Good luck...and good on you for getting stuck in to create this software

Dennis

Ok, you knew it was comin... the dreaded ntt,ntr question...

From what I can tell NTR just says "do voice leading or don't" and apparently ANY of the NTTs can have ntr=y/n and onbass=y/n

Onbass meaning "if you're playing a slash chord stomp on every note in this channel with the slash bass note preserving only the octave".

So I've done some stats of all the channels in all the .STY files I've currently got (not a ton, but a good sampling)

I'm seeing this:

So NTT is off(bypass), melody(which turns to bass when onbass=y), and chord, plus some weirder scales which seem melody-ish

So I "get" what ntr/voice leading does
And what onbass does

But...

1) what's the diff between melody and chord?
2) how come there's an off(bypass) with voiceLeading AND without?
does one do no transposing at all and the other transpose only to the chord root(not adjusting any chordals)?
3) I don't seem to have any styles with guitar strums/arpeggios
can somebody email me one, please? stephen.hazel@gmail.com

thanks much,

...Steve

Hi Stephen,
I know you're trying to write your own program, maybe a bit more research might help. The fact that you don't have an arranger makes it rather difficult for you to test things out.

This is the software arranger I used for at least a couple of years. Maybe there's something on this site that may help you also.

http://www.1manband.nl/omb.htm

I know that this is maybe more a labor of love than a product, but don't you feel just a little bit redundant, walking (slowly!) where others have already gone?

Couple of full featured software arrangers already out there. Other than simply duplicating what already exists, do you have any ideas for a software arranger that no-one has yet implemented?

If not, what's the point?

Nope, not redundant. And I'm not walking slowly - I hope to have the first stab released tomorrow (we'll see:)

I don't plan on doing things the way Yamaha does. More the way band in a box does.

I eventually plan on making a style format that fits completely within the midi standard and can be edited with any midi editor. (There'll be a program to take plain .STYs and convert them.)

The idea is for a piano newb to find leadsheets, type em into a .txt file, find a random style that sounds good to them, and look at the style notes - picking them apart to figure out how to play the parts that look interesting (and still hearing the other parts).

Also, to be able to do things like, say, you're playing a melody from loud to soft... As you do the style playback's volume adjusts AS you play the melody, so it follows your "feel". That'll make it sound a lot less robotic. And other similar stuff.

Yeah, I agree with Diki...these days it is ALL about a niche product. Not trying to re-invent the mousetrap

To catch up to Dan and vA you probably have a good ten to twelve years in front of you , but start work on a niche product and you set your own pace and attract your own user base.

Not trying to teach a granny etc etc, but what Diki is saying has a lot of merit...

Dennis

Also, I think I've got NTT,NTR,bassOn figured out now.
And have found some guitar .STYs

So I'm good with the questions again.

And, again, I'm not trying to compete with any existing products.
I'm just trying to expand my own to do cool (possibly similar) things. Probably going about things in pretty different ways, though. I mean, all the big synth makers seem to do styles, but they mostly all seem to do it pretty DANG similarly. I'll be doing things in (ideally) a less messy and more flexible way.

...Steve

Yamaha style format seems easy, because of the midifile structure, but in fact, it is very hard to create a perfect yamaha style player. All we can do it to tend toward the perfection.

I suggest you to start with old yamaha styles. Every new yamaha arranger model adds a layer of complexity.

I admit that it's a very exciting work for a single developer like you and me.

Good luck Stephen.

Hi Dan

Nice of you to chime in.

Yeah, I see what you mean about "adds layers of complexity".
There are a LOT of weird adjustments to melodies, especially.

I'm going to start with simple .STY file playing that won't match Yamaha exactly, but will probably still sound, ummm, ok at least.

And from there, I'll probably just NOT do all the weird halfstep adjustments that Yamaha does.
Chords will be adjusted from the recorded chordal set to the played set.
But for phrases, you'll have to just come up with extra tracks when they start sounding bad against major.

Which means most style files will have problems playing directly. But I think with a few tweaks they'll play without the "yamaha complexity".

You would think that complexity would drive "style composers" insane.

Will it be compatible with "Touch Screen" computer screens or Tablets (iPad etc,) and what sound source will it draw from?