Hi Guys

our KN7s have wonderful style creation & editing functions, it's just
a case of working out how to make best use of them.

we have
Easy Composer
lets you scroll through style parts to create new variations

Pattern Copy Page 2
lets you mix n match style parts from the inbuilt kn7 styles
INCLUDING styles that are loaded into the composer memories (
possibilities are mind boggling)

Sequencer to Style Function
lets you create styles from midifiles. Handy for Intro's and Endings
but not terribly usefull if your midifile has chord changes within
the part that you want to create a variation from.
Very useful function though, if you have styles that have been saved as a
midifile with no chord changes.

I've had a few hectic weeks ( son's getting married this weekend, &
poor hubbies been home stuck in bed for about 6 weeks) so I haven't
had a great deal of time to spend on my keyboard. I'm hoping to get
back to normal in a couple of weeks or so and get back to fiddling
round with my keyboard. I'm hoping to get back to playing round with
the style creation features on the keyboard and hopefully end up with
some useable styles ( which I'll be more than happy to share)

At the moment I'm trying to work out how best to convert my Yammi
styles for use in the KN7. ( I've been using the sequencer to style
function) the biggest hassle to date are the drums & drum volumes.
Have to try & sort out the best way to handle them.

Hopefully we can start making styles ourselves. I tend to think we have the best & easiest keyboard to create our own styles on, because of all the functions they've given us.

Maybe we could start some sort of a workshop, just a case of if there's enough people interested in doing it??

I'll still be tied up for the next week or so( with the wedding & hopefully hubby will be back at work by then) so I'll have my free time back.

I'm not too good musically, but I do enjoy workin out how to get the best out of a keyboards features.

If there are interested parties, we'll have to try and work out how best to go about it, as it would involve uploading styles , midifiles etc I was thinking maybe via a yahoo group??

best wishes
Rikki

Rikki, most of the Yamaha styles have already been converted to another brand. Just look around the internet at Solton or Roland for their conversions, and convert those to Technics. Since you have the originals, you can rebuild them in a snap, with tempo being the most overlooked.

Hi Bud,
thank you.
I actually have EMC's Style conversion program ( have had them for all my different keyboards over the years since the early 90's,) but personally I don't think it does quite as good a job as recreating a style from an actual midifile version. It's a fantastic program when you don't have access to the original keyboard the style comes from, but when I do, I prefer the seq to style method.( far more time consuming , though)
The style conversions usually only give you 2 of 3 yamaha's intro's & endings. It's either intro & ending 1 & 2 or 1 & 3 ( can't remember which) Intro 1 is usually only a drum solo, whereas 2 & 3 have more instruments , so they sound fuller & far more useable. To date I've only been experimenting with intro's & endings , but on a few of the styles I tried, I also noticed the minor version of the intro's & endings sometimes didn't sound quite right. Also I don't think you get all of yamahas fill ins using style convert.

I'm probably just plain over fussy, that's why I don't get many styles done. My biggest problem is I really enjoy experimenting, trying to get the best result from minium effort. ( I wish, haahaa)

I'm trying to limit myself to styles that I've actually got a use for, rather than convert or recreate them just for the sake of it.

I was having trouble finding a waltz that I really liked for South Pacific's
"This Nearly Was Mine" that's why I decided to try and recreate ( convert one).

Anyway it's now all but finished, maybe still needs a bit of fine tuning on the user drum set.

best wishes
Rikki

hi Rikki, don't know which version of styleworks you have, but you can assign yamaha intros/endings 2 and 3 to the 2 technics intros endings slots, and also choose which fills to use. The fills can be saved twice to get all 4 and then use the single composer load to spread the other 2 across the 8 technics fills slots, this of course because styleworks is still saving in 5000 format.
I always regarded the yamaha 3 intros/endings as a bit of a joke since the number 1 was always invariably 4 taps on a cymbal and just a simple single chord as the ending, not really comparable with the technics as you say.

Is all this style making stuff explained in Alec's KN6 book

I would think that the same principles would apply to all KN series keyboards.

Larry Hawk

Hi Alec,
thank you I'll check my version ( maybe I'm due for an update). Intro 1 really is a bit of a joke, but 2 & 3 are usually quite good. I still have to overcome the problem of the minor Intro's & Endings though. Sometimes they sound out of tune possibly because the notes aren't converting correctly to minor key.

I've actually converted a few just "Intro's & Endings ". I've noticed that they could actually be used with our kn styles ie replace a kn intro/ending with a psr intro / ending. Gives a bit more variety to the songs. Instead of hearing the same intro over and over again for a variety of songs that use the same style.

I'm actually finding it easier to record the styles as a c maj midifile and at the end I record the intro's & endings into cmin as well as cmaj.

It only takes me a couple of minutes to record the actual style as I'm doing it in steptime via xg works sequencer.
The one thing I didn't realize was that xg drums are not 100% compatible with gm drums (and our nx drums), so now I'm trying to work out the best & easist way to handle the drum situation. I started by transposing the drums that didn't match ( using the note shift function in the kn7 sequencer), but still had the problem of differing drum volumes ( some play louder/softer than the kn) , so then I decided to edit the kn's user drum set to try and match it a bit closer to the xg. That seems to be working better.

On the whole , it doesn't take all that much time to actually record the midifile (yammi) and use the seq to style function to create the style (kn). Most of my time is spent on the fine tuning of the style ( drums being my biggest hassle, I'm obviously not a drummer at heart (haahaa)

I'll definetly check my EMC style convert program though, it may be a function I overlooked. The other feature I really miss, is that it used to allow you to turn a style into a midifle for editing on an external sequencer, now it doesn't seem to do it (maybe I overlooked that feature , too??)


Thank you Alec.

best wishes
Rikki

Hi Larry,
unfortunately I don't have Alec's KN6000 book.
Our kn7 may well have some additional features, to the earlier kn models ( didn't own a kn6).

Most of what I'm prattling on about (heehee) I was doing back in the mid 90's with my kn2,3, roland & korg keyboards. I was forever
converting styles between the keyboards, except back in those days , it had to be done via midiing them together or style convert program (in those days the program lft a lot to be desired).
Styles have always held some sort of a strange fascination for me. ( Explains why I still can't play( haahaa mis spent youth)

That's why I'm so over the moon about the kn7. It's style creation and sequencer editing functions make it so much better and easier to make a style , than it was 10 years ago.

I actually promised myself I'd spend more time practicing this time round on the kn7, (as I'd had a 4 year break from keyboards) but the style creation bug has bitten again.

best wishes
Rikki

Larry, the practical step by step exercises in the 6/65k book did indeed use all of these functions to make e.g. vocal patterns in sound edit, vocal patterns in pads, 4 measure styles into brand new 8 measure styles including using the single accompaniment track copy that Rikki mentions, editing composers in the sequencer, making pads from easy composer, making chord progression pads from the sequencer etc etc. to give some examples.

All the principles are indeed valid for the 7k, the problem is that professional sounding styles and pads were designed to be able to be created by readers themselves from bits of the 6/65k presets, with no real playing ability needed. The 7k presets have changed, so the results will be variable and random and may be quite strange because the book was written long before the 7k arrived. So the editing principles are all quite true with the 7k, you just can't be guaranteed to get a style, pad etc that sounds great and can be used, which obviously will take the shine off the achievement


Rikki, yes Cm or E's to Eb's will solve the minor intros and endings. There are updates to Styleworks coming along all the time. You can still convert a style to a cubase arrangement as well as technics etc, and I used to keep a version of cubase just for the purpose of playing around with these on the laptop before converting to technics. To tell the truth nowadays I tend to do all the final tweaking on the 7k since it is just as quick most of the time. 9000pro and tyros drums do require a re-map depending on the styles, and here I just make a technics user drum map to suit like the original 6k Lord of the Dance demo used. The advantage is you can put fully sound-edited drums in there.

Hi Alec,
now I'm really dissapointed that I never owned the kn6/65 and your book. I would have thoroughly enjoyed going through your tutorials on patterns, styles etc. (Even though I'm fairly good at working out which buttons to press to get a result, examples of how to get your styles sounding good would have been wonderful.

There is one thing that is a bit of a mystery for me
" Chord Modify Change" is that a feature that the kn6's also had, and was it covered in your book? I jumped from a kn5 straight to the kn7 with a 4 year non keyboard break in between. During that break I'd forgotten how to do a number of things that I used to do , and slowly it's coming back. I'm pretty certain it wasn't a function on the kn5.

Ever thought of writing a supplementary sheet on Style Creation on the KN7 with examples or maybe doing online classes ( if there was enough interest, naturally )

I'll definately have to do some more checking into my styleworks program, I truly thought they'd dropped that Cubase feature.

Thank you once again.

best wishes
Rikki



[This message has been edited by rikkisbears (edited 10-14-2003).]

Thanks, Rikki.
Many discussions were had about the 7k book but I was of the opinion that so many 6/65k books having been sold all over the world, having paid once, owners would be reluctant to pay again for an updated book covering similar ground to the old book. In any event an official book was requested for the new features and there was so much new in the 7k with sd and audio and pc functions etc that it was easily enough to justify another book for those.

I did outline the chord modify change in the old book but a detailed use requires a good knowledge of harmony theory so a full explanation was really outside the remit of the 6/65k book.

Basically you can program how any style or any pad responds to chord changes, and it is a very sophisticated tool which gives superior results to the other systems used by some other manufacturers, but is overlooked in virtually all discussions that I ever see, truly one of the great unappreciated features of Technics boards.

You can not only program a different pattern for major, minor or 7th chords for instance, or hold a note in the accompaniment after you change chord in the left hand, but keep accompaniments straying too far from their inversions while changing chords etc.

This is not only programmable for each individual accompaniment track, it is programmable for each individual note of any track in composer or pad in step record. Thus different patterns will result depending on which chord you play in the left hand.

For example if you record C, G, E in a pattern and play C7 in the left hand and trigger the pattern with the default global “7th G>Bb” setting you will hear C, Bb, E. Now the seventh has many uses and you may not want to signal a direct resolve to the perfect cadence or many other reasons.
Change the global chord modify change to “7th C>Bb” and when you play the same pattern in C7 you will hear Bb, G, E – the point being that this has been done without changing any notes in the pattern programming at all.

Not only that but each note can be set individually, so a series of Gs and Cs can be changed differently, or not, or even left alone as the harmony changes - programmable individually for each individual G and individual C in the pattern. You have 23 types of response to different chord changes to play with for every note of accompaniment harmony in every track of preset, composer, custom and pad.

The problem of clashing added notes as the harmony changes are either ignored in other manufacturers systems or added notes are simply not used in the styles to their loss. Technics met the problem head on with chord modify change.

best wishes to you too