Hi Folks. I converted approx 680 Band In a Box styles to Yamaha .sty format. I know they won't all sound that good from the start, but remember, these are raw, and they are easy to revoice and adjust ( chorus reverb volumes, etc ) in most of our modern Yamaha arrangers. I'm simply adjusting my favorites and are saving registrations to recall the data for my Tyros 2. Some come up sounding very good.....

Later on I will probably adjust my favorites permanently in One Man Band, so that I can use them without having to call up a registration.

The Tyros 2 ( and all top end arrangers ) have so many features that allow us to customze them for almost any playing situation. I hope to see more discussions pertaining to these aspects of our keyboards. They're all good, no matter which brand....

Here is the link to the styles:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FOC6FXX0

Regards
AJ

Hi AJ: First of all, MANY thanks for sharing with us your large collection (684) Biab to Yamaha .STY conversions. As one who owns Biab (version 2006), I certainly would appreciate learning how to covert Biab format styles to Yamaha (Tyros2) .STY format as well. What specific software utility program(s) did you use to convert them with? EMC Styleworks 2000 Universal, XGWorks, and/or other software? Thanks.

Scott

Scott,

You're quite welcome. I used Michael Bedesem's freeware stylemaker program. That's it!! .. and of course Band in A Box itself. Once I got a system in place, the whole thing took me maybe 12 hours over several days.

It's automatic. Michael's program gives you several BIAB "songs" to open up in BIAB, depending on whether you want to add melodies and / or soloist parts to your style, or not add either ( I didn't use melodist or soloists in my conversions ).
You simply open one of the "songs", and from there choose your BIAB style, and save that result as a type 0 midifile. All I had to do was keep the same "song" each time and just switch styles and save the midifile.

When all of the midfiles were saved, I just opened each one in Stylemaker, pushed the "style from BB" button, and saved the new style. It's all automatic. Michael's software automatically adds the proper CASM sections just by pushing the "style from BB" button, and it all works so easily.

I know there will be the skeptics who say that converted styles don't sound good. You're right, if you never take a little time to tweak them. Problem is, I can only tweak them for the T2, either by using registrations or permanently using One Man Band ( using OMB takes a good bit longer though ), or in the T2's stylemaker ( this takes substantially longer because unlike OMB you need to reset data in every variation ).

Not all of these styles were particularly good to start with, but there are many gems in there, with some styles that you will find no close counterparts for on any of the major arrangers.

Just for hahas, later in the week, after I setup some registrations, I'll record a few demos and post them here.. Since the styles ususally only have 4 to 5 parts, if I want to add another part, I'll sometimes add a ( repeating ) multipad phrase that works closely with the style. If you ever get bored with the onboard stuff, ( preprogrammed styles, multipads, voices, etc ) there is so much else you can add to flavor your arranger. I think it's amazing what the T2 can do, if we just take some time to "dig in".

Ive always enjoyed tweaking as much as I do actually playing, and the former makes the latter even more enjoyable for me. That's one of the reasons I like my softsetup so much. Tweaking stuff is enjoyable on this board, much more so than any other hardware I've ever owned, arranger or otherwise.


AJ



[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 08-21-2006).]

AJ,
many thanks for sharing these styles with us; your generosity is much appreciated!
I will give them a try as soon as I get home.
Ciao!

AJ: Thanks for taking the time to provide the BIAB in STY format as well as the info on how you did it. Look forward to checking out the styles and tweaking them for my T2.

AJ:
Thanks for taking the time to share this interesting material.

You're welcome folks. I've been going through some of them now on the T2. So far I've liked about half, give or take, of what I've tried out enough that I'm tweaking them.

For now, I think it's easiest to adjust them and simply save the changes as registration and OTS memories. This works with other converted styles as well. As long as the note data is good, I can pretty much deal with the rest rather quickly in the mixer and save to a reg.

I wanted to keep the styles simple, so I had more room to play over them. I wonder how they would come out with the melodist parts added. I might try some of these down the road as well. I don't think I'd want to add the soloist though.

One other thing I did. I changed BIAB's default channels ( in it's channel options settings ) to correspond with Yamaha styles. I don't think this really matters though, because I'm pretty sure that Michael's software fixes that anyway. I had actually done that long before I started converting the styles, so that my Xlutop Chainer setups ( soft synth rack module ) for BIAB and OMB would be interchangeable.

AJ




[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 08-21-2006).]

Hi AJ,
could you please add your styles & info on program used to the http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/makingstyles/
group. There's plenty of space to load them in the files area. ( at least they won't dissapear into cyberspace when your link runs out)
Have a few psr members who may appreciate the styles & the info on how to go about it.

Or if you don't have the time, I'd be happy to do it, if you don't have any objections.

best wishes
Rikki
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Bluezplayer:
[B]

[This message has been edited by rikkisbears (edited 08-21-2006).]

I'll be happy to post them there Rikki. I had intended to ask you about this anyway. Thanks..

AJ

Thanks AJ,
that would be great. Must take another look at Michael's program.

best wishes
Rikki

They are now posted at the Making Styles forum, along with a small tutorial.

AJ

Thanks for the piles of styles, AJ.

Ian

------------------
Remember to leave good news alone.

You're quite welcome Ian. I'm pretty much amazed at what is possible using the Tyros2. I was messing around with some of the fusion styles, and managed to tweak and save the registration and OTS data for 8 of the ones I like best so far. So far so good. Quite a few styles already that I probably couldn't find anywhere else.

Having the multipads to spice up the styles is a huge plus as well. I hope to make some useful ones using some of thw midi data I already have ( keyfax, Rythym N Chords, the Mo ES arps, etc ), along with making up some fresh midi data in FL studio.

AJ

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 08-21-2006).]

AJ,
Thanks for these.
Terry

You're quite welcome... Glad I could do them Terry. Quite a few folks have freely provided so much for those of us who play these things. I'm glad to be able to give a little back.

I so much enjoyed the little extra things I was able to do with my older Yamaha arrangers, so I'm glad to be "back in the fold" after 3+ years.

Best Regards,

AJ

Thanks AJ,
much appreciated.

best wishes
Rikki

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Bluezplayer:
[B]

AJ, another thanks to you. I downloaded them late last night and used them on my CVP 307, some nice stuff indeed. Tonight when I unpack my 3000, I'll try them on that as well. Thanks again.

Steve let me know how they work out on your 3k

thanx

Sure thing.

Donny, tried about 40 of the styles on the 3 K mostly from the Jazz/Traditional Latin, Blues and a few Rock Styles. Gotta say for raw styles those that I tried sound good, some tweaking may be needed, but for the most part I find them usable right out of the box.

I agree Stephen. Some of the styles I've used actually did sound fairly good untouched, but a little tweaking made them better. I promise to try to get out a few demos in the near future.. and with an A/B .. Same music... before and after tweaking.

I'm talking very minimal work too. I'm sure that there are some folks out there who can probably combine a little more effort than I used with perhaps better skill than I have, and come up with even better sounding results.

AJ