I don't understand why Yamaha have only 4 bar on their styles. This to me is a huge oversight and cannot compare to Ketron or Korg until they address this. Some Ketron styles go as far as 16 bars, it makes so much difference.

And Ketron SD-series have up to 8 variations...

That 4 bar limit may be arbitrary given that each style part is a short midi file with significant style specific sysex.

The PSR Tutorial site https://psrtutorial.com/index.html has some info and utilities that might help and indeed prove me completely wrong!

Somehow I don't think this is a hard limit. It might turn out that most of the factory styles are four bars to improve playability with a variety of songs. But I'm pretty sure you can create a user style that's longer than that. All of the major brands allow a user to create custom styles that vary throughout their length, and are complex enough to address most genres of music.

Exactly. Yamaha's style parts are simply midi files and can be as long as you want (probably there is some arbitrary limit imposed by the keyboard firmware).

But to be useful with many songs (a good style should be generic in nature) a pattern must be simple and hence short, otherwise you bake in a specific recognizable riff that is good only for one song (usually a famous song everybody immediately recognizes no matter what!).

The new Yamaha styles found in recent keyboards (Genos) unfortunately are less generic than the old ones, and more song specific (the style name itself is often a rephrased title of a well known hit of the past).

Another fundamental problem of Yamaha styles is that the keyboard firmware (20+ years old, practically unchanged since then), is as dumb as a midi player (or mp3 audio player): it plays the midi track EXACTLY as it is encoded, the same notes with the same velocity with the same timing, over and over and over again.

Since the loop is short, usually 2÷4 bars, it becomes mechanically repetitive pretty fast. To compound the problem, even fill ins, the break and the intros are dumb to the same level: they play the stone encoded sequence unaware of the context.

If a break is 8 parts wide and you call it during a main section that is playing only 3 parts (let us say drums, bass and a guitar), it is totally disruptive and completely inappropriate.

A given variation always triggers the same identical fill-in. This is not the case with a real band, and again it becomes mechanically repetitive pretty fast.

If an intro has baked in the count-in beats, then it can only be used as song intro (at the beginning) and not as riff mid song to spice up your performance.

Other manufacturer's arranger engines are probably no different, as well.

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Our software, that works on all Yamaha arrangers (used as mere sound generators and keys donors) is immune of all these obvious "defects" of legacy arranger engines:

1) The velocity of all notes is continuously randomized (strength optionally selectable by the user per part and per style section). This randomization is smart: contiguous notes, such us those of a guitar strum, are randomized maintaining their natural related dynamic.
2) The timing of each note is randomized, with each part following an independent drift, as it is the case with real players (each one deviating from the ideal tempo in an independent manner). This feature is implemented in the upcoming January 2021 release.
3) For each single drum hit (note) we also randomize the sound quality, by applying randomized filter cutoff, resonance, envelope.
4) Every sound noise (fret noise, breath noise, string slide, ......) is randomized picking from a pool of similar effects. And hence you never hear the same noise in the same point of the looping pattern.
5) The count-in bars are skipped when an intro is played mid song.
6) Fill ins and breaks are context aware, the pattern and parts played depends on the current variation, the next variation, and the active parts.

Many more trade secrets are running under the hood. And all together they do make a difference.

We offer a free demo (check the link in the signature) so that everybody can try on his/her own and make an A/B comparison.

The problem with much longer phrases in styles mostly boils down to the tendency to place little pickups in the middle, which is fine and dandy if your song is straightforward in structure, but can lead to some odd rhythms if for instance you have the odd shorter or longer phrase.

And, of course, if you DO trigger a fill, it goes back to the beginning of the Variation, where to be less repetitive, maybe sometimes it ought to drop into the middle..?

I’ve always felt that arrangers needed an extra set of fills, for ‘Fill-to-Same’ that were just little pickups from the main groove of the Variation allowing YOU to pick and choose where they come in.

In the meantime, if you DO want a much longer Variation with subtle changes, it’s usually a fairly simple edit to append a Variation to itself, and then get in there and just adjust the odd note or rhythm in the longer version. Just be cautious about putting something too specific at the four bar location. Not EVERY song has a simple structure!

A lot of these features ... plus more are also being used in KETRON products ... as far back as the SD1. The newer SD9/7 based units and Audya also use a alot of AI within the style. We have some videos on Youtube that illustrate this.

I agree with AJ.
Moreover, multiple bars variation are not tied to A SINGLE song.
Some rythms have an architecture with 8, 16 (32 bars) that fit on multiple pieces of music (some swings, creole music like cha cha, Kompa, zouk, ...).
I couldn't stand without this feature!

Normally a fill comes in as soon as you press the button, and lasts until the end of the bar (Although you can usually program longer ones if needed) whereupon it continues to the next bar along rather than going back to the beginning, a break on the other hand starts at the next bar and lasts for as long as the break is programmed for.

Bill

But if your phrase is 16 bars long, then you ask for a fill in Bar 8, it goes back to Bar 1 after the fill plays, not continue on to Bar 9. That means that longer phrases often seldom get the last part played if you need fills. At least it has done that in all arrangers I’ve played so far...

Perhaps something like a Korg could be set up to do this, but I can’t say I’ve come across a ROM style that did it. Generally, a fill goes to Bar1 in whatever Variation is selected next. So if it is the same Variation, it goes back to Bar 1 as well.

The issue usually boils down to, how much are we willing to pay for an arranger to be stocked with styles as complex as they would be if all of them had 16 bar Variations with fills that either continued or reset as needed (how would you tell the arranger whether to continue or repeat?)? The basic truth is, shorter 4-8 bar styles are less complex to make, less complex means cheaper... one bar fills are easier to ensure trigger correctly, etc., etc..

If you want dozens of new styles when you buy a new arranger, you’re more likely to get them if they don’t take lots more effort to make..!

Why not make the rest of the pattern (beginning at Bar 9) another variation? Then you could just fill to that variation. If you want multiple variations to impact the fullness of the arrangement, that can easily be addressed with sliders, track mute, or even registrations. With MOTL hardware or better, there's more than one way to approach this problem!

I forgot to mention this in my previous post, but Yes!, this is another irritating shortcoming many (all?) HW arrangers have. And once again shows how really basic their arranger engine is (I am talking specifically of Yamaha's firmware, the one I know the best, after our own!).

With Groovyband Live! we have also covered this use case.

When you need a fill you have many options:

1) Press the MAIN VARIATION button you are in (i.e: if you are playing MAIN 2, then press again MAIN 2). Then you will trigger an "inline" fill, and when the fill is over the MAIN looping pattern will continue from the point it left. For example: you are at measure 4 beat 1 of a 8 measures MAIN. You press the MAIN button, a fill will play immediately for the remaining of beat 1 + beat 2, 3 and 4. Then the MAIN variation will resume at measure 5, as nothing had happened. Quite convenient, no disruption at all, just spice up your performance with that extra bit here and there.

[By the way: "measure", "bar", what is the right term in english? The original italian word is "misura".]

2) You have 8 FILL buttons (one for each MAIN 1÷8). You press one of those to trigger a fill and then go to the corresponding MAIN. Example: MAIN 1 is playing, you press FILL 6, a fill-in will immediately play and, at the end of the measure, MAIN 6 will start from the beginning.

Groovyband Live! knows you are bridging from MAIN 1 and MAIN 6 and hence plays an appropriate fill that takes into account both MAINs (i.e.: if MAIN 1 is "simple" and MAIN 6 is "complex", then the fill will have an intermediate complexity, to appropriately glue both MAINs).

3) You can explicitly call for a fill closer to the playing MAIN, or closer to the next MAIN (we have a button for this, you can "book" your choice any time in advance of the actual press of a FILL button).

4) We have also a SYNC FILL/BREAK button, that can "book" a FILL/BREAK synced with the next measure start. If you call a SYNCED fill or break at any point during a measure, nothing happens until the beginning of the next measure, when automatically the fill or break will play in full for the whole measure. Very handy if you have no time to neatly press the fill/break button a few instants before the measure start!

5) We have 2 BREAKS (simpler, busier). So more variation and options to tailor your arrangement to the song you are playing.

6) You can trigger a fill (or break, or whatever action you desire!) be pressing harder the left hand keys. Very handy if you have no time to take away your hand from the actual playing. If you wish you can also set multiple thresholds: one action if you play "hard", another action if you play "even harder". You can freely set the velocity threshold(s) to match your preferences.

7) We have HALF BAR fills that will (surprisingly!) play only for half a measure (and not the whole measure as usual). This only works for divisions with an even number of beats (i.e: not for 3/4). Very handy to correctly play some scores.

8) We have also a BEAT RESET function that is TEMPO aware (= your music keeps the tempo, and completely finishes the currently playing beat, before resetting the loop to the first measure). With this function you can correctly and **seamlessly** manage any "odd measure" in your score, or even reset your accompaniment if you (or some other player/singer in the band) missed the "right downbeat start".

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To sum up, we have put a lot of thought into the software features. Our developers are primarily musicians and knows what are the actual needs of a performer.
What we have demonstrated here for this particular topic, can actually be applied to almost every feature you are used to in a traditional HW arranger: we have perfected it to the "next level".

Additionally we also listen to our customers, and if the idea is good we implement it in no time.

This is not the case with every "big name" manufacturer, where sometimes it is not even possible to have someone to talk to.

With the SD9 Pro AjamSonic (latest OS), you can set the fill such that once complete, the arranger can either continue where you left off within the current arranger or restart from bar 1 once complete or go to another arranger. I'll try and illustrate this in tomorrow's live show along with some more 'hidden' features KETRON does not promote a lot!

Do the ROM styles with longer phrases do this automatically?