I really like Roland G-800, G-1000 and older arrangers intros in 8Beat and 16Beat styles. What songs are they based on ? What “commercial” songs have similar music ?

Atleast what genre should I look up on YouTube to find songs like that ?

Vadim, why don't you load up an Mp3 file with those intros, so we can hear what exactly are you looking for?

I mean, I'm a Roland user myself, but how should I know how did the intro sound like on the G800/G1000 using the 8Beat and 16Beat styles?

Here starting at 21:18 and until 31:52

https://youtu.be/77Zb_3wAGfU?si=PPUPQjy6t58Vvxcx

Back then, styles rarely had recognizable intros. The whole idea back then was to make styles that would work for a large number of songs and the first thing that killed that ability was a note for note intro for a specific song.

Roland especially were one of the last manufacturers to do ‘songstyles’ in ROM. Yamaha went down that hole long before, and Korg followed. I think it wasn’t until the G70 that there were a few ‘songstyles’ that were easy to spot (although they still changed them a bit to avoid copyright infringement).

Nowadays, if you want to sound JUST like the record/CD, it’s laughably easier to use an edited audio backing track, or an SMF. The move towards ‘songstyles’ is a very bad one IMHO. A style that is hard to use on anything other than the source song is of very limited use. Yes, original styles take more creativity on the part of the style composer, copying is much easier (read: cheaper!) than creation, but I am disappointed in how many highly recognizable styles make up so much of modern arrangers’ ROM.

Agree with Diki 100% (I hate song styles).

Bill

I think you guys misunderstood what I'm looking for

I love "theme" music. One of my best finds ever is a studio band called Valentino. Another artist I have some stuff from is Jonny Easton. The Pat Metheny Group crosses over into Jazz but tracks like "Better Days Ahead" have a commercial vibe. Look these guys up on iTunes.

One nice thing about Rolands, even though they added more variations and fills with the release of the G-70, their newer arrangers will play legacy styles. So all of those great styles from the G-800 can be played on any newer Roland.

Supposedly the move from the BK-series to the E-A7 reduced from six fills to four. However, the E-A7 seems to play BK-styles and read BK user programs just fine. There is a warning in the manual that once you open a User Program on the E-A7, it can no longer be used on the BK. FWIW and Happy Hunting!!

I see the viewpoint of Bill and Diki.

All arrangers need to have a solid collection of basic styles that professional musicians can use on a wide variety of songs.

Having said that I see no downside of adding Song Styles to the standard collection of bread and butter styles.

I love the Song Styles on the Yamaha Genos2. The moment you play a Song Style Intro, your audience is primed to enjoy a faithful reproduction of a popular song.

It is true as Diki pointed out that if you want to sound exactly like the studio recording, why not just use the Standard MIDI File of the song? Let the SMF handle all the orchestration while you play the lead melody line with both your hands.

This is certainly a great option. A lot of professional musicians use SMF files. However, it takes away the key advantage of an Arranger – the ability to jam at will with real time chord changes. The musician no longer is tied to strictly following the song. They can spice it up depending on the mood of the audience. This makes the performance more spontaneous.

There is a reason why Song Styles are so popular and highly sought after. The moment someone buys an arranger they explore all the Song Styles that come with the instrument.

The next place they look for Song Styles is Create Song Styles.


http://www.createsongstyles.com/


This has the largest repository of Song Styles along with MIDI Files and Score Sheets on the web.

Manufacturers recognize the demand for Song Styles. It becomes a selling point for future upgrades.

It is no surprise why Yamaha invests so much on programs like Midi2Style. They make the conversion of a Standard MIDI File into a Yamaha Style as simple as possible.

I love this program!



Casper has created a playlist with 6 excellent Tutorial Vides on how to use Yamaha’s MIDI Song to Style software.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FvCrq-xOd8&list=PL7D3uE76oiLbSEjaU_U-UVaLPPlY-Q9xw



I would like Yamaha to release more Song Styles so long they keep the basic collection of styles that can be used universally.

Quite a few times at various venues I have played songs to a style that I liked when people commented "Oh,I thought you were going to play such and such a song"because the intro was from a song that they knew but I had never heard of.So you don`t have to play the original song for the style,just experiment.

I think Vadim was more interested on what Songs were the intros based in the G800/G1000 arrangers.

Vadim, most of those intros were based on 80's and early 90's soft rock. One example is this song (but there many more) from Atalntic Starr "Always".

https://youtu.be/dM-CiPKZF4g?feature=shared

My dear brothers, I'm not looking for songs that sound just like the style intros it that example. ( but if there are I'd be delighted to hear those as well )
I'm looking either for the genre of those type of style intros ( pop / ballads but with jazzy chords and instrument intro solos and endings ) , or other pop / ballad songs with nice chord progressions in the intro or ending.
Like in those Roland Ra-800 / g-800, g-1000 8beat and 16 beat styles, the styles are pop / ballad, but the intros and endings have nice instruments solos, usually saxophone or synth playing the intro, with nice chord progression. Not like "general" pop songs of today just having 4 basic chords in the intro or just single chord.

Beautiful song. Thank you.

The verses and choruses are in the style of those Roland styles,
But not the intro nor ending, they don't have nice slightly-jazzy chord progressions like those Roland styles.

Look, I have no problem with people using songstyles, but the bigger issue is that each manufacturer only makes a certain number of brand new styles for each brand new arranger. The majority of the ROM styles will come from the previous model (and that one got most of its styles from the previous model!) so each new model probably gets less than 25% of its ROM styles as brand new.

Given that that’s quite a smaller number than the total, each songstyle is a larger percentage of the new styles, and thus the percentage of styles you can play without your audience realizing what the original is (the fact that someone from an audience recognized the intro and style being from another tune simply shows how obvious it is to even the layman) becomes smaller.

As pointed out, there are websites that specialize in songstyles, made to be as close to the original, and the truth is, the more likely that they have been made from those commercial SMF’s in the first place! Turning an SMF into a style is pretty easy these days.

With that being the case, why fill the ROM with songstyles as a) they’re easy to make or download and b) every one reduces the number of ORIGINAL styles? That’s what’s in short supply on user style sites. Very (very!) little ROM quality styles that weren’t just copy/pasted from commercial SMF’s and are fully original and exciting to use.

Just my 2¢, but so much of arranger use seems to be moving backwards, not forwards. The heyday of arrangers, it was exceedingly rare to have a ROM style virtually identical to the original. That’s what made playing them creative. ❤️🎹😎

I agree. But I'm not looking for styles, I want to listen to pop-ballad / soft rock songs that have nice and slightly jazzy chords progressions in the intro, instrumental break, and ending.

That isn’t what you asked in the OP…

Just LISTEN to the styles, and see what music they inspire you to play! They’ll probably suggest different songs to you than to me, and that’s a GOOD thing!

But if a style TELLS you exactly what song it’s supposed to be used for, it’s missing out on what makes styles so great.