Hi Jim:

As a songwriter, I have no choice but to use "general" styles. I don't do "covers" of other writer's work and I don't perform like 90% of the fantastic keyboard artists and singers here. If I were in the same league with you guys, my answer would most likely be identical to the unimitable Don Mason.

I do considerable "tweaking" of most styles and significantly rely of well chosen multi-pads to add "verve" to my songs. I sing my own original songs to eliminate the high cost of demo singers. Without the Arranger Keyboard, I would be "dead in the water."

So why do I "hang-out" here, you may ask? There is so much to be learned from guys I consider to be keyboard experts and the assistance Donnie, Gary, Don and so many others provide, I would soon be sidelined, not knowing some of the "tricks of the trade" these guys generously share.

Great thread! Thanks for posting it.

Dave Rice

Yes, mark jump loop SMF.... Works perfectly when for example playing piano style...

The next step will be more ableton like, where you launch scenes ( much like the yamaha mobile sequencer on ipad). Which not just allows you to loop, but also allows you to directly combine tracks .... With real time transposing to the mainchordtrack...

Just perfect, the sequencer is far from death, and its becoming more intuitive and dynamic as we speak....

I use general styles mainly. But they are heavily edited including reprogramming the bass ,guitars, drums, pads ,strings you name it. I also on occasion create from scratch .

It's what makes using an arranger so much fun .

Basically, I used unedited factory styles when demoing the instrument at Yamaha clinics/demos, but I also did extra clinics on style editing, which is pretty straightforward and even rank beginners can have fun customizing styles.

For my own stuff, I use heavily edited styles, usually based on Yamaha factory styles. PSR Tutorial has all kinds of free downloads of styles taken from the older and newer PSR, Tyros and CVP so it's a great resource, and a fine place to start.

I generally edit the three intros so that intro one becomes a one bar stop/fill, and intros two and three are generally eight bars long and reprogrammed to allow me to play chords so they can be either extra Variations or Intros depending on what I need.

So, to answer the initial question, I rarely use song specific styles and, if I do, they are usually ones I have further edited to put my own stamp on the tune.

I enjoy playing tunes in alternate genres, but I also try to keep them recognizable to the average listener (i.e. I play Sting's Fields of Gold as a medium Country Ballad).

Many of my styles were created on the earlier instruments I used (or owned) so I re-edit/update them as necessary to suit my current arranger, which is a Tyros4.

Styles are a crucial part of what I do, and, I don't just use them to color my songs; like Dave Rice above, I often use them to create original compositions.

I've never considered using styles as a crutch...they're part of the art.

Ian

With all the complaints about factory styles, etc, not filling certain genres or players neededs manufacturers should start implementing a way to CREATE STYLES from scratch on the KB alot easier then the process they have now on all arrangers....after all styles are the life line of an arranger KB.

They should make good tooling to do so....
With a GUI nothing is easier then copying tracks from an excisting style to a new one..

But creating styles from scratch, get a good sequencer on your PC and use that to create new style parts... As long as arrangers dont have big screens and professional sequencers build in, creating styles will not be very effective on an arranger..

There are enough 3rd party programs to help you with that...

I use a few song specific styles ( Mostly provided to me by Gary Diamond- thanks Gary) I use them for songs that have those iconic intros that I can't pull off on my own. Here's a few tunes I use song specific styles for:

In The Mood
Chatanooga Choo-Choo
New York New York
Black Magic Women
Bad Bad Leroy Brown
Hot Stuff
Just The Way You Are (Billy Joel)
I'm Your Venus
Proud Mary
La Bamda
Mr. Saxo Beat

donny

I agree but "how do you do it " !!!! I'd love to do Styles from scratch. The manuels are totally inadequate, at least for me, and Roland has not produced any learning videos. How hard would it be o have someone walk through the process and record it to a DVD ? I've said this before, if they would teach people how to get more from their products thy would sell more. Simple right ?

Bill, it's actually not all that difficult using Yamaha's onboard Style Creator program, which is found on nearly all PSR and Tyros series boards. However, these days, making a style from scratch is insane when you can find more than 50,000 great styles at the PSR-Tutorial site alone. Find an onboard style that's relatively close to what you wish, then go to work using Style Creator, create your own intro, ending, and fills, change the instruments, do any of those, things, and within an hour, you can have the most fantastic style you wish. However, there is a learning curve, just like anything else that demands creativity and hard work, and that curve, sometimes can be quite steep. Fortunately, at the PSR-Tutorial site there are dozens of great instructions to make that curve a lot easier to learn.

Not sure about the other brands of keyboards, but Yamaha, at least for me, has made this an easy task,

Gary

Thanks Gary but I have a Roland BK9 and tons of old Styles on CD. Having some song specfic ones would be a bonus.