Hi Chony,
sorry to hear that the memory size is only the 136 kb's, but that still a very large file, and 32 bars per variation is a fair length pattern. Good luck with your drum patterns.

best wishes
Rikki


[QUOTE]Originally posted by chony:
[B]

Let me get this straight... You are attempting to make styles with over 128 bar long variations ? When could you ever use something like this? Doesn't playing a fill reset to the beginning of the loop? So to utilize this, you would have to play for WELL over an entire song (a lot of songs have 16 bar verses or thereabouts) and THEN some, without a single fill....

Why would you want to do this? I would have thought that 16 bars is the absolute limit to how long you are willing to go without a fill (unless you are doing hiphop!). Eight bars then a fill is pretty normal. Filling the style data with countless bars you will never get to seems pointless.

However, if you wish to get to the limit of a style's size AND still get as much bars in as possible, don't forget to strip out ALL aftertouch (plus any other continuous controllers) that may have got recorded. That can eat up the data pretty fast...

Hi Chony

Interesting. I had been wondering for some time if using electric drums for longer more realistic patterns might be an option. I am also a drummer, so that would be easy enough to do.

It seems that pretty much all the styles, especially the "modern" music from the '50's and '60's forward sound pretty authentic, because of the simplicity of these styles.

That is not the case in MHO for jazz, swing and foxtrot type styles. They sound far from being realistic. Outside of short spurts of the horn and piano backgrounds, I have been reducing the background parts more and more as I go over time. Even the guitar and bass parts really don't make it.

So, I have experimented using bass pedals, drums and piano. Bass pedals are no problem to me as I am an organist. This definitely makes a difference in sounding very much "real." Only thing is as I tend to be more of an organist than a pianist, if I decide to go this way, I will have to develop a bit better left hand. But besides that, it almost makes me think why bother with an arranger if I'm considering doing all those parts?

So, with all of this, I kept thinking why they can't make some authentic sounding jazz, swing styles realizing that you could have variations of at least 16 bars. That's half of a standard 32 bar song per variation.

If I spent a little time, maybe I could come up with some longer styles using the onboard style creator, but , I have messed with that a bit in the past and it doesn't really thrill me to do this. I would much rather just sit down and play and have Yamaha or somebody else have done the work.

Another thing I noticed when experimenting with bass pedals while using Big Band Med 2, variation B, and using only the drums and rhythm guitar pattern, that when I played the bass part as I felt it and think it pretty much should be, it sounded quite good and natural.

I also then began wondering if a decent bass line recorded with that and other existing styles might do the trick.

Sounds like a lot of work. I wish Yamaha or somebody would put a lot more effort into the older styles of music so they don't sound so canned and fake.

My 2 cents.

Scott
http://ScottLMusic.com

Hi Diki

Another point I had been considering. Yes, it appears that regardless of how long you make the variation, if you use a fill you're right back at the start again. Unless, you put the fills in the variation. But then again, things happen when we perform, like some kind of interuption of some type, so if we we use a variation with fills built in, if you don't start at exactly the right time, the fills will all be wrong.

I guess it really boils down to the fact that arrangers are great as far as they go, but after playing in live band's for year's, there is no substitute for live musician's.

I think this is where some of the public has a problem relating to what an arranger keyboardist is doing. It is also the reason it seems the majority of arranger keyboardists seem's to never be satisfied with what they have and are either always trying to find that one right style, or keep changing keyboards, sometimes for very short periods of time and wonder why they are never totally pleased.

The funny part is, all I or most would need, I would think would be maybe 20 REALLY AUTHENTIC styles and you could play all night long night after night and be ok with it.

Well, Scott, as you are definitely well aware, a REAL bass line LEADS the chords, and an arranger bass line FOLLOWS the chords. This, to me, is one of the biggest 'dead giveaways' that you are using an arranger, and contributes a LOT to the 'fake' sound.

It's been a very long time since I did bass pedals, but I still do about 60% or so of our show playing LH bass simply because I can't stand the bass line the arranger chooses for me.

For me, music is very much a 'dual melody' approach. There's the melody at the top, and there's the melody at the bottom, and then in between is the rhythm and chords. Kind of like 'figured bass' from Baroque music. Lose the melody at the bottom, and you change the entire 'flavor' of a tune.

A really good exercise for anyone that wants to learn more about the importance of a bass line is to put your arranger into Full Piano Mode, but turn OFF the bass part. Split the keyboard, put your MBS part on, and play a tune. Just sing the melody, play chords in the RH. But PLAY a bass line.

You will notice you almost can't help walking bass lines UP to a chord change (or down, whatever!). The bass player ALWAYS knows what chord is next, and shapes his line to point to it before it arrives. The poor arranger bass line NEVER knows what the next chord is going to be UNTIL you play it! So forget 'leading' up to it... It just jumps there with no voice leading. Once you start to hear this, it is hard to be satisfied with the machine bass.

Hi Diki

The thing about playing left hand bass, to me, is there goes the chords. But, I see in your pic you use a guitar player, so that would take care of that.

There is always some kind of compromise. Main thing is to have fun with what we've got with the current state of technology.

Actually, we do do some tunes in the mode described above. Full keyboard chord recognition, Bass Inversion OFF (to stop the chords re-voicing while the bass moves), MBS on (for the bass line) and Pianostyle mode. This is a cool Roland feature (maybe Yamaha too, I don't know) where you have to play three notes simultaneously before the chord will change. So you can hit a chord with the RH (and LH plays bass note) then lift the RH and you can play a pretty good bass line without the chord rhythm ACC shifting. It works very well, and I set my D-Beam to turn the ACC parts on/off to simplify for verses or breakdowns. My guitarist loves it, as it finally gives him a rhythm guitarist to solo over!

I've got a system where a footpedal changes from this system to the more standard full auto LH chord recognition mode, so I can solo, too! And then go back to the LH bass stuff after my solo. It works pretty well...

We also both sing, so the main thrust isn't soloing or instrumentals, but more on singing and accompaniment (which allows me to use more LH bass). But you're right, it's all about just enjoying which technique we choose to use for any song. I just don't like using auto bass when I don't HAVE to..! As a solo, I would have to use it a lot more, but I rarely gig solo these days, so it's kinda moot.

[This message has been edited by Diki (edited 04-27-2007).]

Hi Diki

MBS, what exactly is that. I probably know what it is, but my mind is blank on it at the moment.

Yes. Yamaha has something similar where you can chord and then solo. The trick is to only have it read a chord when you want.haha

Your footpedal setup sounds like a good idea. I have been considering doing something similar, but haven't figured out how to set it up yet.

I currently have one fantastic singer lined up with another I'm about to contact.
There is a lot to be said for a 2 or more piece act. It is a lot more fun to me generally when playing with other good musicians.

MBS is Roland-speak for Manual Bass... It is one of the three Lower Keyboard Parts (on G70/E80 - E50/60 have one Lower and one MBS).

Diki,

If you listen to the music and styles I have created on my website, you'll get an idea of what I'm trying to do. I don't want my music to sound like it was done with an arranger; I want it to sound as live as possible.

The idea was to make very long variations with a real drummer that would give a very real live sound to the music. Of course you would have to make sure never to make a mistake -- but the most I ever mistake is a note - not a full beat and deffinitely not a measure!

The truth is that I've already made quite a few styles with 16 measures, and I think this is what I'm going to aim for.

Chony