Hello! I would like to get some advise from the pros here

Often when I create a style, the overall sounds lacked balance and 'completeness'. When compared to the presets, my styles sounded like all instruments are fighting for space to be heard or seems to be playing in one straight line in front of me

The keyboard preset styles have instruments playing 'far' away or 'near', on the left or right side. All the instruments in the style seemed to have their own 'space' and sounded balanced and complete.

After much reading and going through the keyboard's preset style's settings, the balance and completeness effects were created by mixing the Volume levels and Panning position of each instruments for a style.

How do you decide on the volume levels and panning position for each instruments when creating styles?

Hi
Provided that your keyboard allows you to control the pan and volume of a user style, then panning and adjusting the volume for each track for a style helps the style to have more room between instruments.

One of the things I do is to leave drums centered (bass and snare) the percussions sounds are mostly panned in the drum kit already. I generally keep the bass centered also. I most times keep pianos centered if it is playing a major part in the style. Then, if I have what I call filler sounds like and occasional guitar lick I would pan that to the extreme left or right. When I pan an instrument to the extreme left or right, I usually take the volume down about 25%.

One way to help in deciding what and how to pan is to listen, with stereo head phones, to a stereo recording of the type of music you are trying to make a style for and take note of the instrumentation, volume and the panning. Also, if your keyboard allows you to, you can use existing styles as a template for sounds, volume and panning settings.

In addition to mixer settings, effects (reverb and chorus and delay) help in giving space to the style.

Good to hear you are entering the fun world and useful world of style creation.

[This message has been edited by to the genesys (edited 01-31-2005).]

For one of my programs (not yet released) I built in an Auto Pan function. To come up with the values, I did some research on the net regarding orchestration and also looked at a lot of Yamaha styles.

Here is a list of the instruments that are not placed in the center (pan= 64).

Crystal Pan to 014
Timpani Pan to 020
Tubular Bells Pan to 025
Percussive Organ Pan to 030
DistortionGuitar Pan to 030
Jazz Guitar Pan to 031
Nylon Guitar Pan to 032
Choir Aahs Pan to 032
Voice Oohs Pan to 032
Clarinet Pan to 032
Orchestral Harp Pan to 040
Clean Guitar Pan to 048
Trombone Pan to 048
Viola Pan to 050
Steel Drums Pan to 050
Fiddle Pan to 054
Violin Pan to 055
Tenor Sax Pan to 056
Brass Section Pan to 058
Harpsichord Pan to 060
Rock Organ Pan to 072
Tango Accordion Pan to 072
OverdhvenGuitar Pan to 072
PizzicatoStrinqs Pan to 072
Tuba Pan to 072
Trumpet Pan to 074
Synth Brass 1 Pan to 074
Synth Brass 2 Pan to 074
Recorder Pan to 074
HonkTonk Piano Pan to 075
EIectric Piano 2 Pan to 075
Pan Flute Pan to 075
Blown Bottle Pan to 076
Shakuhachi Pan to 077
Whistle Pan to 078
Ocarina Pan to 079
Electric Piano 1 Pan to 080
Accordion Pan to 082
Vibraphone Pan to 086
Drawbar Organ Pan to 092
Steel Guitar Pan to 096
Muted Guitar Pan to 096
Baritone Sax Pan to 096
Flute Pan to 096
Goblins Pan to 101
Tinkle Bell Pan to 112
Glockenspiel Pan to 122
Bird Tweet Pan to 123
Telephone Ring Pan to 124
Helicopter Pan to 125


Regards,

Michael

Thanks everyone. Great post, and incredible information for those of us who enjoy creating, modifying and working with styles.

WOW!

Gary

I record mine similiar to the way "to the genesys" stated. Typically the drums are already recorded in stereo so most often no need for panning, maybe a volume adjustment though. I would set mine up according to the type of song I'm doing. Most often I'll pan my bass to the left about -15 or -20, then drop the volume a bit. Any piano accomp typically stays dead center, ryh. guitar gets panned to the right +20 to +25, and volume adjustment as well, and so on. Then when recording soloed instruments stay dead center and then have volume adjustments.

Squeak

Thanks Genesys, Michael & Squeak!

Wow! These are very useful information! I will start with a 'template' based on my keyboard's presets then venture into my own pannings.

Thanks a lot!