How many of us develop our own styles?

I've been reading the Mediastation review, and the one thing that jumped out at me is the acknowledgment that you really need to develop your own styles, there are not that many provided, and of varying quality. So you are encouraged to make your own.

Which begs the question...... how many of us actually DO roll their own, how well (compared to factory styles) do they tend to turn out, and how much of a PITA is it? (OK, three questions!)

Given how inconsistent even factory styles can be, and the major philosophy differences different manufacturers have (busy, sparse, complicated fills, room for the player, do everything for you, etc.), how easy is it to roll your own to the highest standards, and how many of us even try....?

And I'm not talking converting a Technics into a Roland, or anything like that. How many actually make their own......?

I use to do it alot with technics, but not as much any more on the Yamaha.

I tweak alot of the standard styles and edit the Drum kits mainly.

I'd love to see a demo video of the process of creating a style start to finish on the Media station...?

It used to be very easy on Technics, and I made some for the early Yamahas. The last ones I made were for PA80, but only two.
You can do them as well or better than factory styles, but there is a learning curve and it takes some time.
It used to easier because the parts didn't have so many variations, fills, intros, endings, breaks--all of which should be programmed if you are going to do it right.
Personally I haven't had much trouble finding everything I need in the past few years.
I wouldn't buy a keyboard for which I KNEW I'd have to program a lot of styles. But then someone else may have plenty of time to do that and wouldn't mind.
DonM

I wouldn’t have it any other way than creating styles.

Having my own styles created by myself with my playing/performance style and technique taken in to account is a competitive advantage for me.


When I play, I am not trying to sound like the recording of a song. Most of the performance, I try to sound like a 2-6 member band. As such, I don’t make my styles with a lot of instrumental style parts. I would use 3 of the 8 style parts for drums and percussions. A bass, one or two comping instruments make up the style parts. I almost never use all 8 style parts.

Any other sounds I would use with the left and right live keyboard parts.

With copy and paste, style creation is not as long and difficult as you think.

If you stick with a keyboard for about 6 months, and consistently set-aside time to develop styles, you would be surprised as to how quickly your style library would grow.

On paper, the mediastation seems to have one of the best style creation and performance feature set for an OMB.

Note, if you use a different style for each song you play, and you like to have lots of instruments playing at one time, then style creation would not be to your benefit.

Hi,
record a style from scratch , unfortunately no.
Technically I know how to do it, musically, I'm brain dead.

Mainly mix n match style phrases, whether from onboard styles or conversions from other keyboards. If I can't find a style to suit a song, I build it up from my phrase library.

Find trying to create Intro's & Endings the most difficult, unless they're song specific.

Can't beleive how complex some of the new T2 & PSR3k styles are. Yammies used to be so straight forward.

best wishes
Rikki

fromtimetotimei creatye my own styleson the PA1X asi have done on all my keyboards. I have a good ear great timeing and a good imagination. In no way is this an easy thing to do.

The furthest I go is to use the Mix & Match parts from different styles on board my 3K.
This can produce very good and consistent results because Yamaha have already done the hard work.

i also write new styles, when i really don t find something to match the need. there are more than one approch for this.
one easy way, to mix already existent parts into a new style. another way, to write some new parts and mix with already existent.
and the best, but also more difficult and time cnsuming, to write each part of the style by yourself, creating something original. that goes the best for me, but is not a easy thing to do.
if you are with the computers, you can do everything into a midi sequencer, creating and editing everything there as a midi file, and then extract various intervals into intros, fills, mains, endings. that is provided your instrument can convert midi to style (roland for instance).
writing the styles only using the instrument (keyboard) could take long time and you might miss many phrases or ideas you have in mind by the time you should put them on the notes. nevertheless, is always satisfactory to create and then use your own original styles.
everyone should try this!

Hello All
In the old days when the number of styles available were limited, all professional players tended to write there own for there performances, however these days with style converters and the number of styles available (Probably at least half a dozen for every song that has been written) very few people need to write there own from scratch, which is why if you purchase books on style creation (Those that are still in print) they are normally older books.
In the future you will probably find that all boards will be able to play all different manufactures styles without conversion.
If you do not think this will happen, then please remember that Wersi’s new Open Art Arranger software update, can play all Yamaha styles without conversion, and I believe they are also in discussion with other manufactures
Enjoy whatever you play

Bill

Years ago, when creating a style meant just one intro, one ending, two variations and one fill, I made a half-dozen styles. They were plain, no frills, and worked just fine. However, there are now thousands upon thousands of great conversions available for Yamaha keyboards, some of which sound better than the orriginals, styles that for most members would be nearly impossible to create from scratch. The keyboard's onboard software now makes modifying these styles a cinch, and there are numerous individuals that have provided us with some incredible examples of this during the past few years. You'll find many of them at www.psrtutorial.com , http://www.yamahapkowner.com/forum/index.php and http://www.svpworld.com/forum/songs.asp .

The secret to making them sound good in your keyboard is taking the time to tune them to your specifications using the keyboard's software. This takes time, and as posted above, there is a learning curve. It's not something you'll master in an hour and become an instant expert--it takes a fair amount of work.

Good Luck,

Gary

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Travlin' Easy

I make styles for most of the songs I play and most of them are song-specific.

I normally first make a template on the keyboard (PA80), save the style, covert to midi files with style to MIDI converter on the computer, and edit them using Cakewalk and/or XGWorks. I use 'Rhythm & Chords' to program guitar parts.

Since song specific most of the time, I don't need two intros and two endings. So, I notmally use end1 as intro and end2 as end. Then use intro1 and intro2 for fill-ins that are triggered at the first beat of the next measure and fill-in1 and fill-in2 for fill-ins that I need to jump into in the middle of the measure. Additional fill-ins --if needed-- are made and triggered using chord variations.

Shiral

Hello All
Found this site about Style Creation, it is mainly designed for Yamaha but most of it can be used with all instruments, or when the new Open Art Arranger is released Wersi owners will probably be able to follow it 100%.
Hope you find it interesting and inspiring.

Bill
http://www.jososoft.dk/yamaha/articles/Style_1.htm

BTW More pictures of the Open Art Arranger can be found here.
http://www.interlight.be/wersi/index.htm

Hi Bill,
Jorgen's site is really amazing. Bet you can't wait till your wersi is able to use the Yamaha styles directly ( without going thru conversion process)

It appears that neither Wersi nor Mediastation is an option for me ( here in Aust. short of maybe trying to import one directly) , I'm back to OMB software & psr .sty format.

Picked up an SD2 soundmodule, be fascinating to see if I can convert some of my sd1+ styles across to OMB/SD2 format.
I found SD1 styles are a problem to convert because of drum 2 " Live Drums", it appears sd2 has these.
best wishes
Rikki
[QUOTE]Originally posted by abacus:
[B]Hello All