Tried some experimenting with Roland Bk5 styles which many are incredible and great for practical gigging use,.. converted to Yamaha format to use with my S950 and it wasn't good and a bit too much work & time to try to make it decent enough to use,... oh well, there are more then enough Yamaha styles to keep one busy for years to come.

Did you use StyleWorks Donny, or eject it as MIDI and then import? Is this the first time you tried converting another brand style for the S950? Thx for sharing your experience. -Ted

Ted Stylewotks........

Hi Donny,
I tend to think the newer the style, the more complex they're getting & the harder it's going to be to get a good conversion.
I do the occasional yammie conversion from a "Midifile of the Style". I tend to stick with the older styles, ie if I can get the same style in psr1500 vs Tyros, I'll do the psr1500 version, no mega voices etc to contend with.
Must be a nightmare for EMC to keep up with all the newer types of styles, Ketron & now Yammie include audio parts, Korg has Guitar Mode tracks ( which aren't just normal midi tracks).

The days of a simple tweak, may be gone in regards to the newer styles.

I completely agree, Rikki. Wise words.

We have progressed SO far from simple GM/GS/XG equivalency, I barely know where to start. Standardization is a thing of the past.

Drum kits... The juicy stuff now resides on note#'s outside the old GM kit range. Not to mention that a lot of arrangers have velocity switched drums, with no standardization of which velocity value the switch occurs at (or what it changes to).

Same with guitar parts. And many other sounds. And that's not even STARTING to deal with OS issues like different lookup tables for guitar sounds vs. regular sounds, proper 'Guitar Modes' or things like swell and volume changes (Yamaha use a different system to Roland). Then there's the issue of part range, where Parts start to drop octaves, whether lines stay in the range they were programmed in or jump about.

Expecting any modern style to translate well (think Tyros onwards, basically) is an exercise in frustration! Some will, some won't, some come out half a$$ed!

Rikki agreed.....a way to protect also?

The GM/GS/XG Drum mapping is still the most relevant for an arranger, because it still designed for home players with the old Bossa Nova’s, Foxtrots, Band etc. they do not have any styles (Or very few) that use or need any of the later and juicer sounds.

Velocity switching is also reducing as a problem, as more and more arrangers include multi-velocity drum kits as standard, thus making conversion less fraught. (It becomes relatively easy to alter the velocity to suit)

Mega Voices cause a problem because they are programmed to change with different velocity’s and additional notes, thus cannot be played by standard arrangers as they don’t have any voices that match, (Wersi had to design and program its own equivalent of the Mega Voices as it was the only way to allow native Yamaha Style support without conversion) they are also a disadvantage for Yamaha users as in most cases you cannot change the voice to something else that doesn’t exactly match with the voice you are changing. (Personally I think Mega Voices were the worst thing ever introduced on an arranger as they are almost as limited as audio files)

Korgs Guitar mode is an addition to, and can be added to any voice (According to how I read the manual) so the standard voice part can be converted more easily.

Most modern arrangers also have multiple ways to control a voice, so you can usually find one that is similar to the one used in other manufactures look up tables.

The question for me is why play along to fancy styles (Read boring and repetitive) when you can play the style (Your Style) yourself? (No musical greats followed others ways of doing things)

Bill

Hi



Agree.
Lousy implemenation of a good idea...

Jørgen

This is why I'm glad Yamaha is KING when it comes to styles there are so many if you cant find what you need within all of them there's something wrong...occasionally one needs to convert a few of them when needed and when it is compatible to Yamaha format...or in some circumstances record some parts yourself within the style replacing the original part just to make it work for you as the tools are within the KB in style creator, etc,to do so also. Styles are only small SMf files,...personally I only use approx 30-35 styles in all to perform almost any type of song, BUT, Each one is "tweaked and edited" to my standards & likings...

Since we are on this topic, here are some of my thoughts..

The best thing about today's arrangers is not the styles, but the versatility of the arranger..Arranger play, Media play, straight up play (no arranger), and the best to me, the ability to filter out parts of a style to be more realistic..

I absolutely hate the busy styles (yes Yamaha is king here)..and than to add pads to make it busier yet

If you need all that arranger backing..you better look at your playing ability to make a style useful...
I like the same band members on every tune..I want my drummer , bass player, guitar player, sax player, and I will take care of the keys.
This band is enough to cover any venue.
Stripped down styles can go a long way to making a performance sound realistic..and more enjoyable for the audience, especially arranger play all night long..


I can count on two fingers how many Yamaha styles I liked enough to use on my keyboards ..and now with the great BK styles, I pass right over those two Yamaha styles..

Hi Diki,
yep sad. Long gone are the days where one thinks, wow, that style sounds great, I'll convert for my keyboard. Usually ends up a very poor emulation.
I still have my old styles from various brands & if I can't find an onboard style to suit, I do still convert.

One good thing, I now check thru the onboard styles more thoroughly to see if I can make the style work for a particular song, ie with some of the old musical's I like , I found a drastically changing the tempo of some of the Broadway & Hollywood styles works wonderfully well with some of those old show tunes. May not be able to use the Intro's because of the tempo, but who wants the same pre-canned intro for various songs anyway. Beforehand I would have converted a style that I used on a prior keyboard, now I tweak up what I have onboard to suit. I'd always considered the Korg for more modern, upbeat type tunes, but, it's working well with some of the more old fashioned stuff too.
No bad thing, I'm playing more, instead of spending hours converting. haahaa.