I posted this a while back. I have learned more since.
I did my best to make the keyboard sound like my band. The system I used today on my Yamaha sx900 is what I am sharing. All opinions welcome.

CREATING BANDS:
1-Create a band that plays your favorite type of music in the eight Regs.(Bank)

Thus is my example --- Big Band using all eight Regs.
Piano-Trumpet-Clarinet-Sax Sec.-Trombone-Brass-Strong Brass.
2-Save them in the eight Regs. DO NOT SAVE STYLE OR TEMPO!
3-Load or create a Reg for the song you are working on. (One Reg)
Save the Reg. with the name of the song.
4-Load the band you made. The style or Tempo will not change because the Band was saved without Styles or Tempos.
5-Your song Reg is still in the keyboard save it with the Style and Tempo in the Reg. #1
6-Save the Reg. with the song name.

SIMPLIFIED
1-Load your song
2-Load your Band
3-Save the song settings, with Style and Tempo in the first Reg.
4-Save the Bank (Regs) with the song name.

You are on your way to taking the boredom out of your keyboard.
Pianos play with less background. Trumpets and Clarinets vary. A Sax Sec. is much fuller. Brass gets strong. Strong Brass can add a high octave trumpet. All this will be your flavor.

Once you are comfortable, one of your Band Regs. can bring you to a different style, that compliments the first.
Ten minutes does the job -- Song and Band.

Making a Big Band for Latin music. Start with your Big Band – Trumpets are brighter, Change Clarinets to Flutes, and whatever pleases you. Then save it as your Latin Band.

Open for questions and opinions, John C.

Good system…

I used to play with live bands a lot using my arranger, and built up a big collection of registrations that covered what a band would typically need… things like organ LH piano RH, Rhodes LH Brass RH, rhythm guitar left synths right, stuff like that.

Nowadays when I’m working on a new tune, I ask myself ‘How would I have played this live?’, select that preset, then plug in the style, sequence or audio track. Works pretty well..!

Roland’s system seems pretty different from Yamaha, and I expect Korg is too. The Yamaha system looks pretty versatile… 🎹😎

Thank for the tip. Saves a lot of time creating new song registrations.

Regards

Jerryghr

Jerry, for me, making bands is part f keeping my old band days, when I played out. It gives me freedom to express what I feel. I have never used Back Tracks – I have to follow it – and that means I have to follow it every time I played the song.

Playing Back Tracks gives the performer freedom to focus on his playing; he will sound good. I am siting at home and I want to get the most out I can get so that I enjoy.

When I played out with my Kn7000 as a OMB, I used the same method, Bands. It is also why I sold my Korg Pa4x and bought a Yamaha Sx900; it does the job much better. I did not play sets of songs. I played what the dancers needed/desired. I would end a Ballad in the middle, told the dancers to hold on, and with five seconds they heard Johnny B Good or In the Mood. People stayed on the dance floor.

Ouch, there I go living my past.
What else do I have at 90.

Thanks for reading, John C.

This is a good system, and would work pretty much on any arranger. Which is good practice to build up banks of sounds that can be used with multiple songs. Country, Big Band, Ballroom etc.

Think about what instruments would be used in that sort of environment, if you want a particular sound for a song but don’t have something that sounds great try layering with another sound, sometimes it’s good to think out the box and try sounds you’ve never used.

We have 1000s of sounds at our disposal why not give them a try.

Don’t forget the four OTS solo instruments. You use them for a solo, then back to your bands. OTS turns off left hand – helps the solo instrument.

I’m having fun here, John C.

PS, if you do not like the OTS instruments, you can rewrite the style, then add the OTS instruments you want.

Which also leads to which instruments work well together or don’t, if your layering any instruments in your registrations. What effects if any are needed or what effects were available for that style of music.

With the Big Band Registrations would you use no reverb (dry) or some.

I use what I feel sounds good to me. A touch with the Trumpet. More with a Flute. Saxes, pretty dry.

Keep in mind that we all do not hear the same. The older trumpet, ala Harry James; lot’s of Vibrato. The newer Trumpet, almost none.

What sounds good to me, and what I was exposed to years ago.
John C.

Bruno, playing with tracks has changed quite a bit in the last decade or so. If you fully utilize whatever Marker system your arranger provides.

We’re long past the linear ‘start at the beginning, play to the end and stop’ days. Drop in markers for verses, choruses, solos, endings etc. and you can restructure the song on the fly as needed. Combine that with systems to mute tracks on the fly (I always have a rhythm section only button handy!) and no two nights’ performance of a piece has to sound the same.

You can also use Markets to jump to either totally different songs, or optional sections like vamps by putting them after the main sequence with say sixty bars gap (so you don’t have them play if you accidentally forget to hit stop when you want to end!). This can give you the opportunity to build medleys you can play in any order, or throw in vamp sections while you chat to your audience etc.

And finally, with chord sequencers that allow the sequence to be saved and linked to the registration, you still retain the ability to choose fills and variations at will, change styles, do breaks etc.. Add to that Yamaha’s eight freely selectable chord sequence system, and you get the perfect amalgam of an SMF with markers, and a style. Same ability to do medleys, vamps alternate solos etc..

To be quite honest, if emulating how you would play in a real band, you have to remember that a real band would have had a rehearsed structure to a song, which you could only change on the fly with a lot of shouting over the monitors (!) or an almost prescient familiarity with each other! You certainly couldn’t completely change the chords or song structure without getting some pretty ugly looks from the bassist or guitarist!

So, all in all, the days of feeling out of control using some kind of system to play the track for you has gone if you are willing to use the newer features. Give them a whirl… your left hand will thank you for it! 😂

John
I simply use the Registration Freeze button if I only want voices, without the style and tempo. If you find a style that works well with those voices, turn off the freeze button and save to a new registration.

Thanks for sharing your method. There are so many different ways registrations can be used. It's a powerful arranger tool, and Yamaha has made it even better with Playlists that can be customized for gig use.

John, my next step is to use Regs to vary more than instruments.
Freedom – imagination, love it.

John C.