Some of it could also be down to the quality of the voices, which by today's standards are pretty dated in the BK7-M.

I think he mentioned Technics cheesy styles, not Roland. But I have to disagree. Roland styles are nowhere near the sophistication of Korg styles. I find many styles for everything I can throw at the PA3X and I hear the 4X is even greater.

Big ditto Zuki

Well, where is Diki when you need him?

He's on the Roland forum!

why we have Fran Carango..

We'll see if Fran will jump in and defend the Roland styles. I can't really do that since I've never owned a Korg arranger.

Depends on how you define 'cheesy'. To me, 'cheesy' means you can tell that the music is coming from an Arranger. That doesn't mean it's completely bad, in fact, in most cases it's far superior to what that particular 'musician' could produce without 'assistance'. I truly believe that ALL the manufacturers deliberately make the styles generic enough that amateurs and home players will sound 'good' and yet make them (styles) functionally and structurally strong enough that they can easily be tweaked up to a level suitable for (and acceptable to) the 'pro' player.

SOOOO, are Roland styles 'cheesy'? In the context that I described above, YES; BUT SO ARE KORG, YAMAHA, KETRON, AND CASIO. Can they be made to sound UN-cheesy? Absolutely, as some recent demos have shown (including some by guys like Marco Parisi, et al). In the end, although the quality of a Style is important, it's the player that 'puts asses in the seats'. JMO.

chas

Very well said Chas. In addition to the ability of the player, styles can be edited to change the "cheesy" parts or manipulate it to the players liking.

Yea ya think?...