Can you create styles in Band in a box and then use them in an arranger keyboard?

Sure. As long as the arranger keyboard in question allows for the creation of user styles. You could play the BIAB style into the arranger keyboard while the keyboard is in style record mode.

I don't know if there is a way to place a BIAB style on a disk and then load that directly into your arranger keyboard though. Maybe the Style Works program is compatible with BIAB format but I don’t remember that being the case.

Best Regards,

Dave


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Wm. David McMahan
Nat'l Product and Support Manager
Generalmusic USA
GEM Community Forums

My understanding is this: When you create a style in BIAB all you are really doing is creating a midi file. It is of fixed length and all chord changes are programmed in and cannot be changed on the fly like an arranger style can.

I hope I'm wrong because I would buy BIAB in a minute if it could create arranger styles.

Tom

Hi,
depends if your keyboard has a Midi to style option.

The only way you can do it as far as I'm aware, is to create a midifile of the BIAB style, then, create a style fom the midifile , if your keyboard has that function.

best wishes
Rikki

Michael Bedesem's freeware Style Maker contains a utility that apparantly auto converts BIAB data into Yamaha .sty format. If I remeber right, you do need to save the data as a BIAB song ( or perhaps midi file ).

You cannot load BIAB files directly into your Yamaha arranger and play them. Although both use the .sty extension ( jammer Pro also uses this ext. ), the formats are completely different .

AJ

I'm confused.

Band In A Box makes styles, but they can't be used as styles in an arranger keyboard?

That dosen't seem right.


Larry

Larry,

Each manufacturer uses a unique structure and different set of midi and / or sysex commands for their styles. It's basically along the same lines as trying to use a raw ( unconverted ) Korg .sty file in a Tyros. It simply won't work.

.sty just happens to be the extension that many of the manufacturers choose to use in order to give their styles an extension that is compatible with use on a computer. A korg .sty file is in no way similar to a yamaha .sty file. In fact, one Korg .sty file holds 16 individual styles inside of it. One Yamaha .sty file holds one style.

A korg style consists of individual and seperate midifiles for each variation in a style. Each midifile has a unique name ( such as v1cv1 ) that a PA80 scans and finds when you call up a particular variation.

Yamaha styles are simply a single midifile that contains the midi data of all of the variations in a style, along with markers that the arranger scans and detects when you call up a certain variation. The Yamaha .sty file also uses sysex commands that define other style parameters.

BIAB styles work in a different way than either. Each style variation has several sub-variations within, with numerical values assigned to each of the "sub-variations" that help determine how often and / or where in a song a particular sub variation will play.


The extensions .fxb and .fxp other examples of this. These are the propietary extension that Steinberg created for single patch ( fxp) and multiple patch or effect banks ( fxb ) that are used in mostly all Vst plug ins and instruments. Each plug in manufacturer sets his / her banks and patches up to match the software, but these are never interchangeable. In other words, I can't use an .fxb bank made for Arturia's CSv80 inside of NI's Pro 53. In fact I can't even use some of the .fxb banks from Pro 52 inside of Pro 53.

Hope this helps..
Cheers,

AJ

AJ,
Thanks for the detailed explanation.

Now that I know, I'm not sure if there's a reason to buy BIAB.

Larry

My problem is I confuse Band In A Box with One Man Band. For arranger keyboards I believe One Man Band is the software to use for style making.
Correct?
Larry

That's it Larry. BIAB is not a real time app. OMB is the software arranger that allows the user to play Yamaha styles in real time.

AJ

hmmm, OK, I've created a style using the Stylemaker from within BIAB. It converts a standard MIDI file to a style using fixed lentgh measures. My next step is to load it into my Tyros 2 and see what it sounds like. I'll report back my findings once I do this.

Al

Band-in-a-Box is more of a composing tool for writing music or making songs that auto play.

The cords are entered and the song is compiled using the style. The one problem it has is that as BluesPlayer pointed out the sub-styles are value weighted so that each time to re-compile the song it may sound a little different depending on what sub-styles are used.

I consider it a great tool for writing songs and it can even write song all by itself. Not great songs but songs with really stupid names.


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Heather- Leesburg, FL PR54