to say the final word on this issue.

Hi Kari

Well, I am not familiar with the intricacies of CASM editing. I am sure that varying styles according to the chord played is not documented in the PSR-8000 manual--which I am quite familiar with. Yamaha puts all variations in a style in a single midi file (using an .sty extension instead of .mid). The different sections of the style are identified by metatags, such as "Main A", "Ending B", etc. The manual does not mention separate metatags for different chord forms.

You seem to be saying that, within "Main A" (for example) you can get variations by selecting which tracks are active for which chord forms. Is this right? I can then see how one can get chord variations and how the 16-track limit might constrain these. I would guess that creating styles with chord variations in Yamaha format would be more difficult than for other arrangers. OTOH, the Yamaha approach might give more flexibility in selecting which chords cause the variation.

Clif

Hi Cliff

As Ulrich has already pointed out there is a difference between what can be done with the keyboard itself and what the Yamaha style file format (SFF) supports. The Yamaha keyboards have limited capabilities for style creation (in this respect).

One needs to use special programs that can manipulate the CASM section to be able to use all the features that are supported by the SFF. One of the best is the CasmEdit I mentioned earlier.

And yes, I believe what you stated in your posting is correct. Using all the features supported by the SFF is more difficult because you need to understand the format to be able to use the special programs. But once you do that, it may actually be easier to work with a program which has a nice user interface (compared to the crude facilities provided by the keyboard).

Kari