interesting thread ! I have listened to the demo's on you tube of the MS that james very kindly has provided. The entire advantage the MS potentially has over an arranger has always been the argument that it can facilitate the best sounds commmercialy available and using the MS platform/os enable the user to readily manipulate those sounds just like a closed system arranger.

Secondly that converting existing styles from other keyboards is relatively easy to do to sound as good as or better than the instrument it was converted from.

Most arranger players basically use their instruments to play styles and rely quite heavily on functions like one touch settings to navigate through sounds on the keyboard live and seamlessly during a performance

I have a couple of questions.

1. how easy is it to use different vsts from different products in one style and then switch to another style using another set of VST's and can this be demonstrated?
2. How easily can one touch settings be establsihed within one style again using various VSTs be done and can this be demonstrated.

James you have the PA1X i believe. Can you take a PA1X style convert it and play it on the MS using the best sounds you feel are available to demonstrate the superior quality of style once converted and tweaked on the MS next to the same style played on the PA1X and give us an accurate record of how long it took you?

I have listened to all the MS demo's including James' and with the greatest respect nothing i have heard sounded better than what could be produced on an existing closed arranger and most sounded considerably worse.

The test i am suggesting would settle the matter once anbd for all for me. Perhaps for many others too.

[This message has been edited by Spalding 4 (edited 04-23-2010).]

It happened that i agree with Diki on this, thats correct James but what if Microsoft
advertised it product that thats actually what that product does? Converting Samples?
Then responsibility falls on Microsoft as in here it falls on LionTracks it self.
This is advertised for years as an arranger and has nothing to do with devellopers,
it has to do with LionTracks, when i see something online and it says COFFEE MACHINE
i dont hold responsible the guy that made the power cord or the pot, i hold the factory that
bears its name on the machine, they sold it to me. LionTracks advertised this is an Arranger
and that means they have to take full responsibility for that, the guy that wrote StyleWorks
has nothing to do with that. If LionTracks advertised it as an arranger then they should've
taken care of that as customers would expect them to do so, come up with their own Arranger
software implementation or whatever it is. I cannot take your sounds and sell them to customers
while at the same time few notes are missing in the KMP and me telling the customers:
''Hey, its James's is fault, he didnt put them in there'' while i charge them for that.

Hi Nedim.

If I were to apply your logic to your own products and customers it would go like this.

1: Customer buys your sample library.
2: Customer has a problem with the library and contacts you for support.
3: You tell the customer to contact KORG and don't offer them any support just because KORG advertised the keyboard as having a sampler.

That's pretty much what your saying here mate.

Regards
James.

Welli think you are correct which can also apply to LionTracks...my point is that when
MS is advertised as an Arranger whole responsibility
falls on LionTracks, customers dont care who
wrote the Style player...

Hi Spalding.



Impossible as it does not work like that at all. If you download Live Styler you can see how it works yourself in detail, but basically to give you a quick idea you have to assign your sound engine(s) to Live Styler in the setup page.

So it's sort of a global setting that is not altered by simply selecting another style. With that in mind the ideal way to use it then is to simply connect it to a killer bread and butter VSTi(s) that will give you all you need.

My 2 cents.... building up the GM Giga bank is by far the best way to go. If you get a new library that has some fantastic sounds, delete the GM sounds and insert your new sounds into the relevant places where the GM sounds were.

This will give you an automatic improvement across the system, even if you play a midi file your new sounds will be used.



You have the limitations I just mentioned for the styles above, but for the right hand you can jump between VSTi's all you like. You also have a COMBI mode with can contain 8 part sounds, or you have the performance mode.

So there's quite a few options available to you.



No because I haven't done what I suggested above regarding the replacement GM sounds. I don't have any problem using the Arranger with the sounds that came with the keyboard. If I load a Pa1X style into it, it's just going to sound like a Tyros 2 as thats what makes up the bulk of the sounds.

My own premium content / Giga Library has only need installed onto the keyboard as individual sounds so I can use them under a Sequencer. I have very little interest in the arranger functions for my own personal needs.

If you want to hear the keyboard using my sounds, you need to listen to the likes of video 2 and 7, as well as the 2 mp3's I uploaded.



It disturbs me to see you say that after the sounds I used in the second video for example. No closed keyboard has sounds even close to that quality. There is a massive and extremely noticeable difference.

Here's a demo of the other sounds from that library. http://www.irishacts.com/lionstracs/worldwinds.mp3

Regards
James

Hmmmm..... I get where your coming from, but the argument Diki and I were talking about at the time was to do with the Bass Inversion.

The keyboard itself always had an arranger function and Liosntracs did fully integrate the controls on the keyboard with Live Styler.

The responsibility of this intergration to work was Lionstracs, but the actual functions of Live Styler can only rest in the hands of the actual developer.

Not that any of this matters any more as the developer did add the bass inversion function.

Regards
James

The thing is James, the MS was never REALLY promoted as an arranger.

It was always a VST and media workstation running Linux, that JUST happened to have a style engine included. Running the Qranger software provided by a 3rd party Linux developer.

That fact that others here have decided it is an Arranger, and therefore it should operate 100% like all the closed arrangers, is something of their own creation. Probably because it ties in nicely with their own very narrow, and blinkered opinions.

Those bleating for demos of this function (even though it is NOT the apex of the keyboards role) are the very same people quick to preclude themselves from providing ANY demos to support THEIR arguments.

The recent spats over the guitars on the Audya threads being a good example.

Some just believe they are too high and mighty I think, but I always say the one who complains loudest is the one who can actually do it the least. And as for other examples of people playing here, well ANYONE can doctor up an audio file. In quite a few of the demos I have heard there are plenty of times this has happened.

Some folks must have three arms, but more likely they did not edit it properly to remove telltale signs of re-editing and multi-tracking. Anyone can record multiple tracks, severely edit and THEN present the work as a "one take, one pass" recording!!! LOL, what total tosh. The minute someone says it is a one-take, I don't even bother listening as it will most likely be a doctored recording to make them seem better than they really are..But I digress

That style engine was then augmented by the LiveStyler and then the LiveArranger, but again the MS was NOT an arranger, nor was it promoted as such.

Lionstracs added and updated the arranger modules more as an add-on for those people who wanted an arranger function, (but who will never buy one, much like those whinging about the Audya but have NO intention of buying one) but who had no idea about how to actually set it up and run it.

So of course those same people THEN complain it is a lousy arranger.....Most of the time so they can feel smug and superior thinking THEY have the best keyboard.

Be like buying a house next to a factory, then complaining about the noise.

No, James, give up, these people here are the proverbial brick wall. And even if you have a win, they will only try and nitpick something else, to try and justify their own small and, really, insignificant opinions.

Dennis

Bill, sorry, but it makes NO SENSE whatsoever buying an open arranger, then using closed arranger samples just so styles translate. I've already GOT something that sounds just as good as a G70.... TWO G70's!

The whole POINT of an open arranger is to use sounds that are BETTER than what you already have. If you have to clone an arranger's sounds (or its' equivalent WS) just to make translations work, might as well use the original!

I'm talking about BFD-like quality drums. Not someone's half-arsed attempt at cloning some other keyboard's drumkit...

Thing that worries me so much is how 'theoretical' everyone's answers are... it seems only too apparent that no-one, despite some of you having had an MS for quite some time, has actually got around to really DOING any of this stuff. You would have thought, by now, that someone would have said 'yes, I translate a LOT of T3, PA2X, E80 etc. styles, here's how I do the mapping, and here's what they sound like... amazingly better than the original, no?' but all anyone offers is a 'you OUGHT to be able to do it like this...' but no-one seems to have DONE IT.

Just once, I'd like an MS user to speak from actual experience. Seems like nobody has ever tried to make the MS live up to its' 'potential', simply content to crow about the potential without finding out for themselves what level of workload achieving this 'potential' actually is...

The whole thought of using a GM soundset is so utterly laughable, I have no idea why anyone offers it. Even a quite modest arranger nowadays doesn't have just ONE sound under the capital PC#. You look in the PC#5, there isn't ONE Rhodes sound. There are dozens of different ones. You look under PC#66, there isn't ONE alto sax, there are dozens of them. All different. There are dozens of different drumkits. And, if the styles are well made, they use all these different sounds. And trying to replace them with just ONE Giga GM sound is not going to make a translation work very well. The original style creator played one sax sound completely differently to another (he did if he's any good, anyway!), and running them through the same sound is going to compromise his performance.

Any soundbank used to run the style section on the MS had better be as varied and well programmed as the original you are trying to translate, otherwise you end up with (as I have heard on pretty much most of the translated styles I've heard) basically a pretty poor substitute for the real thing. Sure, the individual sounds MIGHT be a bit better, but the whole thing doesn't hang together, and just basically sounds cobbled together, which the original, for all its' lesser sounds, certainly DOESN'T...

So you've heard the Mediastation play back sample files and they weren't on par with your closed keyboard factory sounds? You've got to be kidding. Take a listen to any of the East West Symphonic samples and if your closed keyboard can play one sound that's remotely close in quality you'll be damned lucky. The Mediastation can play these as well as others with ease. Try that on your closed system.

Give the following sound demo a listen and then show me one sample from a closed system that is comparable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIveoBxnQZY



[This message has been edited by Ensnareyou (edited 04-23-2010).]

ensnare you and James its my fault , i apologise ,i did not make myself clear . I meant as an arranger. I took it for granted that this was what we were talking about as i have not nor am i questioning the MS as a workstation. I have heard great sequenced tracks on a casio keyvboards but when you play a style suddenly you realise you are playing a casio so sequnced tracks dont matter to me. Just for clarity i will say it again. I am sure the MS works like a workstation well. What concerns me is why is it when the one example i have ever asked for which is a demo of the MS playing kick ass arranger styles BETTER THAN A CLOSED SYSTEM ARRANGER , all i get is links to sequences or software from companies that are not even remotely connected with the Mediastation or just plain sequenced music ??? Where are the arranger style demos ??????????? The more the question gets avoided or ignored the more i smell a rat ..... Ensnare you, you have an MS could you send me a demo of the MS using a style of your choice that as far as you are concerned is better than the Closed keyboard it was copied from and do an AB side by side test? This is not rocket science or at least it should not be according to the claims of MS users like good your good self.

[This message has been edited by spalding1968 (edited 04-23-2010).]