Yes it’s in German but works with Google Translate

https://www.bonedo.de/artikel/einzelansicht/die-besten-styles-fuer-arranger-keyboards.html

It's a shame more then half the styles onboard are useless
to most players...and the parts many strip them
down to nothing
there has to be a better way..

Good article.
Thanks.
It shows, that different markets use and look for different styles.
Europe vs Us vs Asia etc
The keyboards offer a lot to start with.
Additional styles and expansion packs can make a big difference in personalizing ones keyboard.
I for one are a very happy camper ...
Eric

Donny, I disagree. Many of the styles, at least from MY perspective, are excellent and can be used for a variety of songs, including some of the so called Dance Styles.

One of the musical exercises I used to do to keep up my chops was to select a song in a traditional style, lets say "You Picked A Fine Time To Leave Lucille" then go through nearly every style on the keyboard at the same tempo and continue playing this song till my fingers got tired. I did this at least once a week, and in the process, discovered more and more great styles on the keyboard that worked great with other songs I enjoyed performing. When the Christmas parties began, in early December, I experimented with traditional Christmas songs and played some as Reggae, some as Jazz, some as Hip-Hop, etc... The audiences absolutely loved the change, sang along with me and I had a ball performing them. This led to my posting my Christmas Gig Disks on the PSR Tutorial, where they have been downloaded from thousands of times over the years.

Additionally, there are thousands upon thousands of third party styles available at the PSR Tutorial site that can be accessed free of charge. The folks that created many of them are pure geniuses to say the very least. They can construct a style from either a midi file, or from scratch in the blink of an eye, and post it an hour after someone with lesser skills requests the style. I have about 50,000 of these on hand and have gone through all of them at one time or another over a period of many years. I used about 75 custom, song specific styles in the construction of my Music Finder Directory.

Yes, there is a better way, but this takes a lot of time and dedication to set up a single arranger keyboard. Buying a keyboard and expecting to be able to go out and perform with it the same afternoon, to me, just doesn't cut it. I spent, on average, about 3 to 4 months setting up a new keyboard, because I always wanted it to sound better than the previous board - and it always did! Even with the same songs I performed in the past.

All the best,

Gary

OK Gary but that is not what I meant...
and you are talking about Yamaha arrangers etc.
many of the other brands do not have the style library support
Yamaha has at all and leaves a player stranded when
looking for that specific style to use.
And many of the newer SX/Genos styles do not sound the same
on older models like The S950 etc,
I know I have tried that many times.......
certain nuances just don't cut it when converted if at all.

Donny, if you checked the site, you will quickly see that all the Genos and SX styles have been converted to used with the older keyboards, and they sound fantastic.

As for Yamaha leaving a player stranded, I have never experienced this in all the years I have played Yamaha arranger keyboards. When I am left scratching my head for a song specific style, I just dig into the style library and usually find it in a short time. Or, I go onto the forum and under the Styles section, request a style for that song, which I have only done once in more than 20 years. Most of the time, I post styles for others to use, or recommend one on the keyboard that is suitable.

Gary

Gary I have used all the converted ones and there are subtle differences on the sound if you compare them.....
they are not identical and lose a bit of nuances thru conversion
due the lacking of the older models samples, effects, and features.
Don't get me wrong they sound ok but not exactly the same.
Especially on my Genos compared to the motl units,

Excellent tip Gary.

I agree Donny,
Even though not bad they are not close to the origional.
I have the Genos and the S970, so I can compare directly.
Depending on the converted style, there are sounds missing and the drums sound weak.
I had to do a lot of tweaking to make them sound similiar to my Genos.

Back to what Gary said: I do like the variety of styles offered and I use a lot of them.
Each style is used maybe 3 times max.
That way my songs don't sound all similar.
The Genos makes it a breeze to do style assembly.
I have a lot of styles that I created that way to fit my style of music and songs I play.
In addition I created quite a few Multi pads that I use for song specific riffs that I can't play at the same time.
Great thing about multi pads: I can record it very slow to not mess up and play back at regular speed.
Great tools to create the music I want.
As I said: I am a very happy camper.

All the best
Eric

One of my favorite new sites
Altough not allways totally objective