Styles question

Hello Friends,

I was wondering if there are any programs available on PC that would allow you to preview any styles (STL) before loading them in your favorite board.
It'd be nice if we can actually download and hear style right away.
Cheers,
Claude

[This message has been edited by wizboy (edited 06-17-2002).]

The EMC style converter plays the style for you, but is an expensive way of doing it. But you can hear the result of pc editing to changing the accomp voices etc etc. It is more difficult to judge the style in a constant repeated C major on the pc, than having it on the board where you can do a few chord progressions, but it is good to sort through a whole load of styles very quickly and grade them for later investigation.

You can play style files on VanBasco Karaoke Player, which is free. Be aware, though, that the styles are written in Cmaj7 and all the notes are played. While they don't sound like a song, you can certainly tell if you would want to audition the style in your keyboard.
DonM

technicsplayer, DonM:

Thanks for your replies, I appreciate your input.
Don, do you know where I can find that VanBasco Karaoke Player ? I've downloaded an evaluation version of the EMC style converter and didn't seem to work very well for me on WinXP. Did anybody else run into a compatibility issue ?
Thanks.

Claude

Just go to www.vanbasco.com and you will find it.
Don
P.S. Almost forgot--Uncle Dave told me about Vanbasco several years ago. At the time you had to pay for it. Just wanted to be sure and give credit

HI: Wizboy
Someone else said that the evaluation version of the EMC style converter
don't work with Windows XP.
So your not the only one.
Denny

yes, EMC used to have the old 16 bit programs for download, and these were from win95 days so won't work with XP well (if at all). You could try installing in win95 compatabilty mode in XP but based on previous experience I'm not confident that would do much good. But EMC now have 32 bit versions which should work on XP?... I haven't tried it yet on my XP machine.

Maybe mail the question to them, or try the latest evaluation version.

The new, FREE vanBasco player is even better than the old one. It has tempo, volume & key change controls! It's so easy to use, and has a large, bright screen - great for stage use.

I've just downloaded the latest Vanbasco Karaoke and it does look really nice, very well designed GUI, convenient.
Thanks for the link Don and credits to UD
However, I'm not able to play any STL files though...
I didn't see the help mentioning anything about being able to play styles...
Am I missing something?
Thanks.
Claude

van basco (a great program) works for yamaha styles, you have to rename them to *.mid

I would first suggest that you click on the little music note in the right hand upper corner. Then choose Setup.
In Setup, I have mine set to associate all file types. It plays the style files.
Your computer may have another program selected to play style files. You may need to find that and change it.
I would suggest that you right-click on a style file, select "Open With" and then "Choose Program". Then, although sometimes it is slow to open, you will be able to associate the style files with VanBasco. Be sure to check the box that says "always use this program".
I'm assuming you are running Windows!
DonM

Technics Player: Mine plays them without renaming to .mid.
DonM

Ah... interesting. I have them associated to open up in EMC, so had to rename for the few experiments I did in midi players. Good point.

Or you can just right-click the style file and pick Open With and select VanBasco. I think it shows up as vmidi.
Don

Thanks for the tips. I found out you could also click on a midi file from explorer and drag and drop it onto Vanbasco and it'll automatically open it.

I tried the styles provided with the EMC Styleworks demo downloaded earlier, this is why i couldn't open them. I guess any styles coming from Roland web site or Yamaha should work. Thanks

Claude

Checkout the Realtime Style Performer and Live-Styler pages with software that will use Yamaha PSR styles.