A few weeks ago, I decided to rewrite the bulk of my custom drum styles to include the "one touch" sounds that I really use the most, instead of the ones that came with the styles from the factory. Whew .... quite the chore. I'll share my madness:

1) I am a Rhodes "go to" guy. 90% of my night is EP driven. I just love the sound, and it blends well with my voice.
2) I still enjoy the simple acoustic trio sound of piano, bass and drums so I set up my "start up" patch to be a brighter than classical, jazzy acoustic piano sound in full KB mode. Many nights before I play any drums or bass, I will warm up a room with gentle acoustic noodling and maybe do a ballad before I start the drummer.

So ... I have the piano set to the "My Setting" (default) patch that fires up first. If I make any changes during a performance, I can always get back to that starting point by hitting this button, so in essence, there are really 5 STS settings for me available. I chose:

1)piano
2)rhodes
3)organ w/leslie (not too percussive)
4)sax section
5)brass section

These 5 STS settings will not affect the split point, arranger mode or any other style element, other than my RIGHT HAND sound. I can slip in and out of a tune, play a solo or different feel for a different section and always get back to home base, whether it's piano or Rhodes. I like it, I like it a lot.

Then, for more variety, there's always the 3 right hand tones available, so more sonic fluff is always there at my fingertips. Unless a song is "sound specific" ... I start with a generic trio of piano (Rhodes on top), bass and drums. It's a great time saver for me to have all these "bread and butter" sounds ready for instant recall. Time well spent.

Dave, you're using PA900 right?

Funny & interesting how different we all play and setup our arranger KB's for performance...what one does the other doesn't even come close to using ha !! that's what makes playing an arranger so much fun, so many choices.......nobody is right or wrong....bottom line is to produce great music.

Yes, Don ... it's the PA900. That "My Setting" was a cool new feature they added. Gives you a "go home" from anywhere. It's like a get out of jail free card!

I have two registration sets, (each one has 8 sounds) with sounds from the same category, but varying in important ways.

The first set is: Live!Grand Piano, SA ConcertGuitar, SA2 BreathySax, Live!Strings/Strings layer, SA2 Harmonica, SA2 JazzTrumpet, SA Telecaster, SA WhiterBars.

Second set is for more aggressive/danceable tunes, and consists of: Live!Grand Piano, SA JazzClean Guitar, SA Rock Sax, Live!Strings/Strings/SympHorns layer, SA2 Blues Harmonica, Live!Pop Brass, SA Guitar Hero, SA Prog Rock Organ.

Any special/unique sounds are programmed in the style's OTS.

Volume pedal active on RH sounds only. Sustain on RH and LH.

I also have the above registrations programmed without Volume pedal active.

All setups are stored on-board in User Bank, on the Tyros4's HD, on two Flash-drives, and on my PC.

It took a while to get everything balanced the way I like it, but, now, once it's done, I can focus totally on playing and recording.

Ian

Good plan!

Same goes for your setup Dave...it's really neat to be able to customize these instruments to suit our particular needs, no matter what they may be.

Makes playing a gig flow right along.

We've come a long way from only a few sounds to choose from, limited styles, and minuscule user storage.

Ian

Ian, of course you know you could put all 16 voices in a single registration bank, because you have the option of right 1 and right 2, and if I recall, right 3 with the Tyros series, so that would allow 24 custom voices in single bank.

Gary

Gary,
That would mean having an extra button push to decide what upper voice was needed, right? Ian's way keeps him in EZ mode or dance mode with one push per selection. At least, that's the way I understood it. I love the options with several RH sounds. Most of my extras are strings and pads, unless it's a combo sound, like a horn section.

Of course, you are correct, Gary.

I do have other sounds along with Right 1 for several of the registrations...for instance, I have a Live! Strings patch under the Piano in reg #1 that is set to a slightly lower volume so I can add it as a layer.

Also, my SA Concert Guitar in reg #2 has a Dark Fat Saw synth sound available to layer with it.

I will probably keep adding other sounds to R2 and R3 on the other registrations, and after I've lived with them for awhile, and tried them on tunes, I will store them permanently.

Thanks for the tip AND the reminder.

Ian