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[This message has been edited by miden (edited 03-11-2009).]

Thanks for the review! Look forward to reading more Hope the MS works out for you.

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[This message has been edited by miden (edited 03-11-2009).]

Dennis congratulations..........and the wonderful detailed review....hope to hear much more about the MS very soon.

Good Luck

Dennis,
Thanks for the review...chapter 1...this is getting exciting! :-)

Lee S.

Thanks, Dennis. It is SO refreshing to hear detailed opinion, good or bad, on the MS in preference to simply reading some dunderhead toss jibes out about how nobody 'gets' the concept of an 'open' arranger

This, however, is a great shame. Because only the CONTENT would have to be provided for it to BE a great instant gratification machine, and still have all the future expansion as well. I think this is what I have been trying to get Dom to understand since the beginning...

If he merely knuckled down, hired some top style developers, and packed the MS with as many TOTL styles as a T3 or PA2Xpro, the world would beat a path to his door. But the percentage of arranger users that even HAVE the skill to do that, let alone the time, is minuscule. So little (compared to actually designing and building the MS) needs to be added to make this a world beater, but Dom stubbornly clings to the idea that somewhere, he is going to find mass acceptance (and a fortune!) by NOT making the styles and sounds the priority, only the OS and features.

Sadly, I simply don't see this happening. And that IS a shame...

I look forward to the rest of your review, Dennis. Coming from the PA2 and G70, at least you know what great styles are SUPPOSED to sound like...

All fine and dandy Dennis but how does it sound?

Originally posted by miden:

When you start to "swear" about a function I would consider that "critical" in my humble opinion Dennis.

Okay, with your apparent enthusiasm and optimism regarding this beast Dennis it leads me to the "hopeful anticipation" that we i.e. SZ members will 'finally' get a "good" demo out of the MS from you soon. Do be quick about it and try not to disappoint us okay?

Okay, okay... I take that back Dennis. Take your time, relax, get acquainted with your new 'toy' (I say that in all sincerity with no pun intended by the way.. ) - but again, try not to disappoint the crowd in the bleachers who are rooting you on - when you finally do deliver the "goods", or God forbid, the "bads", whichever the case may be. Hopefully the "goods" will be more like it. Of course if no decent sound demo results from your labored effort(s) we all know where the "real" blame lies = Lionstracs, and not you personally Dennis. ?>> I can see Dom's sweating upper lip quivering right about now. I'm sure he's hoping you pull it off too.

All the best,
Mike

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[This message has been edited by miden (edited 03-11-2009).]

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[This message has been edited by miden (edited 03-11-2009).]

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[This message has been edited by miden (edited 03-11-2009).]

Dennis......No, No, No,
You are not allowed to do anything but learn and report back on the MS!
Only 4 hours sleep/night! :-)
:-) :-)

Lee S.

But Dennis, adding Live Styler and XG soundfonts is NOT getting a team to design for the MS... it is bandaging the fact that there AREN'T that many great styles provided. You still have to do a BOATLOAD of work yourself to get them even acceptable by PSR standards (not very high, IMO ), and then all you have is old PSR styles, which aren't exactly state of the art.

I'm talking about T3, PA2, E80 beaters, not half-baked PSR equivalents.

Hi Diki

Apart from Megavoices, (Of which there aren’t that many) the main difference between PSR styles and Tyros styles is the quality of the sounds. (Giga sounds should fix that part)
Roland, Korg, Ketron etc also don’t have Megavoices, and because of this, are you saying that they are of sub standard quality compared to Yamaha. (I think not)

Regards

Bill

Bill, each new arranger comes out with a bunch of styles that are better than the last... So old PSR styles are not as detailed and dynamic as newer ones. One of the things about the sound of newer Yamaha styles is, firstly the Mega voices. Yes, unfortunately, they DO make all the difference. Without them, Yamaha styles are, to be honest, no better than anything else. The realism on the guitar parts, and bass parts is what sets them apart.

And newer Yamaha drumsets use newer, velocity split drum sounds that make for MUCH better dynamics. Without a soundset that reflects these cross-switches (in exactly the same velocity points) the translation is poorer for it.

In all fairness, for all the Yamaha's vaunted advantage of a superior choice of third party styles, to be honest, few of them come anywhere CLOSE to the standards of the ROM styles, and so few even use the Mega voices the way the factory ROM ones do... But yes, Yamaha certainly have a HUGE selection of inferior styles to chose from!

Let's just put it this way... unlike Wersi, who actually licensed the Yamaha style engine from Yamaha, and worked themselves to make sure it works well with the Wersi, the MS's back-dooring of the same feature, leaving it once again to the poor user (who is hardly qualified to do this) to make all the tweaks just seems so second-rate.

And, I'm afraid, it still doesn't excuse the MS actually NEEDING the LiveStyler to shore up it's own style set. The best styles are designed for the soundset they were written on. Translations are, on the whole, NEVER as satisfactory as the original. The MS needs a sufficiently good sounding style set that it's owners don't NEED LiveStyler.

Play me an MS LiveStyler style that sounds as good as it's T3 equivalent (or even it's PSR equivalent! ) and I'll concede the point. But playing half-baked translations on a keyboard this advanced seems like an awful waste...

I still wish Miden all the best with his MS. But I have to wonder how long it would take to tweak just 100 styles to be up to the standard of a standard PSR or Korg arranger ? Does anyone on this board profess to even have the skills to do this ??? Ithas to be a very tiny market.Anyway , I really hope that when Miden is up to speed with the MS , he puts up some demos that settle the matter. At last we have a chance to stop talking about the potential of this machine and to actually hear it....i hope.

[This message has been edited by spalding (edited 03-05-2009).]

Dennis Miden, he's our man :-)
If anyone can do it, Dennis can...

You have the world at your house !!!!!


------------------
createsongstyles.com

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[This message has been edited by miden (edited 03-11-2009).]

Dennis,
Actually I think using LS on the MS is brilliant. Some here may have never tried LS..I have spent over 2 years with it and it works very well...especialy the newest version 10.5 +.

You don't need mega voices IMHO...Korg PA does not have them (of course now has guitar mode) ...and the styles are very live and of super quality (as you already know, having lots of experience with it). A top quality XG sound set is critcal however and Dom says he has it.

As Rikki also said, the biggest issue with LS was always the less than great sounds for syle tracks 9-16. Solo voice choices are superb.

Please, when you do get to that part of the MS testing ...let me know what you think of the LS implementation. If I can answer any questions about how I have used LS...just let me know. Also, Norbert is very helpful and available.

Looking forward to it...Thanks in advance.

Lee S.