korg's most styles are "session" type format. ( meaning sounds great for some songs but not generic enough for most songs due to over complex bass and drum programming and fills.(Eg- Bille jean bass line drums in disco group/ Santana 'a smooth in Latin rock group/ Macarena in Latin dance group, long train runnin' , etc). Korg need more simpler styles IMHO.If you need only 10-15 styles for your set, no problem. But if you want fast song creation without going thru sequencing , Korg styles' limitation appear.
You see yourself hunting for more styles but luck may not be great for Anglo music playing (us/uk )OMBers.( yes , Mideast , euro and Balkans - no problem due to excellent local sound and style support).
session styles sound great if you play that song or on their own (without singing )but start to sing on top of it, annoyance comes even if you mute the tracks due to over complicated bass riffs or drum fills .

This is how yamaha' style ( eg- tyros) divides. It still has session types ( 10%)but most of them are pro types (90%)when one style fits many songs due to simple bass and drum programming.again pro type means that's how they call it. Nothing to do with "professional" by definition.


The problem of Korg’s is over complex bass programming and riffs coming in and out that has nothing to do with the song. If you mute it, you'll lose the bass track.as a user of both I know it very well.

You can sound great with Korg with minimum training because complex styles take care if the rest as long as you know when to comp your chords since busy tracks play by themselves. New Korgs ( 3x and afterwords )are getting better by making it simpler but just not there yet.

Song specific styles of Yamaha that most mention are the “session” category. You should look in to “pro “ category and compare and contrast to see simpler and less complex riffs that fits most songs.

This is not about live sounding . Yes Korg is more live and punchier yet style limitations start to appear if you are use styles only for your gig and sing ( no mp3 or SMFers).


Advice to Korg - make more simpler 8 / 16 beat strum styles without over complex drum and bass lines/ cut too much off beat drum lines. Need more Ringo Star styles / fills not
Peter Erskine’s.

Your thoughts? ( I know some will say " how many styles do u need? I need only 20 and I reuse them, mute the tracks,.etc")Some might say yamaha has more songs styles( yes more in 3rd party styles).

Thing is Arrangers are not (And never have been) designed for professional working musicians but the home hobby player, hence the complex style to make them sound great without the wait. (There basically more advanced easy play features of the home entertainment organ)
For me personally I have always found Yamaha styles to be the worst out there as they are mainly song specific, Korg as you say are very live sounding and are like you have session musicians backing you, but for me, give me Roland styles any day of the week, as they are great whether you use an arranger keyboard or an organ where you do most of it yourself.
There is no right or wrong as each player has their own preferences

Bill

Having owned pretty much every brand of arranger keyboard on the market, I'll stick with my Yamaha. It allows me, using variations, to select as much or as little of what I want in a style, while at the same time, providing great backing for my vocals. Additionally, the sheer volume of 3rd party, song specific, styles available for Yamaha, places them light years ahead of most of the other top end brands. For someone that makes a living as a musician/singer/entertainer, for me, it would be hard to top Yamaha.

All the best,

Gary

For me other way around. Korg does sound live but it stops there. Lack of variety of simple styles are problem. Yamaha does have song specfic styles but bass line and fills are well programmed so with simple muting it fits other songs as well.

Major reason of TOTL Korg arranger sales are middle east and balkans. Not US / UK market where Yamaha sells better for following reasons.


- mid east/ balkan require sampling of their authentic ethnic instruments
- they have their local dealers/local style creations ( depending on the country- Turkish/ arabic/ armanian/ east euro/ balkans, etc)
- most western arranger korg users use mainly for occasional arranger use but mainly as SMF/ mp3/ wave playback machine or use the sequencer

- western arranger players ‘s music fit more with Yamaha styles ( only taking about arranger styles/not SMF or sequenced Playbacks)

Mid east/ balkan arranger player find limited styles in yamaha arrangers for their genre ( no PSR tutorial site can’t help since it’ mainly for western music ( signature of 4/4 s and 3/4s). They are looking more of 9/8s which are more in Korg/ Ketrons)

Western music - meaning - pop/ rock/jazz/ easy listening/ some latin etc
( not necessarily US/ UK ), but English language songs Or English language influenced pop songs from Asia as well

- Since Korg TOTL has better hardware and VH, song book , good drum sounds etc , for solo or duo giggers who rely or presequenced music find them useful

- once you take requests and use your arranger on fly , korg’s limitations appear really quick
, and Yamaha styles became invaluable

- another reason that Korg arranger users ( mainly western users) always asking for more more styles. more free yamaha styles ( converted from Korg PA, rolands, ketrons). Not the other way around due to mega voiced styles of Yamaha)

I have a yamaha e463, korg pa600 and recently bought a roland bk3 from ebay. Im not going to get in
a “my arranger is better” discussion. For me,my music and my live performance, the korg is setup for my live performance with special styles I made and edited factory styles. I added the yamaha for the yamaha
specific styles that I couldn’t duplicate on the korg. Together they work well.
So I ran across the bk3 at a great price, I started to play around with it and set it up with my song list and edited styles to fit my songs. I find myself playing the roland more due to a better mix in the styles that fit my songs . The fills are smoother and I seem to navigate faster on the fly compared to the korg and yamaha. The korg is great as far as making it your own style and sound but the time I spend doing that takes away from learning new material. So I use the roland for 90 percent of my styles and the korg for lead instruments and the yamaha is in the corner not being used at all. Each to their own I guess. I was surprised on how my rig ended up like this.

Pa 600 is way above the league of e463. psr sx700 which is in the same league of Pa600/700 will give you different results. Again only talking about western arranger styles for live play ( not talking about sound editing, sequencer or song book playback of smf/ mp3, where Korg is better ). MOTL PSR slays Korg in simple usable styles IMHO ( as my experience having more than 30 years as both arranger player ( duo/solo) and as live band KB player). ( I have TOTL korg and older TOTL yamaha).


Most of the Korg users and sales are from/ to middle east and balkans. Western Korg players mostly use the sequencer or use Korg as playback machine ( mainly of course with some exceptions) other than extensive use built in Korg arranger styles ( or converted yamaha styles to Korg which are not so great due to mega voice issue).


There is no better keyboard. Only better in different departments. We choose depending on our gig’s demands. Style usability ( for western music, not mid east/ ethnic or balkan music) , availability and acoustic sounds goes to Yamaha hands down. Deep sound / style Editing/ drum punchiness / synth/ pads/ organs/ certain EPs and sequencer goes to Korg.

I think the issue of over complicated styles honestly has little to do with platform, simply marketing…

But if you are interested in getting more ‘simple’ styles in your collection, you could perhaps start with looking at legacy collections of styles from say 15-20 years ago, the dawn of arrangers, when virtually ALL styles were generics. Because styles were ROM only, and an arranger had few of them compared to now, the manufacturer really couldn’t afford to fill the precious ROM with styles only good for one song!

But older styles come with issues of their own, mostly older sounds and kits and effects etc.. This is where an easy to use style header editing system comes in very handy. You can often turn a pretty stale sounding old style into something that matches the best of your current generation arranger simply by substituting better sounds and drum kits and utilizing the better modern effects. Then most style editing systems nowadays allow you to import tracks from other styles, which might allow you to substitute an older less dynamic track with say a better acoustic guitar strum pattern, etc.. Or import a nice percussion track to spice up a simpler style.

But pay attention to the balance and cohesiveness of the sounds you switch to, it’s pretty amazing how you can tweak those older styles to come pretty close to the sounds of the latest ROM styles.

If you are looking to play much yourself, those older styles honestly work better than most of today’s styles. Yes, they sound great, but it’s not YOU that’s playing much, it’s the machine. And where’s the fun in that?! 😎🎹

If you go on the korg website you will find FOR FREE, just about every style that korg has made and they keep updating new styles at no charge.
Now that's wjat I call pro. No really i played yamaha until korg came out with the pa900 and before yamaha I was a technics guy until they stopped making them and I found after working for a while with the korg, I was able to find just about any style I could think of. It is not a keyboard you can just sit down and play without a little bit of study.
Yamaha was easier but not as deep and you can't go by korg style names. They are very misleading and all over the place, and that might be why people think yamaha has better styles, because they just can't find them in the catigory they should be in. Just my experience

MEL

Thank you Mel
As long as I have had my Pa4X, it didn't occur to me to do a thorough search for styles in odd places.

The SX-900 onboard styles are all over the place as well. I can't figure out why Yamaha changed the basic category system that's been used for years.

I use the search function, and it's great at quickly finding both built in and User styles.