Sorry guys, not about the Genos this time. ( incidentally, I am totally flabbergasted how Yamaha is pulling it off once more, ultimately making some of you part with their hard earned cash :/). Anyway there is no accounting for tastes, so if you're happy I am happy.

Those of you who know me or are familiar with my music and programming know that I basically have playes KORG since the beginning of this century. I had all the arranger models but only briefly tried the PA3X and even more briefly the PA4X, ultimately resorting to the old and trusted PA800, be in in combination with ,yet again, an old Ketron SD1plus.

This week I sold both keyboards and have ordered the PA1000 be it with doubt and fear.I will elaborate on that further on ( for those of you who can be torn from the Genos thread, haha) but first let us refresh our memory here on SOUNDS.
In this respect I must point out that I am a home musician, do not gig ( alas due to poor health) and I sing, or at least I try to. Is that important you might wonder. Most definitely.
First of all I try and arrange wellknown pop songs rather profoundly as I have no crowd to 'recognize my covers '.
A couple of years ago there was a long thread here on the subject of "How many sounds do you really need as an arranger player and/or performer ". I am sure Donny, Don and Deane will recall, actually I believe it was Donny who initiated that thread. Although answers inevitably varied the overall consensus was that approx. 50 superb sounds ( let us say 75 tops) would be amply sufficient. For those out gigging like Uncle Dave,Don, Donny , Deane etc. the essence would be "sounding like a real band ". Real bands basically implies superb drums and percussion, ( I will drop the superb as it goes for all of them), guitars, bass, piano, sax, trumpet, organ, and "varied ". I may be forgetting a few catagories but not all that many.Now if you were to have TEN superb sounds in each of the aforesaid category, wouldn't that go a long way to being well contented ? For crying out loud , forget about two or three thousand sounds on whichever Yamaha, Korg or Ketron !!!

Then there is the "programming issue ". I am 66 now and many of you that I know about are in the upper sixties or older. Many of the older ones, at least here in Holland have stuck with Yamaha as most of the programming is/was done for them cause out of the box Roland, Korg and to a lesser degree Ketron sounded awful in the first 10 years of this century. When I purchased my first PA800 as late as 2010 and started programming and offering them to other musicians around the globe I was surprised but also somewhat saddened to see and realize that after having been on the market for four years already my Resources were met with great enthusiasm and many told me that had given a new lease to their keyboard. I am not saying this to pat myself on the shoulders but rather to point out that the majority of (home) arranger keyboard players do not get beyond the basics and thank God on their knees that the present generation of keyboards have amply stocked Songbooks or its equivaent. ( In this respect it is interesting to see where Yamaha will be heading with this new beast of theirs)

Now as to my beef with Korg. I know some of you may remark that I am hammering on the same string again, but after carefully watching the instruction tutorials on SONGBOOK and KEYBOARD SETS I cannot but reiterate how much Korg goofed it and shortchanged its clients with the omission of PERFORMANCES ever since the introduction of the PA4X and subsequently also the new PA1000 etc.
Basically in all former models you could save a full REGISTRATION ( right hand sounds, left hand sounds, style, sounds in styles, etct.) into one single Performance. This Registration could be saved in two ways:
1/ as a Performance
2/ in the Songbook.

In the current models the first option has fully gone overboard. Instead Korg ( I would wager a fair bet saying Korg Italy) came forward with the idea of replacing Performances by Keyboard Sets. The latter basically only save sound combinations for right and left hand and no styles. In view of my remarks on SOUNDS I wonder how many keyboard sets anyone would wish to create. Second, and this will only sound familiar to those who played former Korg models, if you de-activated the
Style Change button in Performance mode, you basically had 256 Soundsets to your disposal with the same style !!!!

Anyway I have now decided to give it a final go ( built in speakers being very very important to me, in this respect I fully concur with Uncle Dave) but still hope and pray that one day they will update the current models by re-introducing the Performance Mode. This would not have to be done at the expense of the keyboard Sets in my view. The Keyboard Sets buttons could easily be awarded a double function thus restoring Performances while still retaining the current Keyboard Sets.
( Paolo, mi senti ????????????????)

kind regards,
John Smies

Disagree, having great combos available that you can use with any style is much better then tying the style in to the combo, particularly as if you need something specific you can save it in the Songbook.

As to the number of sounds, then the more the merrier, as everybody will have their own personal favourites which will help differentiate them from the other entertainers out there. (Which is always difficult to do at the best of times with an arranger as you have to rely on boring and repetitive backings (Styles) to fill in what other players (Organ players for example) do live and can add feeling on the fly)

Bill

I think the pa4x songbook just works perfect... espescially in combination with the keyboardsets...
maybe its because i got used to it so quickly...

And the new setlist feature adds even more freedom

The KORG Songbook feature is outstanding to save all song info...
make sure you unlock & check specific controls first.

secondly you have the "keyboard set list" which basically does the same thing,
and you also have User storage for styles and sounds which at a touch of a button can access any of them too.
Personally I save all song info, arrangements info to Songbook, style, mp3, smf,
it's a very powerful performance tool with easy scroll or search access in real time.
out shining Yamaha in many ways in that regard..

John good luck you made a very wise choice with the new Pa1000...
now lets hear some great classic 60's songs I know very well
you can produce with that Smies touch!!!!

Isn't there an option to "save style" with a KB set? I could swear I saw that somewhere.

I don't think so Dave. I always used the Performances only to changes sounds anyway. Occasionally I would have the button in the wrong place, try to call up a sound, and change the style accidentally, so I'm glad they did away with them.
You CAN of course use the set list to access setups, but they originate in the Songbook. I think Korg just took out redundancy and made everything more efficient.

There is a button labeled "Style to KB Set" right next to the Chord Seq button. If you push this, I think it will save the ACC pattern with KB sets.
I THINK

To be honest, I am thinking about the PA4X!

Hi John
I base all my performance arranger needs through styles and renaming custom styles to suit the particular song. Below is an except from the method I use with my Tyros 5 instead of using one registration bank per song.

Re: Do people use one entire registration bank for a single song ?

As most arranger players would use a registration bank per song, I take a totally different approach that works better for me. There is probably not one Tyros 5 voice, style, OTS or multipad that I haven't modified and customized beyond the default settings. I rather organize and play from a song list or modified styles and style names, while having access to two Voice registration banks.

My original concept of using two Voice Registration Banks was, I can select up or down, on-the-fly, between my favorite standard voice bank to a customized Ensemble voice bank. This has presently grown to four voice banks with each alternate registration bank being an Ensemble voice set ... or rather the identical duplicated Ensemble Voice Bank. The concept was using Registration Bank 1 for my best customized voices assigned to the LH,RH1-2-3 positions for each of the eight memory buttons. The RH-3 voice is always assigned to my MIDI Bass Pedals. While in my Ensemble Voice Bank, RH-3 also corresponds as the fourth Ensemble Voice which can be played as a fifth Ensemble voice by my MIDI Bass Pedals.

The idea is, I use registration button one of my first Voice Registration Bank to initialize all my settings and activate the freeze function. Now when I select and play from any of my custom styles, I am free to select any Voice preset from my four registration sound banks. Each registration up or down takes me in or out of my Ensemble Voice Bank while playing my Song Style. The other two Voice Registration Banks are setup mainly as frozen LH piano voice (with freeze button on) or a suitable frozen LH organ voice. I went from 2 main registration banks to 4 as I made more use of Organ World into my Styles and Songs.

Each of my songs is a customized style, modified and named to suit. Organized in folders, that are easily accessed, categorized and memorized to the eleven Style File Access buttons. Synced MIDI songs to certain styles/songs are in folders memorized to the four Song buttons. Way easier to instantly access all my song folders within 11 memorized Style buttons and 4 Song buttons visually in front of you on the Tyros panel then having to hunt through hundreds of registration bank saves through a single "J" button.

A customized style has customized voices locked into each of the four OTS slots with all Mixing Console parameters baked in. Each OTS slot can have a customized Multipad bank baked into that memory save. This is amazing power and versatility. Each of my Song Styles, easily accessed and selected through any of the 11 Style button memory saves can have customized OTS voices, so (LH, RH1, RH2, RH4) X 4, for a total of 16 customized voices selection automatically to the Style Main parts or manually through the OTS buttons.

Most people don't realize, but each OTS save can have a different Multipad linked and memorized to it. Also while one Multipad playing from a Multipad Bank linked to one OTS save, you can enter another OTS with a different assigned Multipad Bank and activate yet another multipad from the new OTS selection while the original Multipad is still playing. This overlap can enhance the transition from one category of OTS voices/Multipads to yet a totally different Voice/Multipad category assigned to a single custom song style. Even while I have access to all these customized preset OTS Voices/Multipads to my playing Song Style, I can easily jump into any of my 4 Registration Voice Banks. Yamaha allows us to save Ensemble Voices into OTS saves and I can both jump in and out of Ensemble or Organ World saves while the style is playing.

So for one customized Song Style save, I have of course manual access to the 4 Main Style variations/fills, 16 customized Voices through the linked OTS saves, 16 saved customized Multipad patterns or effects, and 32 customized voices per activated Registration Voice Bank X the four banks I can cycle through on the fly. This gives me more power and selection then relying on one Registration Bank per song. Easier for me to remember where voices are because I memorized my four default Registration Voice Bank through constant use. All the style voices are baked into the OTS. Sometimes I press the OTS INFO button in menu 1, to refresh my memory to what the OTS Voice names are before starting the Song Style. It would be nice to also see the four Multipad names as well, but I pretty much remember through practicing the songs.

About a third of my style songs are synched with a customized MIDI Song file through the Sync/Start function and a few also linked to an Audio Multipad. Again, easily accessed through folder saves to the 4 Song memory buttons or 11 style buttons. Only Yamaha arrangers (or specifically the Tyros 5) allows me this work flow, function, versatility, power, and amazing realistic voices/DSPs. With the upcoming Genos, if I upgrade I hope all my custom work is compatible or I'll be "ANGRY WITH YAMAHA". I can of course just stick with my Tyros 5 if the Genos doesn't suit my future needs.

Not sure if any of this is useful, but my system works well for me. When I update my gigging Tyros 5 via USB stick, I copy and overwrite the 11 Style Folders, 4 Song Folders, and my Custom Multipad folder on the HD, which is easily and simple while all the original File Access button saves remain intact. One folder and memory button link contains custom gigging Song sets by either copying custom Song Styles to that folder or renaming them in the order I will play them in a gig. Of course all this setup can be done through registration saves, but this system works out better for me.

Marcus

Offcourse there is... but then you need to save it as a user style...
Altough first copy the style to the user styles
Before making the changes..

Not using this tough, using songbook makes sure, indont need to save multiple copies of the same style for different performances..