Originally posted by Scottyee:
...Well, here's my solution to the PSR2000's small 580kb storage space. ...
As Scott points out in his initial posting, the many options (and restrictions) of the PSR2000 require users to think about not only how to play the keyboard, but also how to organize their arranger data. Let me add some more options users may find useful.
When you have a "song" just the way you like it, the arrangement package consists of a particular song title, an accompaniment style and associated settings, and various instruments selected to play the main voices, together (main, layer, left) and in sequence (OTS, R1-8, Rhythm A, B, C, D).
You can devise organization schemes based on any of the main parts above, song title, style, key instruments.
If you want to focus on the song, you can save all your registration settings as a registration file named after the song. If you save this on a floppy, you can put 200-300 songs on a single disk, complete with whatever folder scheme you want to use to find the songs. If there are a few fake books you play from, you could have a disk for each book, then as you play the songs in the book, save the settings you want under the song name and they are always available when you play the song again. It might take only 2 or 3 registration entries to define the song the way you want it, but you could also consider setting up two or three styles that could be used to play that song and save all the settings in the one song file.
As another alternative, consider a style focus. I happen to love the Lounge Piano style (unfortunately not preset in the PSR2000, but easily obtained from floppy and stored in user area.) That particular style can be used with a lot of different songs. So, I use the 8 registrations to set up a variety of solo instruments, and even left hand accompaniment (some with Grand Piano, some with Nylon Guitar, which sounds great as an accompaniment on the 2000). I can then bringup this registration, freeze either the piano left hand or nylon left hand, and have lots of solo instruments (the 8 reg settings plus the 4 OTS settings) that can be used with this style.
Style type (tempo) can also be used. Last night I set up an 8-Beat (100-120) registration set. A lot of songs will fit into this tempo range and there are a variety of styles available in the 2000 that I can put in the registrations. When I come across a song in this tempo range, I can pull up this reg file and choose any of the styles, freeze it, and then use any of the solo instruments set up in the 8 reg slots plus the OTS settings. In picking main instruments to go in a style registration slot, I try and choose an instrument that is not in one of the 4 OTS settings to maximize the choices available.
Finally, there is the favorite settings and instruments suggested by Scott. Using the Music Finder Database, pick your song (which will have the tempo and style set in the MFD) and then freeze that sytle and use any of the instruments you want from your favorite settings.
As the Music Finder Database grows, it can be more difficult to find songs. You can use the keyword entry to help. For example, if you put in a code that represents a music book (I use UFB for Ultimate Fake Book - fewer letters are always preferable), you can search on that keyword to find all the songs in that book that you have defined in the MFD.
I'm not sure which method, if any, will prove most useful for me over time. I thought saving registrations by song, could be useful, particularly since a floppy can hold so many songs. However, it's a pain to set everything up for any song, particularly when so many songs can share the same basic environment. So, perhaps defining a few style/tempo related settings may be sufficient to support hundreds of possible songs. I enjoy flipping through my books playing song after song a lot more than fussing over exactly what instruments to be using.
Looking forward to hearing other ideas from users...
Joe