With all the recent discussion of a newly discovered possible hard drive solution to the hard disk-less Yamaha PSR2000, several people have asked how I ever managed gigging without one, thinking I must be constantly having to juggle scores of floppy diskettes while performing.

Believe it or not, this isn't true. I actually only need to take 2 floppy disks with me when performing. How?! Because I've found most of the PSR2000's 'internal' styles suitable for most all of my material. In addition, all my frequently used custom USER styles (approx 20 styles) reside in USER flash Memory. My personalized MusicFinder database of my song repetoire (of over 495 songs) actually utilizies internal & USER flash memory styles ONLY. Though I've downloaded and collected as many PSR format styles as many other people here: hundreds?, or perhaps even a thousand , I rarely (if ever) use them when performing. As a result, I only take (to the gig) a floppy diskette dedicated to Memory Registrations files for specific custom songs & song medleys which require multiple registration setups. At only 10kb per file, a 1.4 MB floppy diskette can hold MANY MANY Songs (Memory Reg Banks). This floppy also holds my 'song specific' custom style files as well. The only other floppy diskette I take to the gig is a diskette full of midi song files. I've actually increasingly been using this less and less , preferring to do perform EVERYTHING live in auto-accomp. mode instead. As much as I'd still appreciate & prefer that the PSR2000 had a hard drive, floppy disk management hasn't been really much of a deal for me. The function of the styles (for me) are only to act as window dressing to enhance your performance, but not to distract from your live work. Even if we hired the BEST live (w/ real musicians) backup bands in the world, I doubt very many bands could pull off playing 'off the top of their hat' the diversity of stock styles included in our arranger keyboards. I've spent more than my share of time in the past composing, & customizng styles, but have realized that it's much more pleasureable & rewarding (at least for me) to spend MORE time making music by PLAYING & improving my chops, and utilizing the PSR2000's many decent sounding internal styles. Ok, these were just my thoughts. I apologize if I came off preachy. Take from it what you want and ignore the rest. Anyway, I'd be interested in hearing how others feel about this issue of course. Happy keyboarding. - Scott

Scott, here is my humble opinion:
we don't need many styles, but we do need good ones.
Give me ten good 8 and 16 beat, ten good latin styles and ten good swing styles and I am set for the rest of my life.
Like you, I have scores of styles I have never used and never will.

Andrea...SD1007 has no time because his time is taken up sorting through all those styles...HA!!!!

I agree with Andrea & Scot also. Its not the quantity of styles but the quality that counts. Since owning the 9000Pro and adding some of the CVP styles. These cover most of my playing requirements.

Graham UK

I could live with 8 basic styles all night. I set up that "EZ eight" bank in the PA80 and it's my "Go to" styles. Given that I play lots of manual bass lines, the styles are not repetetive, and they cover 95% of what I play.
The 8 staples are:

1)8/16 beat (works for ballads and rock)
2)12/8 SlowRock beat (thousands of tunes !)
3)Disco (handles Motown to Madonna)
4)Shuffle (Louie Prima style, R&R!)
5)Latin (Basic bossa goes a LONG way)
6)Swing (cool, jazz beat that swings)
7)Polka (doubles as a 2 beat country beat)
8)Waltz (3/4 - gotta have it

The first beat is actually a DUAL beat by using the multi pads. I press one button to turn OFF/ON the latin persussion that turns the 8 beat into a 16. Two patterns in the space of one !

Interesting subject. I have to agree with both Scott and UD. For my X1, i must have about 2000 styles, and for the GEM i must have even more. First off, ive always thought that converted styles sound awful, for example in my X1, any Yamaha, Technics or Roland styles sound terrible, they just dont sound right. However, the Korg styles sound OK and some are even usable. But nothing beats the quality of an "own brand" style for that keyboard, especially styles made by the company themselves. If anyone has a PA60/80 they should immediately download the styles from the official site because some of them are absolutely fantastic. Ive stored many of them in the USER banks. What i like about the PA keyboard is the range of different type styles, where as sometimes although a kb has 300 odd styles, many of them can sound very similar. The Korg is probably has the best selection of different styles in one given bank. This makes a difference because you do not need to search for alternative styles if the internal styles do not suite the songs you play. Unfortunately, i struggled with the WK6 because the internal styles for me were not very useful so obtaining many user styles was required, where as the X1 has some fantastic styles already so no need for user styles there. It does vary really on arrangements, but i was surprised with the WK6 after coming from the WX2 which had fantastic styles.

Well Fellas,
My perspective is a bit different. I understand where you guys are coming from, but for me I do need and use as many styles as I can lay hands on.....in given genres.

Because all my work is original compositions and because of the volume I have done if I did not have many many styles to choose from, everything starts to sound the same. So, I have to disect styles, use pieces parts mix and match all the time, otherwise it gets stale.

So the more the better for me even if they are just slight variations on a theme.
jam on,
Terry

[This message has been edited by trtjazz (edited 11-16-2002).]

Hi you all,

Converted styles can be just as good as the
original when you take some time for editing.
Now I have 864 userstyles on my Roland VA7,
about 600 of them are converted to Roland
and edited on the VA7. They sound very good
with all the goodies that Roland offers.
I like to have as many styles as possible,
it is good for variation. I do not sing so
the music has to do it all.

For live play I have all the styles I'll ever need and then some right inside the PA80. I have replaced about 40 % of the internal styles with varied user styles. I'll only use a fraction of the styles inside of the machine for live play and the only reason I ever need any floppy disks is to be able to load midifiles into the PA80. I don't need the hard drive at all. The one thing I will say about floppies is that I always have a duplicate disk available when I go. I find floppies to be less than 100% reliable. When I bring the Motif along for the ride I am able to store the midifiles on a smart media card. I have yet to have one of them fail me, but I still bring a backup SM card as well.

On the other hand, I agree with Terry too. From the composer's standpoint there are never going to be enough styles, particularly for a composer like him who produces the volume of quality songs that he has made.

AJ

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 11-16-2002).]

The Yamaha style database in the computer has 4.236 files. I need 30 of them in addition of the internal 9000Pro styles .
I am looking for quality, no quantity.
Chico

I'm with Chico on the quality issue, but I'm with Mart on th quantity issue

I like to sound different too, especially with the type of music I do: Dance, Pop, Disco, Rock, Ballads etc, otherwise it sounds to monotone after a while.

Currently I'm using about a 100-150 styles.
Some are internal 9000 styles, some are 2000 styles, some are CVP-209 styles and some are from Yamaha Europe and Styles & Music Germany.
With that I'm quite happy for now.

Eric