Is anyone interested in hosting a site to put AUDIO clips of each arranger's ROM styles on?

I know very little about web-hosting, so I don't know how to do this for myself, but perhaps a more tech savvy person could put something together. Let me explain what this is for...

One of the main difficulties I find in converting styles from one arranger to another is I seldom have a clue as to what the original sounded like! Drum sounds, overall mix, how they all react and sound together, little of this is apparent when you receive a converted style. You are basically on your own, unless you are fortunate enough to have a friend with the actual source styles.

But you DO.... us! But how do we get access to this? Well perhaps a site dedicated to short, audio only (so as not to infringe copyright) clips of the styles, in mp3 format.

That's a lot of data, you might say... Perhaps not TOO much, if we do it carefully.

First of all, this is NOT for a record company, so a lower bitrate mp3 would provide all the info we need. Probably 128kbps would be sufficient, maybe as low as 96kbps could work, but it would save us little. I'd prefer 128kbps, anyway. This would nearly halve the data of a 256kbps 'quality' recording, and all the primary info you are after would still be more than apparent..

Secondly, you don't need complete performances. A C major chord would still provide all the info (you rarely get completely different instruments or mixes on different chord types), and for mix and tone purposes, you don't even need the entire loop. Either two or four bars per Variation would be sufficient. Nor would you need ALL the Intros and Endings. Usually, the most complex ones have ALL the elements of the simpler ones in them.

So I imagine a format of (just the ROM styles, no tweaks)

Intro 4 (or whatever is the most complex one on your arranger)
Var 1 4 bars (or only two if it is a short loop)
Fill up
Var 2 4 bars (ditto)
Fill up
Var 3 ditto
Fill up
Var 4 ditto
Ending 4 (or whatever is the most complex one on your arranger)

Fill downs generally use the same sounds as fill ups, so probably no need for them. Korg users, with fewer fills could get them ALL in!

So this come to a total of 16 bars of variations, and the fills, ins and ends, probably 32 bars total. At a 128kbps encoding, this would be roughly 500k per style.

OK, you say, seems like a LOT of work, though (most arrangers have up to 300 styles)... Well, perhaps not, IF we divide it up. Quite a lot of us have got mp3 audio recording capabilities in our arrangers. Certainly all the Yamaha users do, and most of the Korg (I suggest we start with current arrangers, and add legacy ones as demand needs), So that leaves us poor Roland guys with the only need to hook up a recorder. Well, I just got an H2, so no problem on the G70 end of things...

I am suggesting that, if we decide to do this thing, we get a list of owners that are willing to put a few hours simple work in, and then divide up the ROM styles into categories. One person does the Swing category, another the Rock, etc., up to as many as we can get... So no-one has to do the WHOLE thing, if they don't want to!

Basically, you sit there with the C chord as part of the memory (if your arranger holds the chord as you change styles), hit the style, hit Intro 4 hit Play, and just step through the variations with Auto fill on, hit Ending 4 and stop recording. Maybe a minute's work. Save the file with the style name, and on to the next one. An hour's work might be 30 styles or more. With multiple people working on this, I don't see anyone having to dedicate all THAT much time to it...

We then upload the labeled files to the server, and voilå! No more EVER having to guess what that style you got was supposed to sound like! This would make conversion SO much easier, IMO.

So.... how about it, folks? Do any of you think you could benefit from such a project, and might be persuaded to participate..? I think there are certainly enough of us here that individually it shouldn't be too much of a burden, if we get enough on board...

Comments, suggestions, volunteers....

www.4shared.com gives you 5GB of free space to upload and download files (Or stream them) and you can set up folders for whatever you want.
This is probably the best bet, and providing you log on at least once a month the files will stay there forever.
One Suggestion

Bill


[This message has been edited by abacus (edited 04-09-2008).]

1) There's Youtube, I believe anyone can upload a "video" file with NO video at all...equip it with the required keywords, like "style" "tyros" "G70" and so on, and make it's presence known to the others here

2) Someone (may be you Diki), set up a GMAIL account, using a unique and easy to remember name like "ARRANGER-STYLE-AUDIO-CLIPS" and "SYNTHZONE" as password, and everyone should e-mail there his/her clips for all to log on and hear, again with reasonable subject lines like "Yamaha Tyros Beguine 1", so everyone logging in will be able to find what he wants and hear it.

To cut a long story short, I created a GMAIL account
you mail what you want to
arranger.style.audio.clips.1 followed by the @gmail DOT com

for everyone who wishes to check what has been posted, log to www.gmail.com:
username is arranger.style.audio.clips.1 and the pass is synthzone.1

sorry about the points, gmail does not allow dashes or underscores...

the .1 in bothe the name and tha pass are there so if (fat chance) this one fills up, we can create a .2 account and so on.

ok everyone?

Bill. I stand corrected, but I think 4shared only allows loads of 10mb each time so files would have to be split ?.

Hi Graham
The upload size was upgraded to 100MB earlier this year.
I use it regularly.
Regards

Bill

Bill. Thanks for the info....I'm now corrected...Ha!!!

I host all types of content for arranger keyboards at my www.arrangerworld.com site.

I'm really surprised more members don't participate over there as we have the ability to store user published articles, styles, sounds, midi files, photos, etc.

All are welcome !

------------------
Al Giordano
http://www.arrangerworld.com


Korg Pa2xpro, Roland VK8-M, DW Collectors Series Drums, Roland TD-12 Vdrums, Roland SPD-S.

Al,

Thanks for the reminder. I forgot about your site and just re-registered Great site with lots of info - thanks!

zuki

Well, thank you for all the suggestions about storage...

We may have a problem, though, with the free storage sites. If you allow for my rough estimate on file size, and let's be generous, to allow for long intros and endings, slower tempo styles, etc., and say at MOST, they would be 1MB each. Now 300 styles would take up 300MB (although I think 200MB is a more real-world estimate). Now that's just ONE arranger! So you have to multiply that by the number of arrangers recorded. Let's examine that...

I would say for this to be of use, most of the main TOTL and midline arrangers need representing, so my list would probably run;

Tyros2
S900
PA800 (unless they are identical with PA2X)
PA2X
PA1X (that's what most of the converted Korg styles are from, so far)
G70
E80
SD-1 (is SD-5 essentially the same styles?)

Have I missed anything major? So that's maybe seven arrangers, maybe six if S900 is close to identical to T2, maybe five if E80 and G70 can be combined (though there are drumkit differences) Let's say six...

Six arrangers, at 300MB each, that's 1.8GB. so let's call it 2GB rough estimate. That's how much hosting size we need... at a minimum. Can Arranger-world host that much data? Strangely, I mentioned this project to createsongstyles.com, the site which was originally created exactly for the purpose of style creation and conversion, but the admin seemed uninterested. Oh well...

Anyway, thanks for showing some interest. Now let's get down to the nitty gritty... plenty of responses about hosting it, but no volunteers for the recording side of things, yet...

So, would anyone be interested in helping on the recording side of things? Obviously, the more volunteers we get, the less each individual would have to do. You could either post here, or email me privately (my profile is correct). I would NOT like to start until I'm fairly sure we could complete the project... it would not be NEARLY as useful if it were simply just a few styles, from a couple of arrangers. Comprehensiveness would be the only thing to make it REALLY useful (everyone has different style and conversion needs).

So.... volunteers needed, but the work won't start until I'm sure we can complete the job, AND we have a site that can host the files for quite some time.

Let's make this happen!

Hi Diki,
I think you've got a great idea, it's hard converting when you don't know what the style's supposed to sound like in the first place. I always use my psr1500/sd1 as a reference to try & get as close as possible.

I've found though, that even knowing what the style is supposed to sound like, doesn't always help if EMC does a lousy job of the conversion.

For instance in the Intro's & Endings EMC removes tempo changes ( when converting to Korg & PSR). I recently converted the SD1's Slow Orch style to PA800, it's got 30 tempo changes in one of the Intro's. Without them the intro just didn't sound the same. Only reason I managed to put them back in, was because I was able to record them from the sd1 itself.
A lot of the psr styles I like, also have these tempo changes.

Another thing, the drums don't always convert correctly. I've noticed with some of the Roland G70 styles for instance, they must use non standard drum kits. EMC comes up with absolute garbage when one of these kits is converted. Maybe a pro like yourself would be able to reconstruct the drum track by hearing what it's supposed to sound like, but for a hobbyist like me , I don't even bother trying.

My pet project at the moment is putting together a bit of a drum library with drum style tracks that have converted reasonably well & just need a bit of tweaking.
This will hopefully allow me to replace a badly converted track with one that sounds reasonable. Means I don't have to throw the style out altogether.


You may be able to save a bit of space, PA800/PA2X may not be worthwhile as yet.
EMC XT still can't read the PA800 1.51 format. It crashes.

best wishes
Rikki

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Diki:
[B]

I would say for this to be of use, most of the main TOTL and midline arrangers need representing, so my list would probably run;

Tyros2
S900
PA800 (unless they are identical with PA2X)
PA2X
PA1X (that's what most of the converted Korg styles are from, so far)
G70
E80
SD-1 (is SD-5 essentially the same styles?)




[This message has been edited by rikkisbears (edited 04-09-2008).]

Hi Al,
I'm surprised too, that more members don't visit, especially since you do have a download section. http://www.arrangerworld.com/dl.asp?cmd=3

best wishes
Rikki
p.s.
thanks for getting that PA800 rhumba style posted so quickly, saves me messing round with "you send it" or whatever.





[This message has been edited by rikkisbears (edited 04-09-2008).]

Hi Diki, and all,

Since I believe I already answered the question of hosting, I am surprised no-one mentioned it. I may be transparent though, and if so, I would make a valuable asset to the security forces hunting Bin Laden. No mentioning taking the ransom.

Gmail has 6,3 GB (6,300 MB) of FREE storage space, and ALL you have to do is simply E-MAIL a recorded style to

arranger.style.audio.clips.1 AT gmail DOT com

with a subject that describes what it is about.

All someone has to do then, is to log on using the above name, and provide the password .....

synthzone.1

and he/she will bwe able to access whatever he or the others have posted, with a manageable interface. It also saves you the hassle of inputting warped looking phrases just for the download.

Why get in the trouble to mail, have someone upload, host, pay money to host and so on, when you have that?

If you are concerned about your "sender's" email showing, simply log on to gmail and make your own account, and use that account to send to the other...

Please now confirm my transparency by ignoring this and make me eligible as a valuable asset in the espionage world.

Thank you, Trident. I am sure this will prove to be one of the best ways to do this.

Now all we need are the volunteers.

Look folks, the next time someone sends you a pile of converted styles from an SD-1, or a PA1XPro, this site could save you DAYS of work trying to figure out what is going on with the drums, or what that guitar strum pattern is SUPPOSED to sound like, how that synth sound works with the style, etc., etc.. A modest amount of work now could save us all some very valuable time in the future. With luck, the site could grow as new arrangers are released, and future arranger users could get well needed info about legacy styles, too. Please consider giving generously of your time. It WILL be appreciated...

And here's an opportunity to use those handy dandy MP3 recorders on our (well, YOUR!) arrangers...

I just hope that we can get enough people interested to get started. That's why, Trident, I wasn't making too big a fuss about your GMail idea. Without the volunteers to do the recording, the site to host it all becomes somewhat moot...

Hi Trident,
thank you for the tip on the GMail storage space, had no idea one could store that much.

It may come in handy for my own needs.

One question though, (unless I've totally misunderstood what you wrote) how does one stop spammers from uploading stuff to the site if the password is generally known??

best wishes
Rikki


[QUOTE]Originally posted by trident:
[B]Hi Diki, and all,

Gmail has 6,3 GB (6,300 MB) of FREE storage space,

[This message has been edited by rikkisbears (edited 04-10-2008).]

Thanks Diki,
let's hope there are interested parties. After all, the reason I took the liberty of creating the particular account, is that I thought your idea was something that was worth the time, even if I myself don't have ANY use of this at all.

Rikki,
the gmail account is currently at 6.3GB and counting up. if you log on the account i created using the details above, you will see the counter in the first page, going up as you look at it.
as for the spam, you are right, there is always the danger, but
1) it is free, and beggars can't be choosers.
2) i have that kind of acccount for a while now, (i am careful of not giving this account when i log on to sites that require registration, I have another one for just that) and i havent received a single spam mail. I believe, I hope, that if we all simply use that account just to log on and see what others posted, or to mail TO that account something for them, spam will not be an issue.
3) since supposedly MANY people will access it to see the posts, if each one of us deletes one spam mail, the account will be spam free.

4) and OF COURSE, we can set up anothe account, say "synthzonemembersongs" so anyone wanting to post a song or two, just mails them there and notifies the others here.

Hi Trident,
wish I'd thought of using an email account as a storage site when I was running my Yahoo stylemaking group. Would have been extremely handy as a storeage area additional styles.
thanks Trident.

best wishes
Rikki

[QUOTE]Originally posted by trident:
[B]