I don't want to put a damper on all the recent excitement over the PSR2000, but I honestly have to say that I'm extremely disappointed with its' auto accompaniment bass line patterns. I couldn't find even one PSR2000 style (and PSR9000/9000pro styles included) which incorporates a decent inspired walking bass line. The PSR styles don't appear to include bass tones other than root-3rd-5th and 6th. In fact, a lot (most?) of the styles only include the root and 5th. Boring and monotenous to say the least. This weakness shows up most in jazz & blues styles where real bass players typically walk the bass and also include passing tones to get from one chord to another. The PSR jazz & swing style bass lines sound so amateur and totally out of character to what is expected of a professional combo bass player. I really can't figure out how Yamaha could have overlooked something so basic. The Technics KN keyboards (in contrast) incorporate much more musically interesting & professional sounding bass lines which include walking bass, passing tones, octave jumps, etc.

I have been spending time working at converting my favorite KN5000 styles (especially the jazz ones) over to the PSR2000. This has proven to become a bit of a challenge though because there is some amount of tweaking necessary to get the style to sound as good on the 2000. This unfortunately points out another weak feature on the PSR000, it's extremely limited style editing & recording capabilities. For some reason, I'm not able to edit the style part's bass track 'note data'. Does anybody here know if it's possible and if so, how? In fact, it seems there is no way to edit (add/remove) the 'note data ' of any of the user style parts (real time or step record) other than the drum track. This seems highly peculiar. The Technics KN5000/6000/6500 on the other hand, easily lets you record and edit (both in real time & step record) each of its style pattern tracks. Am I missing something on the PSR2000? Does the PSR9000 & 9000 pro work the same? Being relatively new on the PSR keyboard, maybe I'm overlooking something. I can only hope an experienced PSR keyboard player here can possibly show me the light !

OK, I still like the PSR2000 for its' fresh up to date sounds and its' lightweight transportability (this is important to me). The built in vocalizer is another big plus for gig convenience (quick setup). Much more convenient than having to drag my Digitech Workstation around. For the casual affair, the built in vocalizer works great, but I'm still taking the Digitech to the important gigs where its' iimproved sound does 'make a difference'. I just hope that someone here will be able to help me make style editing on the PSR2000 a lot easier ! Feedback and help would be much appreciated now. Got an aspirin?

Scott,

basically you are right with your impression about the somehow limited 'default' bass pattern in the Yamaha styles. I also have done some tries converting KN5000 styles for my PSR9000 recognizing the
more colorful bass lines.

But I have also seen some disadvantages in having these very specific bass parts, you have to be very careful with your chord progression, otherwise it will sound 'wrong'. It's a little bit the same with the new so called 'Session Styles' on the PSR2000 and the CVP209. They are sounding great on their own, but they don't fit to every song or chord progression.

On the other hand, they are very powerful control mechanisms for the Acmp part in the Yamaha boards to have also more control about the bass line. You could either use the OnBass feature to play the bass you would like to have or or you use the normal Fingerd mode for also play the slash chords like C/E or C/G. With the right usage out of
this feature you can play more or less every bass pattern with your left hand you would like to have.

During a user group meeting here in Germany a few weeks ago we had somebody from Yamaha showing to us the power of the normal Fingered mode for the ACMP (basically this was the guy who had design the ACMP
logic for the Yamaha keys). He was playing something with his left hand with a normal style, and the keyboard was sounding like I had never heard before.

If you are interested, click on
http://www.yamaha.de/ubb/Forum1/HTML/005323.html

for getting more information about this event (only in German, sorry).


You can get an example of the 'Swinging Safari' Song here (played with the normal Swing2 style on the PSR9000):
http://tv-sela.bei.t-online.de/2nd/SwSafari.mp3

and some pictures how to put your fingers on the board to get this behaviour here:
http://tv-sela.bei.t-online.de/2nd/accord.zip


Regards

Ulrich

Scott,
Bass is my all time favorite thing, and you can find the walking styles in variation D of a few swing patterns. I'd like to see a few more, but thre ARE a couple of good ones.

It sounded almost too good, didn;t it.
A board with excellent sounds and styles, light , build in speakers, and all that for around $1000,--.
Well you get what you pay for. Do you realy think that Yamaha would put the quality from a $3000,-- keyboard in a $1000,-- box ?

Wait a second, the PSR2000 has access to all of the styles from the PSR9000 and the CVP209, $2200-$3000 keyboards.

I'm sure Scott has tried some of these styles, and he's disappointed in these too. It must be a matter of taste, because I'm very very happy with the styles, but I don't do straight jazz. I do a lot of jazzy and swingy and boogie woogie popular music.

Apparently, you cannot do step editing of Yamaha professional styles with any part except channels 9 and 10 - on your keyboard. This is the way they protect their copyright. But there is a program, StyleEdit, that helps you overcome that. You can always edit any style easily on your computer, and CASMEdit is an excellent program that helps you separate the midi section from a style so you can work with it on your favorite sequencer.

Scott, you can check out the X1 styles converted for Yamaha. Some of these might suit your needs. They might need a little bit of cleaning up. The same thing with some of the VA7 styles. Those need more editing, but I was able to clean up a boogie woogie style that is just in your face fantastic.

You can load 20 of these styles (or converted styles from any keyboard) or you can load them from floppy lightning fast. It is really unbelievable (especially after playing the PSR740 for two years) how quickly the PSR2000 can load a floppy style. The floppy drive seems to be faster than my computer floppy drive.

I, for my part, remain awestruck by what the PSR2000 can do. My clients are very impressed too.

Larry

scott,

I wont say much but I had to "RECORD" my own custom BASS LINES into many of the Styles to get the sound I wanted. What your saying has been known on PSR KB from the start.



[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 12-11-2001).]

Scott,

Download the StyleEdit from Michael P. Bedesem at SPVworld site http://www.svpworld.com/svpstyles.htm.
With this software you can easily only by clicking in a check box, take out the protection against to edit tracks others than 9 and 10 in a PSR 2000 style. After, you can edit all events of all tracks.

Regards
Carlos Rodrigues

Ulrich,
Can you please tell me about the so called 'Session Styles'? Are these the CVP209 w/ OTS styles available on the 'Yahoo Groups- Styles' site or are these styles something different? How can I obtain them?

You say that 'you have to be very careful with your chord progression, otherwise the bass line will sound 'wrong'. So far, I'm not experiencing problems getting the PSR2000 to produce decent sounding walking bass lines in the few Technics jazz walking bass type styles I converted from the KN5000 to the PSR2000.

Thank you for the GREAT website links I only wished I could understand and read German. If I only had enough hours in a week to learn German now hmmmm. Maybe I should invest in language audio cassettes for my car . . .

Arno:
The 'styles' in the PSR9000/9000pro & PSR2000 are inter-changable. I have tried the PSR9000/9000pro swing styles in my PSR2000 and they all appear to lack decent walking bass lines. Though the PSR9000/9000pro are definitely top of the line models, I do think there are a few things on the PSR2000 which are actually improved over the 9000 models: 1,920 ppq sequencer timing resolution, 'one touch settings' integrated within the style , ultra light weight, and most of all, a budget price.

Uncle Dave:
WHICH specific PSR2000 swing style 'variation D' walking bass patterns do you really consider good? I checked out all of the swing patterns and it seems that they only include the root, 3rd, 5th, 6th and minor 7th tones. None of them include the 9th, 11th (4th), or passing tones.

Considering that you come from a background as a bass player yourself, I'm sure you understand, that typically, a live bass player playing in a straight ahead swing style, would 'walk' diatonicly from one chord to the next. Here is a bass line example of a 'simple' 4 measure chord progression: Dm7-G7-C6:

Swing Style Walking Bass line typically played by most bass players:
measure 1: D-E-F-F#(ascending bass line)
measure 2: G-F-E-D (descending bass line)
measure 3: C-E-G-A (ascending bass line)
measure 4: C-A-G-E (descending bass line)

Swing Style Walking Bass line pattern of PSR arranger swing styles:
measure 1: D-C-A-F (descending bass line)
measure 2: G-B-D-F (descending bass line)
measure 3: C-A-G-E (descending bass line)
measure 4: C-E-G-A (desc/ascend bass line)

Donny: On the PSR2000, it is not possible to 'edit' an existing bass line pattern from within the keyboard's style editor feature (Style Creator). The 2000 supports 'step record/edit' for the drum track only. Does the 9000 support 'step record/edit' of the other style accompaniment tracks as well?

Larry (Beakybird): I'm going to try to find some time today (time?, yeah right) checking out the CASMEdit program you suggested.

Carlos: After unlocking the protection (in the 'Style Edit' program) to all style tracks, does this then allow you to then re-load the style into the PSR2000 and perform the note recording/editing via the PSR2000, or must all editing (step time/real time) be performed in the 'Style Edit' program?

Larry & Carlos: How do the 'CASMEdit' & 'Style Edit' programs differ? (features, functions, etc)?

Thanks to everyone here for their valuable insight and useful feedback

- Scott

The PSR2000 has some Session styles. I guess these are styles that have extra realism. The CVP209 styles that I posted at the egroups site have numerous Session styles in various music genres. If you explore these styles by inserting a floppy with these styles on your PSR2000, you will see the word Session written above the style.

It sounds like StyleEdit facilitates editing a style on your keyboard. CasmEdit is to edit a style on your computer sequencer. CasmEdit also has some utilities to do part changes and whatnot.

Larry

SCOTT,

yes you can Re-record all style tracks on the 9k. Many of the "D" bass lines are totaly different then the continued flow of A,B,C, so I re-recorded the "D" bass line to fit the flow of the swing/fox styles, because the instrumentation on var "D" progreses fine but the bassline doesn't. Swing and Big Band styles are NOT one of the PSR strenghts :>( many of my SW/BB styles are from other KB's with some slick editing.

donny



[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 12-11-2001).]

I agree Scott. Bass lines in the existing styles are one of the things that I always disliked about the Yamaha styles in general. I too am more of a jazz oriented player, ( along with a healthy dose of blues of course ), although I am more into Jazz Fusion, Modern, and Acid jazz, but the styles don't suit these genres any better than they do Swing or Big Band styles of Jazz. The simple bass lines in Yamaha styles probably work pretty well for doing top 40 classics and 8 and 16 beat ballads as well as other genres along those lines. In reality, it's tough enough anyway for me to be expressive with any manufacturers styles, for what I like to play best, but Yamaha's are among ther poorest choices for me. ( but pretty cool when I go to a rock ballad or 16 beat ballad ) I think most of the stuff I'm happiest with when doing Jazz genres if I don't do it all manually gets started in Jazz++ sequencer and sometimes Jammer Pro with a reworked or custom made style. Should I wish to use these patterns in a real time setting, Style making / Conversion programs are a true blessing as well.

AJ

The new "session styles" from the 2000 and many from the new CVP models are only compatable in the 1000, 2000 and new CVP207 and 209. If you try to load these session styles into the 9000 or 740, they will not show up. These new session styles have much more "in your face" bass patterns and style programming and I believe this is some of the new direction of the Yamaha programmers. I was playing one of the new styles on my 2000 at the store tonight (it was one of the Jazz styles from the CVP209 library) and I noticed that if I didn't change chords just a touch ahead of the downbeat, a slight glitch would occur. I remember reading about the Korg PA80 having this problem on some of it's buzier styles. Korg explained that this was just the complexity of numerous tracks and not a problem in the keyboard. Yamaha engineers told me earlier this year that their direction in making more complex styles would at certain times cause these kinds of glitches in the playing of these styles. It seems it's just the price you pay for more exciting styles. All in all, the walking bass lines, etc. are much more exciting in some of these new "session" styles.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, california

Thanks Larry & George for explaining the 'Sessions' styles as well as where to find them. ahhhhhh. At last, finally . . . . some Yamaha styles with decent bass lines ! I'm thrilled that Yamaha has finally come on board with jazz/blues styles with good bass lines now, though I still think Technics does better overall in this genre. I'm just glad that I'm able to convert my jazz favorites over from my Technics KN5000 to the PSR2000.


[This message has been edited by Scottyee (edited 12-11-2001).]

Scott,

About the need to use the StyleEdit software.
According with PSR 2000 owner's manual page 110 "Before recording to one of the non rhythm chanels (BASS-PHR 2), make sure to delete the existent data of the appropriated channel".
To avoide this execute StyleEdit. Load the style. Check the box "Make all style parts editable". Click on Save or Save as to save the style. Using a disk load this changed style to the PSR 2000. Now you can edit all tracks without first delete them.
It's the same for the other models like 740 or 730. I guess it's the same on 9000 ?? I don't know for sure.

Regards
Carlos Rodrigues

[This message has been edited by Rodrigues (edited 12-12-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Rodrigues (edited 12-12-2001).]

Carlos..

I don't see this option at all on Michael P Bedesem's style edit software. Am I missing something or is this on a different software program?

AJ

Ahh, I just checked and realized that there is an updated version...Now I see it...lol

AJ