I'm seriously not understanding something here.

This recent talk about the Yamaha keyboards (and Korgs)...not being able to set up "songs" that you can access quickly, difficulty in filing them, etc. Sorry, I can't seem to follow any of King Donny's comments, or ANY of the comments.

In the beginning days of arrangers there were just "styles." You picked a song and decided HOW you wanted to play it. Example: Fly Me To the Moon...do you want to do it as a light swing...then hit the Big Band 2 or 3 and PLAY it. As a Bossa Nova..same thing. As a waltz even......same thing.

Isn't that the way it's done anymore? Did we get lost in the technology age and arranger complexity over the years?

What are my missing here?

Mark, when you listen to big band play a song there are many changes that happen with Solo and background instruments, their volumes also changes. Count Basie does not have a full band behind his piano solo.

In classical or semi-classical music, the changes are greater, and more often. This why it takes a bit of time to set up a song; I am trying to add the same feel and emotion to the song.

John C.

To further John's point:
Let's take a database of several hundred styles. Yes, you still have to 1.,choose a song,2 decide what style to use,3 What changes you want 4,where to put them.

That is one song,so you then want to narrow the songs down to a list of the ones to be played on a gig,from the database,to a set list. And, let's assume you have to make these changes quickly in performance.

Geeze guys, this is why there are so many great features in today's arranger keyboards, features that allow you to set things up for any particular song. Most of this, however, has already been done, mainly in the form of the style itself using variations. Usually, the first variation (A) has the least amount of backing and increases as you select higher levels of variation - not a big deal.

However, if you need more, then registrations are the way to go, which allows up to 8 levels that you can custom make to fit that specific song - again, not at all complicated, but it does take some time and effort in order to construct them.

In my case, I used the Music Finder Directory, which is nothing more than a miniature version of a registration. While the MFD is limited to some degree, it also allowed me to seamlessly go from one song to the next with the touch of a single button. Additionally, it pretty much eliminated dead time between songs. As a live player, with a dance floor filled to capacity, this was a great tool offered by Yamaha until the SX-900 arrived, at which point it was replaced by their song book, which is a bit more cumbersome, at least from my limited experience with that model. That said, I'm confident there is some sort of workaround that could be implemented to overcome this, but I really don't have to worry because I'm hanging on to my S-950 till my untimely demise.

For home players, none of this really makes any difference - you don't need to rapidly select a song on the fly to keep a dance floor filled or to please an audience - you are the audience! You can spend all the time you wish setting up a song, then save it to a registration, which can always be modified at a later date.

Good luck,

Gary

Hey Gary, I believe if you had the SX-900 for a few days, you would find the Playlist on a PSR-SX-900 to be a more efficient way of accessing registration song sets. You can easily have multiple playlists readily available, with almost an unlimited number of songs for whatever gig your're playing. I rarely used MFD, but find myself using Playlist often.

But hey, I'm just a Jedi, and you sir, are Obi Wan, the Jedi master

yamaha Playlist is just that.... It is not an extensive songbook Data base you can scroll thru and search on the fly for your entire collection of reg bank songs or SMF, Mp3's etc,
during live play or otherwise... enjoy what you play and how you play it....it ain't for everyone ...

Hi Mark,
registrations are brilliant.
You can setup a style for a song exactly how you want , voices , variations, chord loop , multi pad etc etc what you can save to to a registration is pretty mind boggling.

Being a home player, I never bothered to create a song book on any of my korgs,
I’d get out my sheet music, pick some styles to try, then jot down which one worked best. Change a voices, etc , save it as a user style with the song’s name. Some styles were ok as they were. Then I’d just write which style to use on the top of my sheet music.

The way I now have my p121 ( as controller )and sx900 set up, I need to use Registrations to get me thru a song. Never been an organ player, so I can’t get used to the stacked system. I basically have my piano in front, sx to the side in L shape configuration. I can still see screen and reach sx buttons, but pretty much impossible to press buttons in the middle of playing a song.
So this is where the registrations come into their own. I usually have at least 4 set up one for each of the variations.
Then there is a function called Registration Sequence. Here I put in the sequence in which I want my registrations to play back.
I assigned one of the pedals ( which I can reach) to this function.
Every time I tap it, it goes to the next registration without me having to touch the SX. Ie I can set it to go from registration 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 and loop back, or if the song requires I could get it to sequence thru from 2 to 1 to 4 back to 3.
Whatever I want. It follows the sequence I have put in.
Sounds like a lot of work, but , really simple and takes a few second and it gets saved.

I’ll probably end up doing playlists. Don’t have that many songs together at this stage, have to decide whether I’m better off doing it thru my Song Book app or via Playlist function.

Mark, I agree with you 100%. I thought the arrangers would make it easier to play tunes. Not so. It takes a great deal of time to sit up songs in registrations etc. When I was playing organ with a rhyme rail with 12 rhymes it was quite easy to figure out which one to use for a song. Now with hundreds, or even thousands, of styles to choose from it is almost impossible to just sit down and play the kb.

I think it depends on the level of 'sophistication' one wants in their playing ... If one is familiar with the styles, and just wants to 'play', then it shouldn't be all that difficult ... It's when players are modifying styles to fit certain songs that it becomes more of a painstaking process ... JMHO

Spot on Tony,
one doesn’t have to have registrations or song lists , but facility is there for those who want it.

"I think it depends on the level of 'sophistication' one wants in their playing ... If one is familiar with the styles, and just wants to 'play', then it shouldn't be all that difficult ... It's when players are modifying styles to fit certain songs that it becomes more of a painstaking process." Tony Mads

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I hear what you're all saying, but....why....would you want to go through all this?

I don't think I ever mentioned my basic history. Been playing arrangers since 1980. Been doing nothing but parties, events, corporate, weddings, etc. Then, somewhere around 1990. I auditioned to play this large shopping mall and ended up being there every Saturday for 10 years. Then I spent two (lucrative) years playing in Saks Fifth Ave. My point being...I never dealt with registrations, orchestrations, manipulations etc. I just decided what style I wanted to play to what song, set the tempo on the digital readout and away I went...only adding "fills" on the fly (to spice up the song). Otherwise, I don't think it would have made a hill of beans difference to those who stopped to watch me play whether I set the song up or not. Actually, it would have impeded me since I go from one song into another.

But I do understand those of you who want to customize a tune....get it down just the way you want to hear it. There's nothing wrong with that. For myself, I made the decision years ago to spend more time practicing and learning/studying music and only learning the basics on each keyboard I went through.

BTW...that's the way it was for all the players back in the 80s and 90s. How many of you think we should go back to that pre-technology period? That's why I haven't touched my PA3x since I bought it. I'd rather spend the time working on music productivity than pouring through manuals 24/7.

Please note that I'm NOT knocking anyone's approach to their keyboard. I'm a dedicated subscriber to "different strokes for different folks!"

You've answered your question in full...

I just spent a few minutes going over all the responses here. I think Gary summed it up nicely. Yes, now I get it.

To be fair to me though, I spent the first two decades (from the birth of the magic keyboard in the 80s) with just the arranger basics: style and tempo some fills and an intro and ending. The keyboards didn't do what they do today. We never thought in those days about dressing up a song. All we knew is ....hit the start button and "take the song and play the heck out of it!"