It was called "Virtual Arranger" on my 8000 and I believe the PSR 730/740.

According to manual...

When the Virtual Arranger* function is turned on, the Auto-accompaniment feature will play a more complex "arrangement" which provides livelier, more melodic accompaniment.

The Virtual Arranger is only effective when Auto-Accompaniment is On and the Full Keyboard or Manual Bass fingering mode is not selected.

* The Virtual Arranger will not work with custom styles


Present day Groove and Dynamics aren't as simple to use as the presets in Virtual Arranger, but they offer far better (deeper) editing choices and they work on all styles...not just the factory ones.

Session styles, presently on the later Yamaha act a bit like the old Virtual Arranger styles in that you have to be careful with your chording.

Ian

Programming from scratch...unless you can play manual drums..very well...DON"T start from scratch...Use a drum pattern that exist...you can use multiple drum patterns from existing patterns..

Actually this holds true with the other parts of a style..It would be much better morphing the styles as a blend for a new style...The next best creation would be "punch in" recording sections for changes in the existing style..

As mentioned ..there are so many styles found..that just changing instruments or dropping parts of an existing style can do wonders..

I never heard so many Lazy players excuses.. .......
creating is what the fun is all about in music .....
its not that hard to do. With my KORG M1 years ago every single song I performed was totally done and created by me exactly the way I arranged it...remember it doesn't have to be a style it can be a SMF backing track also, just like you would do on a workstation, every song doesn't have to be repetitive styles all the time,....being a lazy player hurts your music I say.
Get all up in it and have fun!

I'm a very lazy guy, Donny...and proud of it.

I have always had a very strong aversion to servile work of any kind.

When I do get the urge to work, I just lay down for awhile, and it goes away.

However, I don't think my laziness has had any detrimental effect on my playing skills or ability.

That's because "playing" isn't "work"...that's why it's called "playing".

I LOVE to play! Since retirement I have even more time for playing, and I make good use of it.

As far as slaving over a keyboard unnecessarily to create styles or midi files...nope, not for me.

I prefer the way that works best for me...if it happens to be "easier"...so be it.

It's good to see you are so diligently industrious, but, I don't envy you in the slightest.

Ian

I'm just the opposite, Ian. If I'm not creating something, I feel like the day is completely wasted. I gotta do something, even if it's wrong. I spent most of the morning designing a new dinette table for the boat's main salon. Tomorrow I'll buy the wood, have it cut to size, then go to work with the sander, stain and polyurethane. Then I'll mount the base hardware, light sand the top, apply another three coats of polyurethane, then compound and buff the finish till it looks like a mirror. When it's all done, I'll find another project. I figure I can't die if I have something creative to do all the time. Most of my friends and band mates that retired and did nothing are all dead - I really don't want to be in that category.

Gary

It's a lot harder making a style from scratch than simple copy and paste assembly. The factory style makers are often very talented players, adept in emulating just about anything. Basically, if you don't have that skill down, it's not even worth bothering!

But we'd be fascinated to hear your made from scratch styles, Donny...

when I get time I'll take a shot at it on the S-950....
not cause YOU asked ...but I have a few songs I'd like to arrange differently. Styles on a whole become too boring vs a SMF custom arrangement with a killer bassline, drums etc...

Let us know how it goes...

Personally, I think there's a REASON there are so few user created styles that even get in the same county as the factory produced ones, let alone ballpark!

It's not too tough to make songstyles (good for only one song) but the real skill is just how MANY songs you can play using the same style with most of the factory ones. Finding that balance between generic enough and not TOO generic is really hard. And also, the skill in creating fills that go smoothly to different Variations. That's one of the hallmarks of user styles. They rarely transition well.

It's a great idea in theory, having an entirely custom made style library, but let's be honest... you know anyone that does that? That's got to tell you SOMETHING... If it were easy, we'd ALL be doing it! Most people buy arrangers because they CAN'T program drums really well, or guitar parts, or everything else.

How about just ONE style, before you set your sights on an entire library of them? LOL

If you enjoy what you are doing...it is not work.

I avoid (or delegate to someone else) the things I don't enjoy, and use that time to do the things I do.

For me, playing music is one of the most things I enjoy...if possible, everything else takes a back seat.

Of course, I can't pull this off perfectly all the time...but that's what makes it interesting.


Ian

I'd like to hear them too Donny, and if possible send me a few to try on my Tyros4.

I spend a lot of time editing styles, and more than a few of them seem to work very well for others, as well as for me.

I have my own section/page on PSR Tutorial with about 80 or so styles that Joe Waters asked me to share with others in the group.

I've received very good feedback on them, for which I am grateful, and have had well over 3000 downloads since they were put up back around the end of November last year.

They aren't anything fancy, but I'm told they are very well balanced and voiced, to the point where they can be used for many songs, not just song specific, and they lend themselves very well to stripping down for less busyness. I also work hard at making the OTS suitable for that particular genre of style.

I have quite a few more, and will do up another batch in the near future.

There are lots of song specific styles available on the net and through Yamaha, but I like putting my own stamp on a tune, so, pretty much every style I get falls victim to my editing.

I can make them fairly good from scratch, as that was once the only way of making them, but editing via Style Assembly is quite effective and flexible, as well as being far easier, and much faster, so it gets the nod from me.

Most styles that I've tried that users made from SMF weren't all that well done, and often were key specific and very limited to certain chords.

Looking forward to trying some of your work.

Ian