Both Wersi and Yamaha (With their premium sounds) have their sounds tied to a particular instrument, (With minimal complaints) so it wouldn’t take much to transfer this to styles.

Bill

Thank you Frans,
I'll check them out.

Technics regrettably I no longer need.
I sold it it a few years back.

best wishes
Rikki

Would you still be able to edit the style? What if you wanted to put the drum from that style onto another style?

The problem would be that either you wouldn't be able to do any edits, or if you were able to do edits, you could resave the edit style as a non-copy protected style.

Beakybird

I think it ought to be able to tell the arranger that an edit is of a protected style, and THAT file is also protected (keyed to the arranger).

Only problem arises making SMF's of protected styles for songs, but, to be honest, if the styles aren't too expensive, who's going to want to do the prodigious amount of work to FULLY export a style (all chord types, all variations, all multipads, all fills, Ins and Ends, etc.) and laboriously reassemble the style completely to make an unprotected one? If they can buy the style pretty cheaply?

This is what the industry is going to have to deal with. Just like now you CAN get almost any tune for only 99¢ on iTunes, and nearly a billion have been downloaded legally, keyed to their computer (protected), if the styles' price is lowered from where it is now to maybe a buck or so, nobody will bother. But EVERYONE that uses the style WILL have payed a dollar. I would not be surprised that for every legal style sold at the moment, it gets copied at LEAST twenty times, so if everybody BOUGHT it at a dollar, they'd make TWICE what they are now (conservatively).

But keep them at $10-15 bucks or more like they are now, and MAYBE someone would think cracking it worth the work...

iTunes has shown that, if the price is low enough, people WILL pay for protected content. And a billion dollars is back in the hands of the industry, rather than being lost to piracy. The inference is obvious. Protected styles WILL work, and work well, as long as the prices are kept low.

Steve Demming... you reading this?!

UPDATE...

Double checked my facts. Premium styles are about $7. Still think it's too high. Pretty sure at a buck, I'd pick up nearly anything made that I could use. At $7, not so sure. But me and twenty others would buy them ALL if they were a buck each

Take piracy out of the picture, I am convinced you could put up five new styles a WEEK and everybody with a T3/2/S910 in the world would buy them. That's a LOT of people...

And a LOT of money.

US $7 for a good produced style specially made and fit to play well on a dedicated keyboard brand/model is CHEEP!!
Too bad there are very hard to find (if find any) any good original or 3rd party styles for anything else than
Yamaha anymore.
I.e. MidiSpot who did make styles for Ketron, Technics, Roland etc, now only produce for Yamaha. That alone is
maybe a reason to start look for a T2 or T3 to add and explore.

Cheers
GJ

I agree with GJ...$7 is very inexpensive for a well made style, which you only have to buy once...it's not like it costs $7 every time you use it.

That would be expensive.

I didn't know Midi Spot dumped Roland...that's rather odd, as they still make arrangers, if you count the Prelude/GW-8 and the KR-series.

Ian

I pay similar prices for professional backing tracks (sometimes I do a little KJ'ing). For the work that goes into a nice style I think its good value. Yamaha styles rarely disapoint.

The Midispot styles aren't quite up to the level of the Yamaha Premium Styles, and they are too expensive: $12.95.

If you could copyright protect these styles, I could see the price going down, but not down to 99 cents.

Beakybird

And when you upgrade from one model to another you have to buy everything once again?

Copyright is one thing, copyprotect another. Back in old Technics forum we could see how original
made Technics stuff was spread by "private e-mail" club. Ended bad, as Technote forum closed down
way too early compared to when final Technics keyboard was produced.
All that sudden the SZ Technics forum start grow, but that's another story.

I think copy protection is good, but it most be in a way that you can edit and resave, and still
bring your stuff into your next keyboard as long as it's within the same factorybrand.
The bad thing will be, that my EMC convert software will be worthless .......

We have a say here: Whatever way you turn, your butt will be behind you.

Cheers
GJ