At this point, if Yamaha or Korg collaborated with a computer manufacturer, and just put a proper DAW onboard a keyboard, with all the physical controls, and digital instruments needed, I would buy that in a jiffy.
I would be fine with a good mini pc with midi 2.0, audio interface, support for large drives "8tb" and of course I would love keyboards to have video out to display in a window on a great touch screen monitor. I don't want much.lol.😜 🎶🎹🎶Play On
I want both- I want the benefits and ease in songwriting and getting and idea out that one gets with an arranger- and I want the sound engines and daw-like functionality from say, the Roland Fantom (only with a fully linear sequencer, like the Akai). Throw in a sampler with some great features, and you have a keyboard capable of anything.
Choose a style you like and use only the drums and bass. You have to record the other tracks yourself. Then you can hear if you want to change anything about the drums and/or the bass and voila, you have something completely different.
I use my PSR-SX900 for songwriting, and for me the best tool in the toolbox for this. If I don't use intro number 3, all the styles will follow basically whatever I do. Using the drum section in real-time and recording a sequence with it is light years better/easier than using my Native Instrument's software drums with my new Kontrol S61. This NI system, for me, complements the PSR-SX900, adding additional sounds in Cubase. In my opinion, the arranger drum setup on the Yamaha PSR-SX900 is really innovative... to control a drum arrangement while playing. My two cents.
@@osirus444 Thanks. The only negative I have with the PSR-SX900 is I can't save the mix setting in the sequencer, every time I reopen a sequenced song I have to remix every time. I talked with Yamaha, Sweetwater and forms and no luck... bummer, been living with this pain. Also, I love the unique feature where you can plug a guitar in the keyboard and use its effects and speakers. What an eco-system, so turnkey.
@@tperelli4271 You have to do a save every time you close the song multi-mode. I'm not at board right now but, as you save the midi file again, there's a menu with a lot of options and you check mixer I believe. I do it so often I can't remember the steps if I'm not Infront of the keyboard. But yes, you absolutely can. Yes, I love the effects too! I just wish it could add at least one audio track to simultaneously play along with when creating a song in the sequencer. Of course, you can create audio multi-pads, but it can be difficult to line them up with a midi song.
@@osirus444 Thanks again, Yamaha told me to go to setup menu at the top of the sequence your recorded song is and check all of the boxes and hit execute than save the sequence as you mentioned, but it still doesn't work. I'm pretty sure it's a problem with the keyboard. That said, I just found out that Sweetwater will no longer carry this keyboard, Yamaha will not provide them with anymore. That's good news I think because this may mean they are looking to release a newer/replace for the PSR flagship? The 900 as we all know is about 4 1/2 years old now. Fingers crossed for me at least:)
@@tperelli4271 What!? Interesting!! I wonder how they could improve it. I think it is almost perfect as it is now. I'm sure Woody will make a review on it. That would be awesome!
Interesting topic. I agree, creating your own styles (I have a Genos 2) is a complex process. Moreover, the result is often not what you expect. As a music creator, I design my own music with my DAW.
I do understand where you're coming from, but: 1) A guitar is not equal to an arranger keyboard, it's not a fair comparison. A piano is more like a guitar in the regard that you can play whatever you want on it, and you create all the music live with your two hands without any aids. 2) Even my 10 year old PSR-S750 has three intros and three endings, nobody is forcing you to use the Karma Chameleon one on that particular style, if you want to play a different song using that style. Heck, even the ancient (by arranger standards) PSR-3000 has three intros if I recall correctly. 3) If you want to write songs with fresh sounds and much more flexibility, use a DAW and a MIDI keyboard, or a workstation. Arrangers are great for entertainers, who play on weddings, etc., and they usually play along to MIDI styles, or buy or get style packs from the community, who are willing to put in the effort to make those styles. 4) Generic styles have been a part of arrangers very early on, so it has been done. Take "8 Beat 1" from the PSR-540 (that's a style I know fairly well, since it's the first one on that arranger, which I had for a loooong time). It's so generic I can't name the song which inspired it. (it's very similar to Classic8Beat on the S750)
Useful to remember, Beethoven and all of the composers of that ilk, remembered or not, used an acoustic piano as their work station and worked out every part of their compositions on an acoustic piano keyboard. Their DAW was in their head. Worked out pretty well for a long time.
# 3. But I spent 2300$ on a PRO arranger. And will likely buy another one. One about $5000. As a paying customer, I cannot stand when someone says, including Yamaha, "Arrangers are great for entertainers, who play on weddings, etc., " Oh Lord! So, is that vice versa for someone using Ableton Live to create and play cover songs to play weddings/events? What if they find that tool for creating their versions of cover songs tedious and cumbersome, they should get an arranger, right? What are they thinking? I say that because I actually met someone who does that, and he told me it was a pain to get started on Ableton to create his songs for his events. I suggested a PSR-SX900. He said he is not a keyboard player. So, he uses what's familiar. BTW, the PSR-SX900 does have songwriter friendly elements-chord looper especially. But this argument is really for Yamaha, one the top arranger makers in the USA, from me, an actual songwriter, not a wedding singer-Your styles are SO specifically hit heavy that even as a savvy user of your technology, as a songwriter I almost always omit those styles when working on the board. And there are A LOT of them. This is driving me to choose the most songwriter friendly Pro-Arranger I can buy. I may need to source the European company Ketron. And another BTW, I use other tools like Toon Track's gear, Native Instruments, and a Yamaha MODX +. NOTHING is faster to build a song and a production than a pro-arranger. NOTHING.
For 20 or 30 years we complained that we couldn't find styles identical to famous songs on the keyboard arranger ! Do you think it's too much now ? I think it's perfect to be like that, that's the purpose of an arranger keyboard! It is an entertainment tool, and it is normal to have these styles ! If you want to compose, use a workstation! I personally think there are two big advances in the arranger category! 1 the sound quality and 2 the quality styles and closer and closer to great hits !
Nice collection of styles for specific songs :))) Ketron has less of those I believe. Well, all-in-all, I don't think it's a big issue, as long as you can create your own styles, the factory styles will become boring soon anyway...
Totally agree - pretty much sums up my issue with arranger keyboards as well - but I can't see them moving in the direction you suggest, unfortunately.
Where are the times when you just had simple march, walz, polka, 8-beat, 16-beat, bossanova and tango rhythms? The main problem lies in the pre-programmed chord progressions. Without them you could play many more songs with the styles.
The PA5X 🎹 Categories of various genres of multifarious pages of Styles does not have the player locked into any key or progression of chords! One is free to play any STYLE (& its 4 variations & additional Pads variations) in any key and whatever chords one wants to creatively play, at any tempo, with any preferred selections of layered and split keyboard instruments/sounds. The PA5X 🎹 is highly versatile for creative music playing and recording. EnJoY 🤗🎹🎶😁
one can RE-program the styles, so no problems for me, and with the internet full of styles to download to all brands there should be no lack of variations, but as i said, you can PROGRAM a style anyway you want it, no problemas, Levi in Sweden
In a similar context to this theme, I think Yamaha's style creator is of great significance. I hope that Cubase's chord track and Arranger track will fully inherit this system in the future
I have a Genos 2. I understand what your'e saying, believe me. But what I do is create my own songs with existing styles, and try to make them as interesting as possible.I also utilize outside instruments, like a drum machine. I also reinterpret old cover songs that have been played to death over the years, and create my own unique version of whatever song. A lot of fun!
hello Woody, you are right in many ways. However, there is a quick solution. Buy external ready-made styles and packs! I did that and they are not song-related styles.😀
Totally agree. After 3 Yamaha arrangers and 2 Korgs I have moved on. Played the last, PSR 900SX very little. In box under bed and need to sell. Hanging on to PA4x but use mostly for quick and dirty drums with EC5 foot pedal. New flame is my Montage M8X. Great keybed and superb sounds with lean prefab “styles” which are somewhat generic play with guitar and bass players and mostly original material or own arrangements of evergreens. Use Toontracks, Native Instruments in Cubase for recording. Would love Yamaha/Steinberg hybrid keyboard for creative songwriters who wanted to move past covering other creative people’s stuff. Keep giving us inspiring videos which are candid and objective. You make a difference.
Hey Woody, I completely agree with you. This has been a problem for me for a long while whenever I upgrade to the next keyboard, it seems the more styles included, the more useless they actually can be. Here are some thoughts. I like your idea of improving the style creator. It would be great, say, if there was a style creator 'bot' included where you can pick a certain type of rhythm style, eg, 8Beat, and the bot would scan through that specific bank and randomly generate a combination to create a brand new style from it. Now going back to the main problem, I kind of semi-resolve this by going through some of the legacy generic styles from the previous models (both the Pa5x and Genos2 should be able to play styles right back from the i30 in Korgs case, and the PSR7000 in Yamahas case), and improve them by revoicing them with the newer sounds. There's 1000s of styles to be had here. Also to note that Korg has a huge Bonusware catalogue that also contains 1000s of excellent high quality styles, as does Yamaha that have made all their expansion packs free. There's loads of generic styles there too. But I agree, the factory styles should mainly contain generic styles, and perhaps just have 1 bank section for "famous songs" as an extra bank.
I guess the main purpose of arranger keyboards is for home players to play songs that they know, 70s to modern. Not so much on creating their own styles and songs, which synthesizers will do the job. I would say arranger keyboards are much like Electone organs, easier to operate than synths. I feel most people who buy arranger keyboards would want something easy to make a song out of it, not so much of sound designing or creating music out from nothing.
I get your point- and as a songwriter before a cover player- I totally agree. But I imagine if we take this complaint to Korg and Yamaha then they'll just point at their workstation keyboards.
We have to remember that arranger keyboards were designed exactly for entertainers working in clubs, restaurants, ships etc. to be able to play a bunch of popular songs. Some kind one-man-show. So if you need inspiring stuff you need to look at side of Avenger 2, Nexus 4 and similar VSTi. Also no one prevents you from creating your own original style.
I know very little about these instruments But what you say seems logical and a fact Can't really understand what Woody is on about ,as most musicians want to play standards either for your own enjoyment or for ohers to hear and there are thousands of them.. if not create your own
My first ever keyboard was an arranger keyboard (Roland E70) however I've not had an arranger for 30 years. I have to agree with everything you said and find the whole arranger keyboard concept completely pointless for live performance in 2024. If you want to do cover versions that sound like the original there's loads of Karaoke companies that now allow you to mute certain instruments for live performance. If you want to do your own/own versions of songs it's far more inspiring/powerful to create your backing track in a DAW, you can also record real instruments and backing vocals etc (for vocalist keyboard players). It's going to sound far more authentic than anything that comes form a Genos or a PAX5 and either way you can't play everything live and the audience will not care one bit if the backing music is coming directly from your arranger keyboard or coming from a and mp3 or a .wav. Where I do think these kind of keyboards are useful is for people learning to play keyboards and learning how to arrange music, however the price of these put them way out of the learner's market. It's actually a lot cheaper to buy a decent computer and a good stage piano/keyboard. I have the exactly the same thoughts regarding workstation keyboards, they were revolutionary in 1989 but pointless and expensive commodities in 2024.
Great content - as always, much appreciated. Entirely agree with you - about time to get these beasts to another level. There is light on the horizon though. I have a few things on the Pa5x though .The midi files can be easily handled - if you put markers on the file - they become loops on the arrangement part strips - not too much effort - and they can be saved with the midi onto the song/songbook. You can use these as instant style parts, should you like those, no style conversion needed - you could mute the parts you would like to play yourself - this is the easiest first step. Then Yamaha provides a midi to style software - you can use to create styles from midi files - this avenue is also available to you to lay down your own style as a midi file on your DAW (style files are midi files in any case, with special markers) - and you can mark it up with the free Yamaha midi2style software for Genos ad PSR - and set the key etc. If you use this method, you can do a style swiftly, not much computing required, this is the video to watch: ruclips.net/video/yYfPbMFM5wo/видео.htmlsi=KLW3GmtNBPk1JUIo. This is for Yamaha mainly, but the styles can be taken to Korg too with a bit of work - thanks to Qui Robinez, he provides great resources on his channel ruclips.net/video/CYeas-GcTpM/видео.htmlsi=n6PAPnbBTufsjWAV. As far as using external samples on your arranger - it is also possible - you can create a midi profile to route your selected channels to output, where you can put your Kontakt player/Mashine/Mainstream/DAW VST plugin, tweak it to your heart content (even using Korg's sliders as midi controller), get the audio routed back to your Korg - and you are ready to go - the copyright issues are averted and you can revoice even your existing styles using your NI Kontakt instruments. Yes, it takes a bit of work, but the results are great and the possibilities are endless. Just going back to the start - the game changer will be when they provide an easy to setup style creator on the arranger keyboard itself - hopefully with computer support. Apologies for the long comment, thanks again for your content, well thought out, engaging and greatly presented!
I have a Genos 1 but I also still own my first arranger keyboard, Yamaha PSR9000. Although it has a Song Bank, the styles themselves were still of sort that I could write an original piece using them and sound unique. I think they need to go back to basics and as you have said, maybe using all the sounds and features etc, they could have a Song Book and a separate Song Generator. The book can contain files made up and created by the company's, and the Generator for the User. Very good point made and agree wholeheartedly
I Still have my yamaha 9000pro from the year 2000 Is it possible to purchase more up to date styles and import them through the floppy disc? My gigging days are over but I still play for my own pleasure.
Create your own style on any acoustical piano - you don't need gadgets like this lad is going on about - less is more. Now get composing or else give up and get decomposing six feet under.
Thank you, Woody for that very important information I always wondered no I had a feeling after listening to this keyboard it sounded very much like 80s 90s genre, you just saved me a lot of money for product that basically it’s not worth spending money on....... I wish they’d come up product that help. You actually create music from the beginning. Apparently they missed the boat as usual and so I guess everyone who writes songs will end up in copyright court ..... thank you again, ........very insightful video!!
Now that you’ve given an insight when it comes to the Korg PA5X issues what do you recommend to a person that’s been around Korg products for a very long time. Started with the T3 thinking of going back to that so what do you recommend? Thank you. Woody.
If Yamaha and Korg don’t put their efforts in making it easier form someone to create their own styles easier, some other company will do it and Korg and Yamaha will be in danger of Fading away in the market!
As you said style creation is for advanced users, 100% agreed. Korg should give free classes to purchasers to learn, it shouldn't be hard to learn. The RUclips videos are short and very basic. Korg manuals describe the instrument they are not written to teach people how to create styles.
These are topics which are normally not addressed by the manufacturers but by people willing to make it their hobby and explaining a lot of these features "hidden or unknown" to the basic user like me but very well explained by these people like for example Alois Müller (ruclips.net/channel/UCNq6hIqGcG6MBMM0_M9cGiA) does, however in German (RUclips videos nowadays come also with subtitles in a language of your choice which can e helpful to understand).
You are correct. Any style is eventually boring. So much so. I play along with a lot with midi files. And again jamming along is fun, then boring. Creating music is which is new to the world is not boring. Writing my own arrangement is my solution, Creating and writing basically a new song is the answer. Not technical, sheet of manuscript paper and off you go. Your brain and love of music is the answer, not mind numing repatriation. Be interested in your opinion my friend
I only watched for the first couple of minutes of this video before my comment, I'll go back and watch it again to finish it up after I'm done commenting. As an arranger keyboard fan, I totally agree. As a fan of the Great American Songbook, most stuff from the 80s forward, for me, is not something I'm going to play. I play for me, not others. Having said that, several years ago, when I got my first Arranger Keyboard, a Korg iX-300, I went to play a piece of music for my Mom and step Father. Since he is a country music fan, I pulled up a Country style. I forget the song, some 'generic' country song, but the style wasn't the same as the song. The melody was easy to discern, but his comment to me was that 'it wasn't the song he knew' because the backing tracks were wrong. I've heard that from other family and friends when I've been playing. People who aren't musicians often, not always, but often enough, when you go to play a song for them, expect to hear what they've heard on the radio or CDs. They have come to expect to hear what they hear from the original songs. Now, I tend to play Standards, and the nice thing about Standards is there are so many different people who have done covers of them that you can play with a different style, or even a completely different genre, and people will still recognize the song. But, if you're playing anything from the 80s forward, people expect to hear from the keyboard what they hear from radio or CD, and if it isn't that, then it's not 'right', it's not 'the song.' So, having said that, and with the primary audience of these keyboards being to people who may be playing out (I mean, how many home musicians want to spend $5-6,000 for a single keyboard when you can spend half of that for 80-90% of the capability), you have to provide what the customer base wants. The base wants to pull up a style that sounds 90% like the original, especially if you're performing pop music from the last 40-45 years. What I would like to see from both Korg and Yamaha are additional more 'generic' styles for rock and pop that work with more songs, and even the ability to take parts from styles and combine them together to make a new style Building block styles. I know you can add up to 1TB of storage space to the PA5X, but I'm not sure what you can store there. If you could allocate some amount of that storage space to additional styles, and especially User Styles, then Korg, and other developers would create a whole slew of generic styles that would be accessible. The same applies to Yamaha, Roland and Ketron. I don't begrudge either Yamaha or Korg for creating song-specific styles, they are bread and butter for gigging musicians, but give us some options for generic styles, or build you own styles. Touching on your comments about style creation, I agree . . . to an extent. When I was young, I took about 12-18 months worth of piano lessons, but I had some developmental issues which were undetected and unresolved, and I never studied or applied myself. I can't even read bass clef. So, I did figure out chords, and for that reason, Arranger Keyboards for me are great. But, to create a style really requires that you have some composition skills, and a lot of music theory. Maybe in Europe and the Orient the music education in schools will cover that on a more basic level, but here in North America, not so much. In the U.S. our music education in public schools has been decimated. It takes years of lessons to get to the point where you can create your own style, and so many people don't follow through on that education. Did you ever see Scott Houston? He has the "Piano in a Flash" method of teaching people how to play, and all they're learning is chords and melody line. He's not teaching them how to do the things necessary to build a style. You know, if Yamaha or Korg wanted to introduce an educational series on 'How to Create A Style' and teach the basics of music theory and style creation for those of us who aren't 'real musicians', I think that would be awesome, and I would love to see it and learn it, but I doubt it would happen. Could YOU do it? Teach someone like me? Now, one other option, and I've mentioned this before, but not in this role, is PG Music's Band In A Box, which has hundreds of MIDI styles which ideally could be used as the basis of creating Arranger tracks. Now, Band In A Box's track generation is actually very sophisticated, allowing the program to 'look ahead' to the next chord change and then decide which pattern to use for each part. For example, you may have a style and the bass track for that style may have totally different tracks for a one bar, two bar, four bar or eight bar patterns. Since BIAB is not a 'real time arranger' it knows the chord progression for the song, and can select the pattern that is appropriate. But, you could go in and take the four bar pattern for bass and copy that over to use it to create a pattern for a style. Yes, you probably would be best served using an DAW or Sequencer to do all of this, but in the end, you could have styles that are as generic or as specific as you want. One of the other features of the Korg, something I touched on in a different video, is that with the Korg arrangers, you have six different chord pattern variations. Majors, Minors, Sevenths, Sixths and Augmented and Diminished CAN, but not always will (depending on the style), have different patterns. Yamaha does not offer that capability. Have you watched any of Alois Muller's stuff here on RUclips? He's German, and a real guru of Arranger Keyboards, and I've seen some of the style modifications he's done, and honestly, it doesn't look that hard, but he's also not creating complete styles from nothing, either. So, in essence, I agree with you, but I can also see what both Korg and Yamaha, as well as Roland and Ketron, have followed this.
The styles may be quite 'song specific' but I have watched many RUclips videos of people attempting to play complete songs using them and in fact very few actually achieve an accurate representation of the song with all the nuances etc of the original. Many of the styles have had some kind of alteration to avoid copyright issues. This results in 'cheezy' renditions, highlighted in your previous video. Having said that, I always enjoy watching your videos and keep up the good work. 🙂
I agree with you too - just about everything you said is spot on. I'd prefer the song specific styles to be available in add-on packs, and keep the built in styles generic. Trying to find generic styles on the G2 isn't easy - so many styles to wade through before you find something usable.
I agree with you, but to be honest, I think the solution is just get together with other live musicians and use teamwork to create new music, plus you get to have great friendships as a bonus.
So, merge arranger keyboards with synth workstations? I mean, you can already make music directly on something like a Yamaha Motif/Montage synth. I honestly think that arranger keyboards are specifically made for the niche of "pub musicians" or similar. People who entertain at parties and such. And for many of them, the composing part isn't always as vital.
the problem is when u are eastern and the songs are western !! that is a big problem for many people arranger keyboards for beginners only has default songs and styles with no free space for new styles thats a big problem for many people around the globe for some people all of the songs are useless on the arranger keyboard
@@wout123100 there a lot of them but the problem is many of arranger keyboards can NOT take many new styles unless u have a expensive keyboard which is a problem for non professional players most of low to mid price arrangers has a little memory that can take few new styles and songs for western its ok because u have many styles by default how ever for eastern u just have too many styles , sounds and songs that u never use and u can add few new ones
These arranger keyboards are the equivalent of paint by numbers, vs a real painter who starts with a bunch of colours on a pallette and a blank canvas.
woody your making a mistake I will take Beat it By Micheal Jackson and put it in a different key and tempo and chord progression ,,,The arranger Yes it has the makers of these amazing musical interments do put classics in them so they can be played for covers ,BUT if your are really a artist ,, you can create anything you want from anything you have ,,, Its takes imaganation and talent ,,, I will do it I will take a very common classic and show you how see if you head the song ... i Love arrangers I also Love red blue yellow and greeg ,,and they are billions endless colors comes from red green yellow and blue ,...you just got to know what your doing and want .
Great idea Woody. Also make it easy to create a style too. I dont use arrangers myself, but I can see where that is a much better idea than having just certain songs styles fixed. 👍
You nailed the core problem, thanks! I also own an older KORG arranger and I suffered from these song related styles. Let’s hope that in the near future AI-based software (onboard) will be able to make the style creation much more easy and comfortable.
Foo Fighters´ Learn to Fly!!!!! LOL. Who the hell would ever dare to play live that song with an arranger? LOL. Thanks for sharing Woody. Lots of love.
Hi Woody! I agree with what you’ve said about the styles being too song-specific and not universal enough. I’ve been thinking the same thing. I mean, what if I don’t want to play the songs that the manufacturer has chosen for me? I live in Eastern Europe where it is pretty common to have live music in a bar regardless of the time of day so there are quite a few folks who do synth programming and custom styles. Unfortunately for me, I don’t play that kind of music so it is more difficult to find good quality samples and styles that suit my musical needs. Having the ability to create your own styles within the keyboard itself is fine but like you’ve said, it is a lengthy process and very few people have the know-how to get it exactly right. Also, MIDI-to-style convertors never seem to work right. They might “get” the main variation but the intros and outros never work and usually you have to do manual adjustments that take as much time as creating a new style from scratch. So, not very effective at all. IMHO, a good compromise between what the manufacturers are doing now - including as many styles as possible - and a more effective tools to create your own styles, is to allow for alternate versions of bass and drum tracks within the styles. For example, you could have 3 or 4 different bass lines and drum patterns within each style variation - toggle through, find the one you like and then save it as a custom style. I think it would be an effective tool that’s easy to understand and use. Because arranger keyboards - and I believe this with all my heart - are ideal instruments for songwriting, this might prove to be an inspirational tool as well! Cheers mate! I appreciate the time and effort you put into making these videos! They’re equally well suited for pro musicians and enthusiasts like me.
To make configuration functions more accessible, manufacturers could abandon the current panel interfaces and replace them with large touchscreens, ideally with a loudspeaker at each end of the keyboard. Serious software design required, perhaps the DAW and the arranger will converge in look and feel
Arrangers are made for gig musicians who play known songs in real time. if you want to compose your own songs you need a sequencer (because as you said, creating styles on arranger keyboard is difficult). If we think about that, there is not so much situations where you will have to play LIVE your OWN songs. And when it's the case, the band will play with a real drumer, real guitare player and so on. So having almost only known songs for preset styles on arranger makes sense. That's my opinion
That's not an issue, that's why you have sample memory and user memory to loads tons of styles and sounds, plus keep in mind that this problem is for the fist time user and not the pro that had all the previous models and just loaded up and did his job with no problem, for example Korg users had the PA4x then migrated to the 5X were as the Yamaha user migrated form the TYROS 5.
just a few creative musicians buy this one, most of arranger musicians want to cover exact the original as possible, so the manufactures did a great job, not issue though. Nice video!
It would be nice to have easier style creation, but I’m not sure how simple they could make it in practice, you’d still have to record the different variations for each and all the different parts. Maybe something like the loop pattern recorders that some keyboards have would be a good middle ground.
High end arrangers have always been kind of a mixed bag IMO. I agree that they are excellent song writing tools, but there certainly are a lot of song specific styles as well. Obviously editing a current style to suit your composition is the way to go, but again as Woody states, you’re still stuck with song specific parts of that style. I think the biggest issue that people don’t really talk about (that Woody did bring up) is the difficulty and TREMENDOUS task involved on any arranger when writing custom styles. Even if you have a professional arranger, and you build that style from bottom up, you’re going to be hard pressed trying to create a custom style to either match or exceed a preset style. You as the consumer will not have access to the tools the manufacturers used to create those styles, which are obviously not created using the keyboards internal style sequencer. Try as you might.., but you’ll never create guitar, bass, and drum tracks that match the presets because you don’t have access to the creation tools and software the manufacturers use. Those amazing styles are created and programmed externally. Also.., writing good FILLS that line up accurately is extremely difficult too. It can be done, but holy hell the amount of work involved in creating a complete style from start to finish is no easy task. I always tell people if you’re creating your own styles.., take advantage of some preset parts of a style., especially the guitar and drums. A lot of the guitar and drum parts in styles (even song specific styles) can easily work well in a user style and the finished style won’t sound song specific. Just be prepared to dive in and do some micro editing. I’ve been playing for over 40 years. I have arrangers, synth workstations, and a full computer set up with DAW’s and VST’s ranging from affordable to expensive.., and I have never seen anyone create a user style on any arranger (from scratch) that equaled or rivaled a manufacturers preset style. Not because they lacked the skill to do it, but because they don’t have access to the recording tools and software used by the manufacturers. I’m always creating my own styles on my arrangers, but I accept that regardless of my playing skills, I’m not going to be putting out a manufactures level of styles using the onboard style recorders. I simply take advantage of the incredible programming already done by the manufacturer for some style parts.
exactly what i mention in my respons on your video "arrangers suck on bass playing".... thanks for taken that as a topic on this video and maybe more videos follow
Arrangers are usually focused in the working musician, that plays in weddings, events, etc. So having those styles allows you to "dodge the bullet" when someone asks for a song that you just don't have in your repertoire. I guess the decision of what songs go in the arranger´s memory is made taking that in consideration.
Bonjour Woody. Je suis enfin content que quelqu’un aborde le sujet. J’ai eu Korg Roland Ketron Yamaha. Et mon éternel question sur les styles d’usines « comment font-ils? » Comment font-ils pour les faire sonner comme ça avec tous ces effets, panoramique, cut off etc….. Je pense qu’ils ont un logiciel interne, propre à chaque marque. Je doute que les mecs passent 12h à créer un style…. Si quelqu’un connaît le secret pour créer NOS propres styles… Je me sens moins seul 😅😂
I found that the trick was to strip out all the extra backing like the horn section, strings, etc. and just use a basic drum, bass, maybe rhythm guitar from the arranger for my backing. (I played a duo with a bass player who, to be honest, could have been replaced with the arranger since I had the bass tracks turned off although I sometimes preferred the arranger bass player)
Idea..1.Select Rock category set 2.Choose respective style for Beat, Bass, Acc, Intro, Break, End, Fill in, Efx, Amp.etc 3. Save favourite. 4. Editable.
I currently have an older PSRS970 and rarely play the styles for reasons you mentioned. I have it connected via midi to my gorgeous Yamaha CP88 I bought a year ago. PSRS970 tiered with CP88 on the bottom. I use the great micro phone features from the PSR as well as the stereo inputs for playing along with both midi files and Karaoke files. As well as occasionally mixing voices from the PSR with the CP88. I feel it’s a great set up for me.
8:45 an interesting idea for a style creator is to offer a thousand different phrases or pattern for each section (bass, rhythm, pad, etc) then let the user build their own style by combining their chosen phrases. And do that for each variation. The workstation keyboard already has the "phrases" idea (I have that in Korg Kross). Just missing the variations part. 9:37 i vaguely remember reading in the pa300 manual that it has midi to style converter on board. Not sure how well that worked though. 9:53 there's still a point why it should be a style and not a prerecorded midi file: it allows us to go back or repeat sections as desired. This is important in unpredictable nature of live events. A workaround could be allowing us to set repeat point or section markers on the midi file and have panel buttons to press to jump to those sections.
Woody? Are they ever going to make a top tier arranger where you could just take full control of what you want to change with accompaniment parts? Even the preset ones should be customjsable so you can change anything to make them milder, stronger etc. Change the strings, synth, trumpet, sax to my way. Thatd be a perfect arranger !!!
Good ask from woody. Why Spend a lot of money and time to change a style? I play arranger from roland proe 1989, and try only one time to made a my one style.. A possibile solution is try to play ketron arranger.. Are different from yamaha and korg, because the style are more simple, based to use for dancing live, so there are drum and bass line very good and only a little line of compling.
I don't know if it's really an either/or. The cover tunes are about the only thing I find interesting about it, especially kind of mangling them, or improving/rearranging cover tunes on the fly (while singing and such). But editing my own could ALSO be cool if (like you said) it was easy.
Guess what!? KORG just - finally - in latest 1.3 firmware update - added ability to EDIT chord sequences ( ie in their equivalent to the Yamaha 900/Genos Chord Looper ) :) Now i'm waiting for Yamaha to do same. Am v tempted to go for a PA5x 88 even thogh i think Yamaha styles sound better - why? because only KORG offer an 88 weigthed key version.....
I think it's because the Culture, Japanese, in which their made is Super-super innovative but also has a super Conformist lean and is less geared toward Independence than Collectivism; as a result there's probably a much higher ratio of highly skilled technically excellent Musicians happy to play Covers 'n' Classicals, in Japan/Korea than there are 'Bedroom Musicians/Producers' & 'Singer/Songers' in the US/Europe, even though both have huge populations. (PLS: Don't call me racist for only suggesting this! - just think through what underpins Culture in the East and West)
well said, and my god --- it needed to be said as clearly as you did. thanks. my two cents would be that EVERY arranger should have something like the lil YAMAHA QY-10 workstation BUILT IN!
I had an original PSR model in the 80's and spent an age making my own styles to suit songs I liked. I don't think anything has changed really......just far better technology. And, it is an arranger............I bet there are other keyboards that fit your remit a little better, and cheaper!
Good video Woody.. totally agree and i absolutely hate them.. im afraid... because apart from the terrible Cheese.. my issue with them is.. you cant use a simple drum track to compose on them.. because every single sound is linked to a god awful backing track by default.. so unless you turn it off before you even touch a single key... then it serves the cheese and ruins you creative flow.. the answer.. buy a workstation (ie.. Modx, Montage, Krome EX, Nautilus, Kronos etc) and a simple DAW.. (Cubase AI, Ableton, Reason, SONAR .. etc).. keep up the great work 👍
I really agree. If styles on the latest arr.-keyboards have chord progressions in-build (?), thats a disaster, and reminds me of some of the earliest keyboards from the 90', where that could happen. When I play arr. keyboard, I still use my old Roland VA76 with styles made for all keyboards up to around 2005. Some intro's and endings sound song specific and can evt. be avoided, but most styles, even from Yamaha, are pretty much build around musical clichees from their genre and work fine with many different songs! Korg styles have in my ears always been a little too much. A riff functions best in 2-4 bars, not 8. It leaves you too lazy and - as you rightly say - in the hands of the ingeneers. Thanks for many useful videos.
Why I use Band In a Box and or Frooty Loops to create a backing track for each song. Sometimes 6 or more for a good one. Every instrument with preset styles is the same. You'd think a straight Waltz would be bulletproof but even they sound like .... well you know. Rhymes with "Rap" Cee?
If you just want to make a backing track and play over it, my Juno DS can do that. I’m pretty sure the Kross makes that easy as well. The styles on my Casio KBs are fun BECAUSE they are minimal. Some basic rhythms and arpeggiator like stuff driven by the “chord hint” from your left hand. I agree with other comments on here about the high end arrangers needing to have and make better use of an external monitor (e.g. support a mouse to quickly sail through options, rather than dozens of “D pad” presses).
Arranger keyboards definitely are not for me. I'm not a keyboardist or performer, I'm a remixer/cover guy; I like to remix or recreate songs I like. That process is, given my lack of keyboard skills, entirely with a mouse and QUERTY keyboard. What I need are synthesizers. They style of music I work in tends to be very masculine, intense, dark, driving, and above all, very electronic-proudly, unapologetically electronic. Having said that, I agree completely, having a comprehensive, DAW-like tool to create my own styles on a per-song basis would be pretty fantastic. Basically, take a Fantom or a Montage and load up arranger keyboard-like styles on to instruments. On the computer end, open them up in this style-creator DAW, and with all of the sound-sculpting tools available in the synths, build up your own styles. Then upload your custom styles either to the synths or to the given manufacturers arranger keyboard equivalents for gigging with. I can also see that, by the nature of the beast, creating your own styles would be unavoidingly complex given all of the accompaniment you would have to program into each style which would indeed require a strong understanding of not just music theory and arranging skills but, the formatting and setup that the synth or arranger requires. My main gig is video post production and motion graphics and animation. Like creating full musical arrangements, creating 2D and 3D art, imbuing them with motion, integrating them into live action footage, editing multiple clips together with the goal of telling a story, by nature is a complex task requiring, not just the understanding of how to turn the knobs, but how to compose imagery and edit them together to tell a story. The tools can be made as user-friendly as is realistically possible in such complex software but, you still need the theory and skills to be able to make effective use of those tools. I see building musical arrangements into styles for an arranger keyboard has a lot in common where needing knowledge, skill and talent is of utmost importance and, by it's inherent complexity, will always be a complex, time-consume task-a fun one to be sure-but, yeah.
PSR SX900 QUESTION, I can not play real chords because I have to press the left side chord keys for the chords in the style to change. Anyone else thought how to overcome this?
This is the reason why I'll never buy another arranger keyboard. I've owned a lot over the years and this has gradually gotten worse with each new model. In my opinion it's just lazy programming. Yamaha, Korg and Roland used to produce excellent styles that were actually usable for a wide range of songs and even composing.
No one's deciding (for you) what you should play. That's not the right way of looking at it. They have packed popular songs in styles that keyboard players would find useful and use in performances. I'm sure there are generic styles in there that you could use. Perhaps explore those and make a video?
Most arrangers do offer user programmable styles. If you want to play your own song, make your own style! Much personalized than making 'hybrid' styles as mentioned. The learning curve may seem steep till you become proficient - but once you master it, style creation is easy. Or use the style creation bot found in Korg.
My Yamaha QY100 did this back in the day using 'INTRO,' 'PART A,' 'AB FILL,' 'PART B,' 'BA FILL,' 'OUTRO.' and setting the key the tune was to be played in. With that, upon playing, you could play the chord progression using the key chord function on the bottom notes and play the chords over it. Of course, you could set how the machine sequenced each part to form a song, or you could select them manually on the fly.
This is a non-issue. They are made for a specific audience. Folks who play these kinds of songs for a Saturday night audience who want to hear these type of songs. These are not made for creative folks.
What a load of rubbish! I have been playing Yamaha from my first one, the PSR 1100, the PSR S900, Now my Tyros 4, SX700, PSR S970 and I have had a Genos1 and SX900. I play ALL my music with on board styles except for a few special stiles that I have obtained. I am 85 years old and I don’t recognise any specific song with any of the on board styles. However it must be very difficult to play RAP on any instrument. The problem has been around since the first musical instrument came into use. I want this, that and the other. I first noticed this with my S900 so Yamaha made the S910. MORE wanted, hence the S950, S970 and S975. It is the same with the Tyros and Genos. Not satisfied, must have a Genos 3, or 4 or 5 et al. I am a musician to play MUSIC not a computer programmer. If you really want something different then buy the bits and make it yourself. Regards D
I am totally fine with styles. I disagree that arranger keyboards should get rid of styles. I have a repertoire of like 300 songs, and I don't feel limited at all. First of all, I don't use those keyboard intros. I just play my own melodies or progression as an intro. When adding a new song to my list, I just search for the closest style to the original one, or I would just choose a completely different genre style. There is no genre or songs I can't play on my keyboard. The point is not to sound exactly like the original. The point is to make music and be creative.
You made excellent points Woody. As good as the styles may be, they're too song specific. I also agree with you concerning style creation, Should be user friendly and quick to create our own styles. Lastly I'd like to see more genre specific catagories. Fusion; ambient; orchestral etc where you select a drum beat then select a bass line then add a chord pattern and so on. I've had so many arrangers over the years and as much as they have great sounds the styles are the shortfall. To much cheese. How about not just a chord recorder but a full fledged looper. None of the boards I've had have one. My current arranger is a Korg PA700. (7 years old) The chord sequencer is nice but its not a full blown multitrack sound looper. My next foray will be into trying a multitrack looper like the Boss RC505mk2. This will allow me to use all the great sounds on the PA700 and quickly create my own unique loops. Loops have they're own shortfalls. Hard to control in a live arrangement. Band in a box is a good tool but everything has to be predetermined. Arranger keyboards allow full realtime control over length of song; chorus; ending etc. Finally the DAW. I've used pro tools and a host of others. The problem with a DAW is your tethered to a computer. You can count on a glitch when playing live. Happens way to often. Thanks for starting this great dialog concerning arranger keyboards I thing when Yamaha or Korg jumpstart their creative departments we'll see instruments that will be true creative tools that are easy to use and produce some great music. Thanks again Woody. Your channel is much appreciated. Mario
Lazy engineers still living in the 80s that's why it's sounds cheesy old styles shouldnt be as presets should be seperated you will never find the perfect keyboard.should be making styles up for us
Whats the problem? It also has a sequencer if you like to do your own repertoire or songs. You can create your own styles. The style arranger are for the beginner or the intermediate to enjoy. If you want your own styles it is assumed you are advance player. So why dont you be a consultant for Yamaha, korg, Roland. See what you can come up to. Cant figure out whatelse you want to do or what you’re thinking about. Maybe these manufactures should ask you what you want done. You cant get anything done with youtube viewers.
I've never owned one of these. I've never had any use for the "arranger" features. For one thing, I bet that at least 95% of these "Styles" are in 4/4 - never mind if you want to play in another time signature, which I often do. No, I've always used a cheap MIDI sequencer program (Master Tracks Pro), and various arranger-less keyboards and MIDI sound modules. (That is, until I got a DAW and BBCSO Core.)
Good topic Woody, After mucking about with the song specific styles I usually revert to the more ‘vanilla’ patterns and strip out as I need. I vote for arrangers to have a greater number and modern range of generic styles. Whilst I like the idea of DIY styles, (I think mine can do this) unless it’s really easy to do its likely to lose much of the spontaneity of sitting at the instrument and bashing out that ear worm that has been bugging me all day worse still that I forget that original riff (I wish) that needed to be turned into a song.
think different markets: 1. arrangers for solo performers- they would love presets for songs that are popular. the audience at a wedding party would like to listen to Abba rather than less known artist. 2. there are many generic styles that can be adapted to your own creativity. try that with a linear sequencer on something like Kronos which is a blank slate- takes much longer than an arranger with a style as a start up 3. if you really want granular control- use a Daw. you can also export the daw style to korg or yamaha specs as a midi file and use that as a start up. Again, they become very song specific. ultimately, think about all the songs ever created by man all of them can be traced to a single root- ie a groove or a beat , a chord progression that has already been done multiple times. except small or distinct changes impart the flavor of the song. An arranger echoes the same sentiment- repeated grooves or chord changes as the basis with added flavors to make specific to a song. strip the flavoring out, then u have the basis for another song or create one from scratch- your prerogative.
These keyboards needs more open/scratch personnal styles creator : - a piano roll editing in the style creator would help lot of us to create style - or a better integration with computer/DAW (MIDI to Style from Yamaha is a good step in this way) - more in box modern style POP/Rock/FusionJazz and less "exotic style", in extension why not
What you call an arranger's weakness, I call it's greatest power. You must build your own styles from a blank program. Yes, it is a work of love for the song you are composing, but no more work than using a DAW or linear 16 track sequencer or a step sequencer; just a different workflow. You are calling it work, but all arrangers are not the same for the song creator. For the past 14 years I have owned six arrangers in search of one that the style creator is actually creative. Today I am using the Roland E-A7 because the style creator is very good. Style creators are no more complex than sound design on a synthesizer or tracking on a DAW, it is a skill to learn. Working with a style creator is not the same as a linear sequencer where you simply compose your songs one track at a time, or a DAW that does the same. Style creators allow your music freedom of expression while you play it, otherwise just play your song to pre-recorded backing tracks and be stuck in a very finite start to finish song. That has been available for decades. You are correct there are some huge problems with specific manufacturers style creators that limit your creativity, and many have [COPY] functions missing. This makes style creation very boring and laborious. And if you can't output style MIDI to external instruments you are stuck with internal sounds and effects. For example: one of the most expressive creators was the Casio MZX500..BUT...believe it or not, there wasn't enough memory in it!!!! Memory necessary for MIDI is micro size, and Casio didn't give it to you!!! The main problem is too many beginner musicians are buying these high-end arrangers and never use the style creator, They are not musically skilled and have little knowledge of music, that is not enough to create a style. So, the style creator firmware has not been a priority for manufacturers...BUT these $5000.00+ arrangers should have had super style creators for the price, but I don't have that kind of money to experiment on them. The Roland E-A7 is $1800.US and has MIDI out of the 8 tracks of styles, has a creator that allows you to create all four variations at once and then edit them down, it has a wonderful keybed and live control of the six tracks like high-end Yamaha and Korg. This Roland is covered in every square millimeter of its surface case with physical controls, THIS control makes is very easy to use. Yes, you can write simple boring songs with a step sequencer or play to complete backing tracks without any freedom as an alternative. I am a solo acoustic pianist I don't use arrangers on stage, but in the studio, I record Vangelis style, up to 32 tracks in one take. To make my songs interesting I use the power of these "style" pattern sequencers to make the music go from simple to very complex. My 12 year journey in arrangers has been necessary because it takes six months to a year to understand each manufacturers keyboards and get to full understanding. Like mentioned above with the Casio, a year into it and then DANG!!! not enough memory. And no one is reviewing the style creators...except one review of the Yamana Genos2, but not very complete. I have to read the manuals before buying, but that is not enough to know. Owning is the only way.
Both Yamaha Genos and Korg PA5x have custom styles and expansion features. A real accompaniment player should take time, sit behind the machine and create styles… after this, patching and onboard pre- mixing would sound the machine great. Anyhow you are 100 💯 correct. It is indeed a painful process. It steals 4-6 hours of my time to create a style, mix them, voicings for styles especially on the new Genos and SX series Yamaha arrangers though Yamaha has improved a lot from its previous PSR and tyros series in style creator feature
There are a few problems with in-depth editing on keyboards. 1) It's easy to say 'just add this and that'. But at some point there's little point using a keyboard over using a USB-keyboard and software. I've been in music retail for nearly 12 years, and year after year I see the same products being re-hashed; new name, same old sh1t. The manufacturers are simply out of ideas. If they do more, it'd make more sense to just go for software instead. If they don't improve however, they'll become dated very soon, so what's left for them to do? One way or another, the road ends. 2) Demographics. Who is the target audience for advanced keyboards? Considering the prices of their flagships (Yamaha, Korg, Ketron, Roland), they're not exactly within reach of the younger generation. The younger generation would currently choose the computer instead. So, the manufacturers could add more efforts making their systems better, but if only a handful o' people would use such improved systems, would it actually be worth the developement costs? 3) Editing. Making styles is rather different from sequencing a song, and often ideas someone might have are based on experience making songs. I'll say that keyboards, with their relatively small screens and traditional paradigms, are not much fun. I read elsewhere it may take up to days for one style. I'd say, if you have the idea in your head, it should merely take an hour, tops. Anything above that is caused by arcane interfaces, which aren't going to be improved as it'd make more sense using a computer to make styles. 4) As I mentioned earlier in the cheese video: it's impossible to define a musical scale based on simple triads alone, yet simple triads are how keyboards do their thing. So, sooner than soon: keyboards get boring anyway, and certainly don't offer the melodic freedom a normal composer can have. This too is a road with, in its current form, a dead-end.
As another commentator suggested, try using just bass and drums and play as though you're in a trio. It's surprising how the cheesiness is much less obvious, and you can better your own playing too.
Very good idea: Lets make a petition to the the manufacturers! Petition: "We want you to make better style creation software and user interface for style creation!"
Woody, I really don't see it as a major fatal issue because you can simply load a "song-specific" style and you play it completely differently than the original song. The problem is that because a song is ingrained inside our minds, it's somehow hard to get it off our heads and play something differently. I think the reason manufacturers do this is because these arrangers are mainly used by wedding/small gigs musicians who are constantly playing covers. But I hear you in this!
I kind of agree but as I'm sure others have said, the ability of muting certain tracks, remixing parts between styles, changing the groove (time signature), revoicing styles.... I often use styles as the basis of a skeleton for a song. I agree you cannot help but play the songs that the styles were designed to showcase, but often I've reused them on multiple occasions. I guess we could go back to the even cheesier backing accompaniments of the 80s, casios, organs... and all that is possible on these keyboards. I'm a big fan of the built in sequencer, as well as using these keyboards as a master sound source for my DAW. Still the best acoustic and electric guitars 'out the box', strings, just a great user interface and quick way to get to bread and butter sounds. These arrangers ARE open ended, just load up new styles... thousands of them out there. Turn of the styles, use the arpeggios with the left hand ... I rest my case 😊 but still love your videos Woody!
Choose Roland EA7. Problem solved. Independed and not specifc song style. All style multi user styles and welade arrangements. Thats why i never play an other arranger then Roland.
I totally agree with you, with the onboard styles you are limited as a music creator. It`s good for people, that like to cover famous songs, but for me it`s more interesting to create my own songs. So I often use multitrack recording, take only parts of the styles and create the rest by myself. One of my keyboards is the Thomann AK-x1100, which make it possible to create own styles, but it is too complicated and time consuming. My ideas for a song come spontaneous and I like to create it in time. I don`t like to work for days only for the accompaniment, then the idea and feeling for the new song is gone.
At this point, if Yamaha or Korg collaborated with a computer manufacturer, and just put a proper DAW onboard a keyboard, with all the physical controls, and digital instruments needed, I would buy that in a jiffy.
Korg OASYS
Korg Kronos.
I would be fine with a good mini pc with midi 2.0, audio interface, support for large drives "8tb" and of course I would love keyboards to have video out to display in a window on a great touch screen monitor. I don't want much.lol.😜
🎶🎹🎶Play On
@@doordedeur Overpriced lol, how much does it take to integrate a decent processor with a keyboard? Not that much, that's for sure
I want both- I want the benefits and ease in songwriting and getting and idea out that one gets with an arranger- and I want the sound engines and daw-like functionality from say, the Roland Fantom (only with a fully linear sequencer, like the Akai). Throw in a sampler with some great features, and you have a keyboard capable of anything.
Choose a style you like and use only the drums and bass. You have to record the other tracks yourself.
Then you can hear if you want to change anything about the drums and/or the bass and voila, you have something completely different.
my dgx-670 offers that as style creator
I wish the manufactures would listen to you. One of them should hire you to help them design one.
I use my PSR-SX900 for songwriting, and for me the best tool in the toolbox for this. If I don't use intro number 3, all the styles will follow basically whatever I do. Using the drum section in real-time and recording a sequence with it is light years better/easier than using my Native Instrument's software drums with my new Kontrol S61. This NI system, for me, complements the PSR-SX900, adding additional sounds in Cubase. In my opinion, the arranger drum setup on the Yamaha PSR-SX900 is really innovative... to control a drum arrangement while playing. My two cents.
Saw your videos man, very cool! That's exactly how set it up most of the time.
@@osirus444 Thanks. The only negative I have with the PSR-SX900 is I can't save the mix setting in the sequencer, every time I reopen a sequenced song I have to remix every time. I talked with Yamaha, Sweetwater and forms and no luck... bummer, been living with this pain. Also, I love the unique feature where you can plug a guitar in the keyboard and use its effects and speakers. What an eco-system, so turnkey.
@@tperelli4271 You have to do a save every time you close the song multi-mode. I'm not at board right now but, as you save the midi file again, there's a menu with a lot of options and you check mixer I believe. I do it so often I can't remember the steps if I'm not Infront of the keyboard. But yes, you absolutely can. Yes, I love the effects too! I just wish it could add at least one audio track to simultaneously play along with when creating a song in the sequencer. Of course, you can create audio multi-pads, but it can be difficult to line them up with a midi song.
@@osirus444 Thanks again, Yamaha told me to go to setup menu at the top of the sequence your recorded song is and check all of the boxes and hit execute than save the sequence as you mentioned, but it still doesn't work. I'm pretty sure it's a problem with the keyboard. That said, I just found out that Sweetwater will no longer carry this keyboard, Yamaha will not provide them with anymore. That's good news I think because this may mean they are looking to release a newer/replace for the PSR flagship? The 900 as we all know is about 4 1/2 years old now. Fingers crossed for me at least:)
@@tperelli4271 What!? Interesting!! I wonder how they could improve it. I think it is almost perfect as it is now. I'm sure Woody will make a review on it. That would be awesome!
Interesting topic. I agree, creating your own styles (I have a Genos 2) is a complex process. Moreover, the result is often not what you expect. As a music creator, I design my own music with my DAW.
I do understand where you're coming from, but:
1) A guitar is not equal to an arranger keyboard, it's not a fair comparison. A piano is more like a guitar in the regard that you can play whatever you want on it, and you create all the music live with your two hands without any aids.
2) Even my 10 year old PSR-S750 has three intros and three endings, nobody is forcing you to use the Karma Chameleon one on that particular style, if you want to play a different song using that style. Heck, even the ancient (by arranger standards) PSR-3000 has three intros if I recall correctly.
3) If you want to write songs with fresh sounds and much more flexibility, use a DAW and a MIDI keyboard, or a workstation. Arrangers are great for entertainers, who play on weddings, etc., and they usually play along to MIDI styles, or buy or get style packs from the community, who are willing to put in the effort to make those styles.
4) Generic styles have been a part of arrangers very early on, so it has been done. Take "8 Beat 1" from the PSR-540 (that's a style I know fairly well, since it's the first one on that arranger, which I had for a loooong time). It's so generic I can't name the song which inspired it. (it's very similar to Classic8Beat on the S750)
I agree with you i have my yamaha psr sx600 and playing with this machine has no issue for me and i am enjoying for what i have😊😊😊.
Useful to remember, Beethoven and all of the composers of that ilk, remembered or not, used an acoustic piano as their work station and worked out every part of their compositions on an acoustic piano keyboard. Their DAW was in their head. Worked out pretty well for a long time.
# 3. But I spent 2300$ on a PRO arranger. And will likely buy another one. One about $5000. As a paying customer, I cannot stand when someone says, including Yamaha, "Arrangers are great for entertainers, who play on weddings, etc., " Oh Lord! So, is that vice versa for someone using Ableton Live to create and play cover songs to play weddings/events? What if they find that tool for creating their versions of cover songs tedious and cumbersome, they should get an arranger, right? What are they thinking? I say that because I actually met someone who does that, and he told me it was a pain to get started on Ableton to create his songs for his events. I suggested a PSR-SX900. He said he is not a keyboard player. So, he uses what's familiar.
BTW, the PSR-SX900 does have songwriter friendly elements-chord looper especially. But this argument is really for Yamaha, one the top arranger makers in the USA, from me, an actual songwriter, not a wedding singer-Your styles are SO specifically hit heavy that even as a savvy user of your technology, as a songwriter I almost always omit those styles when working on the board. And there are A LOT of them. This is driving me to choose the most songwriter friendly Pro-Arranger I can buy. I may need to source the European company Ketron. And another BTW, I use other tools like Toon Track's gear, Native Instruments, and a Yamaha MODX +. NOTHING is faster to build a song and a production than a pro-arranger. NOTHING.
You better buy the waldorf ethereum sir if that is what you think
@@liwanagtransporter Probably go with the Korg-Pa5x. Slightly less hit song-based styles. Slightly.
For 20 or 30 years we complained that we couldn't find styles identical to famous songs on the keyboard arranger ! Do you think it's too much now ? I think it's perfect to be like that, that's the purpose of an arranger keyboard! It is an entertainment tool, and it is normal to have these styles ! If you want to compose, use a workstation! I personally think there are two big advances in the arranger category! 1 the sound quality and 2 the quality styles and closer and closer to great hits !
Nice collection of styles for specific songs :))) Ketron has less of those I believe. Well, all-in-all, I don't think it's a big issue, as long as you can create your own styles, the factory styles will become boring soon anyway...
Totally agree - pretty much sums up my issue with arranger keyboards as well - but I can't see them moving in the direction you suggest, unfortunately.
Where are the times when you just had simple march, walz, polka, 8-beat, 16-beat, bossanova and tango rhythms? The main problem lies in the pre-programmed chord progressions. Without them you could play many more songs with the styles.
Styles are often too complicated. A real band uses simple styles, like 8-beat. If a style is kept simple, it can be used for many songs.
The PA5X 🎹 Categories of various genres of multifarious pages of Styles does not have the player locked into any key or progression of chords!
One is free to play any STYLE (& its 4 variations & additional Pads variations) in any key and whatever chords one wants to creatively play, at any tempo, with any preferred selections of layered and split keyboard instruments/sounds.
The PA5X 🎹 is highly versatile for creative music playing and recording. EnJoY 🤗🎹🎶😁
one can RE-program the styles, so no problems for me, and with the internet full of styles to download to all brands there should be no lack of variations, but as i said, you can PROGRAM a style anyway you want it, no problemas, Levi in Sweden
@@garzoroberto7623 and you can PROGRAM and RE-PROGRAM styles any way you want it!!
In a similar context to this theme, I think Yamaha's style creator is of great significance. I hope that Cubase's chord track and Arranger track will fully inherit this system in the future
I have a Genos 2. I understand what your'e saying, believe me. But what I do is create my own songs with existing styles, and try to make them as interesting as possible.I also utilize outside instruments, like a drum machine. I also reinterpret old cover songs that have been played to death over the years, and create my own unique version of whatever song. A lot of fun!
hello Woody, you are right in many ways. However, there is a quick solution. Buy external ready-made styles and packs! I did that and they are not song-related styles.😀
There are many companies that sell styles for those keyboards and I think the built in styles being so song specific is helping them sell their stuff…
Totally agree. After 3 Yamaha arrangers and 2 Korgs I have moved on. Played the last, PSR 900SX very little. In box under bed and need to sell. Hanging on to PA4x but use mostly for quick and dirty drums with EC5 foot pedal. New flame is my Montage M8X. Great keybed and superb sounds with lean prefab “styles” which are somewhat generic play with guitar and bass players and mostly original material or own arrangements of evergreens. Use Toontracks, Native Instruments in Cubase for recording. Would love Yamaha/Steinberg hybrid keyboard for creative songwriters who wanted to move past covering other creative people’s stuff.
Keep giving us inspiring videos which are candid and objective. You make a difference.
The free marketing logic.
You can choose anything you want only if we allow you to haha 🤣(only black cars as Ford said)
Hey Woody, I completely agree with you. This has been a problem for me for a long while whenever I upgrade to the next keyboard, it seems the more styles included, the more useless they actually can be.
Here are some thoughts. I like your idea of improving the style creator. It would be great, say, if there was a style creator 'bot' included where you can pick a certain type of rhythm style, eg, 8Beat, and the bot would scan through that specific bank and randomly generate a combination to create a brand new style from it.
Now going back to the main problem, I kind of semi-resolve this by going through some of the legacy generic styles from the previous models (both the Pa5x and Genos2 should be able to play styles right back from the i30 in Korgs case, and the PSR7000 in Yamahas case), and improve them by revoicing them with the newer sounds. There's 1000s of styles to be had here.
Also to note that Korg has a huge Bonusware catalogue that also contains 1000s of excellent high quality styles, as does Yamaha that have made all their expansion packs free. There's loads of generic styles there too.
But I agree, the factory styles should mainly contain generic styles, and perhaps just have 1 bank section for "famous songs" as an extra bank.
I guess the main purpose of arranger keyboards is for home players to play songs that they know, 70s to modern. Not so much on creating their own styles and songs, which synthesizers will do the job. I would say arranger keyboards are much like Electone organs, easier to operate than synths. I feel most people who buy arranger keyboards would want something easy to make a song out of it, not so much of sound designing or creating music out from nothing.
I get your point- and as a songwriter before a cover player- I totally agree. But I imagine if we take this complaint to Korg and Yamaha then they'll just point at their workstation keyboards.
or they'll just point at the style creator
We have to remember that arranger keyboards were designed exactly for entertainers working in clubs, restaurants, ships etc. to be able to play a bunch of popular songs. Some kind one-man-show. So if you need inspiring stuff you need to look at side of Avenger 2, Nexus 4 and similar VSTi. Also no one prevents you from creating your own original style.
I know very little about these instruments But what you say seems logical and a fact Can't really understand what Woody is on about ,as most musicians want to play standards either for your own enjoyment or for ohers to hear and there are thousands of them.. if not create your own
My first ever keyboard was an arranger keyboard (Roland E70) however I've not had an arranger for 30 years. I have to agree with everything you said and find the whole arranger keyboard concept completely pointless for live performance in 2024. If you want to do cover versions that sound like the original there's loads of Karaoke companies that now allow you to mute certain instruments for live performance. If you want to do your own/own versions of songs it's far more inspiring/powerful to create your backing track in a DAW, you can also record real instruments and backing vocals etc (for vocalist keyboard players). It's going to sound far more authentic than anything that comes form a Genos or a PAX5 and either way you can't play everything live and the audience will not care one bit if the backing music is coming directly from your arranger keyboard or coming from a and mp3 or a .wav. Where I do think these kind of keyboards are useful is for people learning to play keyboards and learning how to arrange music, however the price of these put them way out of the learner's market. It's actually a lot cheaper to buy a decent computer and a good stage piano/keyboard. I have the exactly the same thoughts regarding workstation keyboards, they were revolutionary in 1989 but pointless and expensive commodities in 2024.
Great content - as always, much appreciated. Entirely agree with you - about time to get these beasts to another level.
There is light on the horizon though. I have a few things on the Pa5x though .The midi files can be easily handled - if you put markers on the file - they become loops on the arrangement part strips - not too much effort - and they can be saved with the midi onto the song/songbook. You can use these as instant style parts, should you like those, no style conversion needed - you could mute the parts you would like to play yourself - this is the easiest first step. Then Yamaha provides a midi to style software - you can use to create styles from midi files - this avenue is also available to you to lay down your own style as a midi file on your DAW (style files are midi files in any case, with special markers) - and you can mark it up with the free Yamaha midi2style software for Genos ad PSR - and set the key etc. If you use this method, you can do a style swiftly, not much computing required, this is the video to watch: ruclips.net/video/yYfPbMFM5wo/видео.htmlsi=KLW3GmtNBPk1JUIo. This is for Yamaha mainly, but the styles can be taken to Korg too with a bit of work - thanks to Qui Robinez, he provides great resources on his channel ruclips.net/video/CYeas-GcTpM/видео.htmlsi=n6PAPnbBTufsjWAV.
As far as using external samples on your arranger - it is also possible - you can create a midi profile to route your selected channels to output, where you can put your Kontakt player/Mashine/Mainstream/DAW VST plugin, tweak it to your heart content (even using Korg's sliders as midi controller), get the audio routed back to your Korg - and you are ready to go - the copyright issues are averted and you can revoice even your existing styles using your NI Kontakt instruments. Yes, it takes a bit of work, but the results are great and the possibilities are endless. Just going back to the start - the game changer will be when they provide an easy to setup style creator on the arranger keyboard itself - hopefully with computer support.
Apologies for the long comment, thanks again for your content, well thought out, engaging and greatly presented!
Well, these arranger keyboards are the most for one-man-entertainers... .and they like to play songs and meldeys which are the people knowing ;-)
I have a Genos 1 but I also still own my first arranger keyboard, Yamaha PSR9000. Although it has a Song Bank, the styles themselves were still of sort that I could write an original piece using them and sound unique. I think they need to go back to basics and as you have said, maybe using all the sounds and features etc, they could have a Song Book and a separate Song Generator. The book can contain files made up and created by the company's, and the Generator for the User. Very good point made and agree wholeheartedly
The PSR 9000 sounds in fact amazing, i have that keyboard, love it, dont need a new one
I Still have my yamaha 9000pro from the year 2000
Is it possible to purchase more up to date styles and import them through the floppy disc?
My gigging days are over but I still play for my own pleasure.
Create your own style on any acoustical piano - you don't need gadgets like this lad is going on about - less is more. Now get composing or else give up and get decomposing six feet under.
Thank you, Woody for that very important information I always wondered no I had a feeling after listening to this keyboard it sounded very much like 80s 90s genre, you just saved me a lot of money for product that basically it’s not worth spending money on....... I wish they’d come up product that help. You actually create music from the beginning. Apparently they missed the boat as usual and so I guess everyone who writes songs will end up in copyright court ..... thank you again, ........very insightful video!!
Now that you’ve given an insight when it comes to the Korg PA5X issues what do you recommend to a person that’s been around Korg products for a very long time. Started with the T3 thinking of going back to that so what do you recommend? Thank you. Woody.
If only arranger keyboards could listen to a real drummer and adapt to the drummer, instead of dictating the drum track , then I would get one
Ketron event do that! Whith all the instruments, chek it, its fantastic!
You need to test out the Akai MPC key 61. You're gonna love that one!
i dont see the problem, there are thousands of styles available for free, i pref the generic ones and than improv around it.
If Yamaha and Korg don’t put their efforts in making it easier form someone to create their own styles easier, some other company will do it and Korg and Yamaha will be in danger of Fading away in the market!
Which one Ibe to go PLS
Nautilus or pa x5
As you said style creation is for advanced users, 100% agreed. Korg should give free classes to purchasers to learn, it shouldn't be hard to learn. The RUclips videos are short and very basic. Korg manuals describe the instrument they are not written to teach people how to create styles.
These are topics which are normally not addressed by the manufacturers but by people willing to make it their hobby and explaining a lot of these features "hidden or unknown" to the basic user like me but very well explained by these people like for example Alois Müller (ruclips.net/channel/UCNq6hIqGcG6MBMM0_M9cGiA) does, however in German (RUclips videos nowadays come also with subtitles in a language of your choice which can e helpful to understand).
You are correct. Any style is eventually boring. So much so. I play along with a lot with midi files. And again jamming along is fun, then boring. Creating music is which is new to the world is not boring. Writing my own arrangement is my solution, Creating and writing basically a new song is the answer. Not technical, sheet of manuscript paper and off you go. Your brain and love of music is the answer, not mind numing repatriation. Be interested in your opinion my friend
nailed it, thanks
I only watched for the first couple of minutes of this video before my comment, I'll go back and watch it again to finish it up after I'm done commenting. As an arranger keyboard fan, I totally agree. As a fan of the Great American Songbook, most stuff from the 80s forward, for me, is not something I'm going to play. I play for me, not others.
Having said that, several years ago, when I got my first Arranger Keyboard, a Korg iX-300, I went to play a piece of music for my Mom and step Father. Since he is a country music fan, I pulled up a Country style. I forget the song, some 'generic' country song, but the style wasn't the same as the song. The melody was easy to discern, but his comment to me was that 'it wasn't the song he knew' because the backing tracks were wrong. I've heard that from other family and friends when I've been playing. People who aren't musicians often, not always, but often enough, when you go to play a song for them, expect to hear what they've heard on the radio or CDs. They have come to expect to hear what they hear from the original songs.
Now, I tend to play Standards, and the nice thing about Standards is there are so many different people who have done covers of them that you can play with a different style, or even a completely different genre, and people will still recognize the song. But, if you're playing anything from the 80s forward, people expect to hear from the keyboard what they hear from radio or CD, and if it isn't that, then it's not 'right', it's not 'the song.'
So, having said that, and with the primary audience of these keyboards being to people who may be playing out (I mean, how many home musicians want to spend $5-6,000 for a single keyboard when you can spend half of that for 80-90% of the capability), you have to provide what the customer base wants. The base wants to pull up a style that sounds 90% like the original, especially if you're performing pop music from the last 40-45 years.
What I would like to see from both Korg and Yamaha are additional more 'generic' styles for rock and pop that work with more songs, and even the ability to take parts from styles and combine them together to make a new style Building block styles. I know you can add up to 1TB of storage space to the PA5X, but I'm not sure what you can store there. If you could allocate some amount of that storage space to additional styles, and especially User Styles, then Korg, and other developers would create a whole slew of generic styles that would be accessible. The same applies to Yamaha, Roland and Ketron.
I don't begrudge either Yamaha or Korg for creating song-specific styles, they are bread and butter for gigging musicians, but give us some options for generic styles, or build you own styles.
Touching on your comments about style creation, I agree . . . to an extent. When I was young, I took about 12-18 months worth of piano lessons, but I had some developmental issues which were undetected and unresolved, and I never studied or applied myself. I can't even read bass clef. So, I did figure out chords, and for that reason, Arranger Keyboards for me are great. But, to create a style really requires that you have some composition skills, and a lot of music theory. Maybe in Europe and the Orient the music education in schools will cover that on a more basic level, but here in North America, not so much. In the U.S. our music education in public schools has been decimated. It takes years of lessons to get to the point where you can create your own style, and so many people don't follow through on that education. Did you ever see Scott Houston? He has the "Piano in a Flash" method of teaching people how to play, and all they're learning is chords and melody line. He's not teaching them how to do the things necessary to build a style.
You know, if Yamaha or Korg wanted to introduce an educational series on 'How to Create A Style' and teach the basics of music theory and style creation for those of us who aren't 'real musicians', I think that would be awesome, and I would love to see it and learn it, but I doubt it would happen. Could YOU do it? Teach someone like me?
Now, one other option, and I've mentioned this before, but not in this role, is PG Music's Band In A Box, which has hundreds of MIDI styles which ideally could be used as the basis of creating Arranger tracks. Now, Band In A Box's track generation is actually very sophisticated, allowing the program to 'look ahead' to the next chord change and then decide which pattern to use for each part. For example, you may have a style and the bass track for that style may have totally different tracks for a one bar, two bar, four bar or eight bar patterns. Since BIAB is not a 'real time arranger' it knows the chord progression for the song, and can select the pattern that is appropriate. But, you could go in and take the four bar pattern for bass and copy that over to use it to create a pattern for a style. Yes, you probably would be best served using an DAW or Sequencer to do all of this, but in the end, you could have styles that are as generic or as specific as you want. One of the other features of the Korg, something I touched on in a different video, is that with the Korg arrangers, you have six different chord pattern variations. Majors, Minors, Sevenths, Sixths and Augmented and Diminished CAN, but not always will (depending on the style), have different patterns. Yamaha does not offer that capability.
Have you watched any of Alois Muller's stuff here on RUclips? He's German, and a real guru of Arranger Keyboards, and I've seen some of the style modifications he's done, and honestly, it doesn't look that hard, but he's also not creating complete styles from nothing, either.
So, in essence, I agree with you, but I can also see what both Korg and Yamaha, as well as Roland and Ketron, have followed this.
Good view - thanks for this video.
I fully agree with you. The styles should be much more generic.
The styles may be quite 'song specific' but I have watched many RUclips videos of people attempting to play complete songs using them and in fact very few actually achieve an accurate representation of the song with all the nuances etc of the original. Many of the styles have had some kind of alteration to avoid copyright issues. This results in 'cheezy' renditions, highlighted in your previous video.
Having said that, I always enjoy watching your videos and keep up the good work. 🙂
I agree with you too - just about everything you said is spot on. I'd prefer the song specific styles to be available in add-on packs, and keep the built in styles generic. Trying to find generic styles on the G2 isn't easy - so many styles to wade through before you find something usable.
I agree with you, but to be honest, I think the solution is just get together with other live musicians and use teamwork to create new music, plus you get to have great friendships as a bonus.
So, merge arranger keyboards with synth workstations? I mean, you can already make music directly on something like a Yamaha Motif/Montage synth. I honestly think that arranger keyboards are specifically made for the niche of "pub musicians" or similar. People who entertain at parties and such. And for many of them, the composing part isn't always as vital.
the problem is when u are eastern and the songs are western !!
that is a big problem for many people
arranger keyboards for beginners only has default songs and styles with no free space for new styles
thats a big problem for many people around the globe
for some people all of the songs are useless on the arranger keyboard
there are special eastern boards. you can get eastern styles.
@@wout123100 there a lot of them but the problem is many of arranger keyboards can NOT take many new styles unless u have a expensive keyboard
which is a problem for non professional players
most of low to mid price arrangers has a little memory that can take few new styles and songs
for western its ok because u have many styles by default how ever for eastern u just have too many styles , sounds and songs that u never use and u can add few new ones
These arranger keyboards are the equivalent of paint by numbers, vs a real painter who starts with a bunch of colours on a pallette and a blank canvas.
woody your making a mistake I will take Beat it By Micheal Jackson and put it in a different key and tempo and chord progression ,,,The arranger Yes it has the makers of these amazing musical interments do put classics in them so they can be played for covers ,BUT if your are really a artist ,, you can create anything you want from anything you have ,,, Its takes imaganation and talent ,,, I will do it I will take a very common classic and show you how see if you head the song ... i Love arrangers I also Love red blue yellow and greeg ,,and they are billions endless colors comes from red green yellow and blue ,...you just got to know what your doing and want .
Great idea Woody. Also make it easy to create a style too. I dont use arrangers myself, but I can see where that is a much better idea than having just certain songs styles fixed. 👍
You nailed the core problem, thanks! I also own an older KORG arranger and I suffered from these song related styles. Let’s hope that in the near future AI-based software (onboard) will be able to make the style creation much more easy and comfortable.
Foo Fighters´ Learn to Fly!!!!! LOL. Who the hell would ever dare to play live that song with an arranger? LOL. Thanks for sharing Woody. Lots of love.
By The Way, live looping is undergoing a major development, I am seriously following this
Hi Woody! I agree with what you’ve said about the styles being too song-specific and not universal enough. I’ve been thinking the same thing. I mean, what if I don’t want to play the songs that the manufacturer has chosen for me?
I live in Eastern Europe where it is pretty common to have live music in a bar regardless of the time of day so there are quite a few folks who do synth programming and custom styles. Unfortunately for me, I don’t play that kind of music so it is more difficult to find good quality samples and styles that suit my musical needs.
Having the ability to create your own styles within the keyboard itself is fine but like you’ve said, it is a lengthy process and very few people have the know-how to get it exactly right. Also, MIDI-to-style convertors never seem to work right. They might “get” the main variation but the intros and outros never work and usually you have to do manual adjustments that take as much time as creating a new style from scratch. So, not very effective at all.
IMHO, a good compromise between what the manufacturers are doing now - including as many styles as possible - and a more effective tools to create your own styles, is to allow for alternate versions of bass and drum tracks within the styles. For example, you could have 3 or 4 different bass lines and drum patterns within each style variation - toggle through, find the one you like and then save it as a custom style. I think it would be an effective tool that’s easy to understand and use. Because arranger keyboards - and I believe this with all my heart - are ideal instruments for songwriting, this might prove to be an inspirational tool as well!
Cheers mate! I appreciate the time and effort you put into making these videos! They’re equally well suited for pro musicians and enthusiasts like me.
To make configuration functions more accessible, manufacturers could abandon the current panel interfaces and replace them with large touchscreens, ideally with a loudspeaker at each end of the keyboard. Serious software design required, perhaps the DAW and the arranger will converge in look and feel
Arrangers are made for gig musicians who play known songs in real time. if you want to compose your own songs you need a sequencer (because as you said, creating styles on arranger keyboard is difficult). If we think about that, there is not so much situations where you will have to play LIVE your OWN songs. And when it's the case, the band will play with a real drumer, real guitare player and so on. So having almost only known songs for preset styles on arranger makes sense. That's my opinion
That's not an issue, that's why you have sample memory and user memory to loads tons of styles and sounds, plus keep in mind that this problem is for the fist time user and not the pro that had all the previous models and just loaded up and did his job with no problem, for example Korg users had the PA4x then migrated to the 5X were as the Yamaha user migrated form the TYROS 5.
just a few creative musicians buy this one, most of arranger musicians want to cover exact the original as possible, so the manufactures did a great job, not issue though. Nice video!
It would be nice to have easier style creation, but I’m not sure how simple they could make it in practice, you’d still have to record the different variations for each and all the different parts. Maybe something like the loop pattern recorders that some keyboards have would be a good middle ground.
Great point I really haven’t realized this before thank you for bringing it up
High end arrangers have always been kind of a mixed bag IMO. I agree that they are excellent song writing tools, but there certainly are a lot of song specific styles as well. Obviously editing a current style to suit your composition is the way to go, but again as Woody states, you’re still stuck with song specific parts of that style. I think the biggest issue that people don’t really talk about (that Woody did bring up) is the difficulty and TREMENDOUS task involved on any arranger when writing custom styles. Even if you have a professional arranger, and you build that style from bottom up, you’re going to be hard pressed trying to create a custom style to either match or exceed a preset style. You as the consumer will not have access to the tools the manufacturers used to create those styles, which are obviously not created using the keyboards internal style sequencer. Try as you might.., but you’ll never create guitar, bass, and drum tracks that match the presets because you don’t have access to the creation tools and software the manufacturers use. Those amazing styles are created and programmed externally. Also.., writing good FILLS that line up accurately is extremely difficult too. It can be done, but holy hell the amount of work involved in creating a complete style from start to finish is no easy task. I always tell people if you’re creating your own styles.., take advantage of some preset parts of a style., especially the guitar and drums. A lot of the guitar and drum parts in styles (even song specific styles) can easily work well in a user style and the finished style won’t sound song specific. Just be prepared to dive in and do some micro editing. I’ve been playing for over 40 years. I have arrangers, synth workstations, and a full computer set up with DAW’s and VST’s ranging from affordable to expensive.., and I have never seen anyone create a user style on any arranger (from scratch) that equaled or rivaled a manufacturers preset style. Not because they lacked the skill to do it, but because they don’t have access to the recording tools and software used by the manufacturers. I’m always creating my own styles on my arrangers, but I accept that regardless of my playing skills, I’m not going to be putting out a manufactures level of styles using the onboard style recorders. I simply take advantage of the incredible programming already done by the manufacturer for some style parts.
exactly what i mention in my respons on your video "arrangers suck on bass playing".... thanks for taken that as a topic on this video and maybe more videos follow
Arrangers are usually focused in the working musician, that plays in weddings, events, etc. So having those styles allows you to "dodge the bullet" when someone asks for a song that you just don't have in your repertoire. I guess the decision of what songs go in the arranger´s memory is made taking that in consideration.
Bonjour Woody. Je suis enfin content que quelqu’un aborde le sujet. J’ai eu Korg Roland Ketron Yamaha.
Et mon éternel question sur les styles d’usines « comment font-ils? »
Comment font-ils pour les faire sonner comme ça avec tous ces effets, panoramique, cut off etc…..
Je pense qu’ils ont un logiciel interne, propre à chaque marque.
Je doute que les mecs passent 12h à créer un style….
Si quelqu’un connaît le secret pour créer NOS propres styles…
Je me sens moins seul 😅😂
I found that the trick was to strip out all the extra backing like the horn section, strings, etc. and just use a basic drum, bass, maybe rhythm guitar from the arranger for my backing. (I played a duo with a bass player who, to be honest, could have been replaced with the arranger since I had the bass tracks turned off although I sometimes preferred the arranger bass player)
Idea..1.Select Rock category set 2.Choose respective style for Beat, Bass, Acc, Intro, Break, End, Fill in, Efx, Amp.etc 3. Save favourite. 4. Editable.
I currently have an older PSRS970 and rarely play the styles for reasons you mentioned. I have it connected via midi to my gorgeous Yamaha CP88 I bought a year ago. PSRS970 tiered with CP88 on the bottom. I use the great micro phone features from the PSR as well as the stereo inputs for playing along with both midi files and Karaoke files. As well as occasionally mixing voices from the PSR with the CP88. I feel it’s a great set up for me.
8:45 an interesting idea for a style creator is to offer a thousand different phrases or pattern for each section (bass, rhythm, pad, etc) then let the user build their own style by combining their chosen phrases. And do that for each variation.
The workstation keyboard already has the "phrases" idea (I have that in Korg Kross). Just missing the variations part.
9:37 i vaguely remember reading in the pa300 manual that it has midi to style converter on board. Not sure how well that worked though.
9:53 there's still a point why it should be a style and not a prerecorded midi file: it allows us to go back or repeat sections as desired. This is important in unpredictable nature of live events. A workaround could be allowing us to set repeat point or section markers on the midi file and have panel buttons to press to jump to those sections.
Woody? Are they ever going to make a top tier arranger where you could just take full control of what you want to change with accompaniment parts? Even the preset ones should be customjsable so you can change anything to make them milder, stronger etc. Change the strings, synth, trumpet, sax to my way. Thatd be a perfect arranger !!!
Good ask from woody. Why Spend a lot of money and time to change a style? I play arranger from roland proe 1989, and try only one time to made a my one style.. A possibile solution is try to play ketron arranger.. Are different from yamaha and korg, because the style are more simple, based to use for dancing live, so there are drum and bass line very good and only a little line of compling.
I don't know if it's really an either/or.
The cover tunes are about the only thing I find interesting about it, especially kind of mangling them, or improving/rearranging cover tunes on the fly (while singing and such).
But editing my own could ALSO be cool if (like you said) it was easy.
Guess what!? KORG just - finally - in latest 1.3 firmware update - added ability to EDIT chord sequences ( ie in their equivalent to the Yamaha 900/Genos Chord Looper ) :) Now i'm waiting for Yamaha to do same. Am v tempted to go for a PA5x 88 even thogh i think Yamaha styles sound better - why? because only KORG offer an 88 weigthed key version.....
Hhhaaaa. Just create. Your own. Styles. We. In Europe. Make our own. Sounds. And styles. create. Gentlement
I think it's because the Culture, Japanese, in which their made is Super-super innovative but also has a super Conformist lean and is less geared toward Independence than Collectivism; as a result there's probably a much higher ratio of highly skilled technically excellent Musicians happy to play Covers 'n' Classicals, in Japan/Korea than there are 'Bedroom Musicians/Producers' & 'Singer/Songers' in the US/Europe, even though both have huge populations. (PLS: Don't call me racist for only suggesting this! - just think through what underpins Culture in the East and West)
well said, and my god --- it needed to be said as clearly as you did. thanks. my two cents would be that EVERY arranger should have something like the lil YAMAHA QY-10 workstation BUILT IN!
I had an original PSR model in the 80's and spent an age making my own styles to suit songs I liked. I don't think anything has changed really......just far better technology. And, it is an arranger............I bet there are other keyboards that fit your remit a little better, and cheaper!
Good video Woody.. totally agree and i absolutely hate them.. im afraid... because apart from the terrible Cheese.. my issue with them is.. you cant use a simple drum track to compose on them.. because every single sound is linked to a god awful backing track by default.. so unless you turn it off before you even touch a single key... then it serves the cheese and ruins you creative flow.. the answer.. buy a workstation (ie.. Modx, Montage, Krome EX, Nautilus, Kronos etc) and a simple DAW.. (Cubase AI, Ableton, Reason, SONAR .. etc).. keep up the great work 👍
I really agree. If styles on the latest arr.-keyboards have chord progressions in-build (?), thats a disaster, and reminds me of some of the earliest keyboards from the 90', where that could happen. When I play arr. keyboard, I still use my old Roland VA76 with styles made for all keyboards up to around 2005. Some intro's and endings sound song specific and can evt. be avoided, but most styles, even from Yamaha, are pretty much build around musical clichees from their genre and work fine with many different songs! Korg styles have in my ears always been a little too much. A riff functions best in 2-4 bars, not 8. It leaves you too lazy and - as you rightly say - in the hands of the ingeneers.
Thanks for many useful videos.
Why I use Band In a Box and or Frooty Loops to create a backing track for each song. Sometimes 6 or more for a good one. Every instrument with preset styles is the same. You'd think a straight Waltz would be bulletproof but even they sound like .... well you know. Rhymes with "Rap" Cee?
If you just want to make a backing track and play over it, my Juno DS can do that. I’m pretty sure the Kross makes that easy as well.
The styles on my Casio KBs are fun BECAUSE they are minimal. Some basic rhythms and arpeggiator like stuff driven by the “chord hint” from your left hand.
I agree with other comments on here about the high end arrangers needing to have and make better use of an external monitor (e.g. support a mouse to quickly sail through options, rather than dozens of “D pad” presses).
Arranger keyboards definitely are not for me. I'm not a keyboardist or performer, I'm a remixer/cover guy; I like to remix or recreate songs I like. That process is, given my lack of keyboard skills, entirely with a mouse and QUERTY keyboard. What I need are synthesizers. They style of music I work in tends to be very masculine, intense, dark, driving, and above all, very electronic-proudly, unapologetically electronic.
Having said that, I agree completely, having a comprehensive, DAW-like tool to create my own styles on a per-song basis would be pretty fantastic. Basically, take a Fantom or a Montage and load up arranger keyboard-like styles on to instruments. On the computer end, open them up in this style-creator DAW, and with all of the sound-sculpting tools available in the synths, build up your own styles. Then upload your custom styles either to the synths or to the given manufacturers arranger keyboard equivalents for gigging with. I can also see that, by the nature of the beast, creating your own styles would be unavoidingly complex given all of the accompaniment you would have to program into each style which would indeed require a strong understanding of not just music theory and arranging skills but, the formatting and setup that the synth or arranger requires. My main gig is video post production and motion graphics and animation. Like creating full musical arrangements, creating 2D and 3D art, imbuing them with motion, integrating them into live action footage, editing multiple clips together with the goal of telling a story, by nature is a complex task requiring, not just the understanding of how to turn the knobs, but how to compose imagery and edit them together to tell a story. The tools can be made as user-friendly as is realistically possible in such complex software but, you still need the theory and skills to be able to make effective use of those tools. I see building musical arrangements into styles for an arranger keyboard has a lot in common where needing knowledge, skill and talent is of utmost importance and, by it's inherent complexity, will always be a complex, time-consume task-a fun one to be sure-but, yeah.
PSR SX900 QUESTION, I can not play real chords because I have to press the left side chord keys for the chords in the style to change. Anyone else thought how to overcome this?
This is the reason why I'll never buy another arranger keyboard. I've owned a lot over the years and this has gradually gotten worse with each new model. In my opinion it's just lazy programming. Yamaha, Korg and Roland used to produce excellent styles that were actually usable for a wide range of songs and even composing.
No one's deciding (for you) what you should play. That's not the right way of looking at it. They have packed popular songs in styles that keyboard players would find useful and use in performances. I'm sure there are generic styles in there that you could use. Perhaps explore those and make a video?
Most arrangers do offer user programmable styles. If you want to play your own song, make your own style! Much personalized than making 'hybrid' styles as mentioned. The learning curve may seem steep till you become proficient - but once you master it, style creation is easy. Or use the style creation bot found in Korg.
My Yamaha QY100 did this back in the day using 'INTRO,' 'PART A,' 'AB FILL,' 'PART B,' 'BA FILL,' 'OUTRO.' and setting the key the tune was to be played in. With that, upon playing, you could play the chord progression using the key chord function on the bottom notes and play the chords over it. Of course, you could set how the machine sequenced each part to form a song, or you could select them manually on the fly.
This is a non-issue. They are made for a specific audience. Folks who play these kinds of songs for a Saturday night audience who want to hear these type of songs.
These are not made for creative folks.
What a load of rubbish! I have been playing Yamaha from my first one, the PSR 1100, the PSR S900, Now my Tyros 4, SX700, PSR S970 and I have had a Genos1 and SX900. I play ALL my music with on board styles except for a few special stiles that I have obtained. I am 85 years old and I don’t recognise any specific song with any of the on board styles. However it must be very difficult to play RAP on any instrument. The problem has been around since the first musical instrument came into use. I want this, that and the other. I first noticed this with my S900 so Yamaha made the S910. MORE wanted, hence the S950, S970 and S975. It is the same with the Tyros and Genos. Not satisfied, must have a Genos 3, or 4 or 5 et al. I am a musician to play MUSIC not a computer programmer. If you really want something different then buy the bits and make it yourself. Regards D
I am totally fine with styles. I disagree that arranger keyboards should get rid of styles. I have a repertoire of like 300 songs, and I don't feel limited at all. First of all, I don't use those keyboard intros. I just play my own melodies or progression as an intro.
When adding a new song to my list, I just search for the closest style to the original one, or I would just choose a completely different genre style. There is no genre or songs I can't play on my keyboard.
The point is not to sound exactly like the original. The point is to make music and be creative.
You made excellent points Woody. As good as the styles may be, they're too song specific. I also agree with you concerning style creation, Should be user friendly and quick to create our own styles. Lastly I'd like to see more genre specific catagories. Fusion; ambient; orchestral etc where you select a drum beat then select a bass line then add a chord pattern and so on.
I've had so many arrangers over the years and as much as they have great sounds the styles are the shortfall. To much cheese. How about not just a chord recorder but a full fledged looper. None of the boards I've had have one. My current arranger is a Korg PA700. (7 years old) The chord sequencer is nice but its not a full blown multitrack sound looper. My next foray will be into trying a multitrack looper like the Boss RC505mk2. This will allow me to use all the great sounds on the PA700 and quickly create my own unique loops. Loops have they're own shortfalls. Hard to control in a live arrangement. Band in a box is a good tool but everything has to be predetermined. Arranger keyboards allow full realtime control over length of song; chorus; ending etc. Finally the DAW. I've used pro tools and a host of others. The problem with a DAW is your tethered to a computer. You can count on a glitch when playing live. Happens way to often. Thanks for starting this great dialog concerning arranger keyboards I thing when Yamaha or Korg jumpstart their creative departments we'll see instruments that will be true creative tools that are easy to use and produce some great music. Thanks again Woody. Your channel is much appreciated.
Mario
Amazingly flexible and yet very limited at the same time. These instruments are very expensive for what they are. A bit of a throwback IMO.
Lazy engineers still living in the 80s that's why it's sounds cheesy old styles shouldnt be as presets should be seperated you will never find the perfect keyboard.should be making styles up for us
Whats the problem? It also has a sequencer if you like to do your own repertoire or songs. You can create your own styles. The style arranger are for the beginner or the intermediate to enjoy.
If you want your own styles it is assumed you are advance player.
So why dont you be a consultant for Yamaha, korg, Roland. See what you can come up to. Cant figure out whatelse you want to do or what you’re thinking about. Maybe these manufactures should ask you what you want done. You cant get anything done with youtube viewers.
I've never owned one of these. I've never had any use for the "arranger" features. For one thing, I bet that at least 95% of these "Styles" are in 4/4 - never mind if you want to play in another time signature, which I often do. No, I've always used a cheap MIDI sequencer program (Master Tracks Pro), and various arranger-less keyboards and MIDI sound modules. (That is, until I got a DAW and BBCSO Core.)
Good topic Woody, After mucking about with the song specific styles I usually revert to the more ‘vanilla’ patterns and strip out as I need. I vote for arrangers to have a greater number and modern range of generic styles. Whilst I like the idea of DIY styles, (I think mine can do this) unless it’s really easy to do its likely to lose much of the spontaneity of sitting at the instrument and bashing out that ear worm that has been bugging me all day worse still that I forget that original riff (I wish) that needed to be turned into a song.
think different markets:
1. arrangers for solo performers- they would love presets for songs that are popular. the audience at a wedding party would like to listen to Abba rather than less known artist.
2. there are many generic styles that can be adapted to your own creativity. try that with a linear sequencer on something like Kronos which is a blank slate- takes much longer than an arranger with a style as a start up
3. if you really want granular control- use a Daw. you can also export the daw style to korg or yamaha specs as a midi file and use that as a start up. Again, they become very song specific.
ultimately, think about all the songs ever created by man
all of them can be traced to a single root- ie a groove or a beat , a chord progression that has already been done multiple times. except small or distinct changes impart the flavor of the song. An arranger echoes the same sentiment- repeated grooves or chord changes as the basis with added flavors to make specific to a song. strip the flavoring out, then u have the basis for another song or create one from scratch- your prerogative.
These keyboards needs more open/scratch personnal styles creator :
- a piano roll editing in the style creator would help lot of us to create style
- or a better integration with computer/DAW (MIDI to Style from Yamaha is a good step in this way)
- more in box modern style POP/Rock/FusionJazz and less "exotic style", in extension why not
What you call an arranger's weakness, I call it's greatest power. You must build your own styles from a blank program. Yes, it is a work of love for the song you are composing, but no more work than using a DAW or linear 16 track sequencer or a step sequencer; just a different workflow. You are calling it work, but all arrangers are not the same for the song creator. For the past 14 years I have owned six arrangers in search of one that the style creator is actually creative. Today I am using the Roland E-A7 because the style creator is very good. Style creators are no more complex than sound design on a synthesizer or tracking on a DAW, it is a skill to learn.
Working with a style creator is not the same as a linear sequencer where you simply compose your songs one track at a time, or a DAW that does the same. Style creators allow your music freedom of expression while you play it, otherwise just play your song to pre-recorded backing tracks and be stuck in a very finite start to finish song. That has been available for decades.
You are correct there are some huge problems with specific manufacturers style creators that limit your creativity, and many have [COPY] functions missing. This makes style creation very boring and laborious. And if you can't output style MIDI to external instruments you are stuck with internal sounds and effects. For example: one of the most expressive creators was the Casio MZX500..BUT...believe it or not, there wasn't enough memory in it!!!! Memory necessary for MIDI is micro size, and Casio didn't give it to you!!!
The main problem is too many beginner musicians are buying these high-end arrangers and never use the style creator, They are not musically skilled and have little knowledge of music, that is not enough to create a style. So, the style creator firmware has not been a priority for manufacturers...BUT these $5000.00+ arrangers should have had super style creators for the price, but I don't have that kind of money to experiment on them.
The Roland E-A7 is $1800.US and has MIDI out of the 8 tracks of styles, has a creator that allows you to create all four variations at once and then edit them down, it has a wonderful keybed and live control of the six tracks like high-end Yamaha and Korg. This Roland is covered in every square millimeter of its surface case with physical controls, THIS control makes is very easy to use.
Yes, you can write simple boring songs with a step sequencer or play to complete backing tracks without any freedom as an alternative. I am a solo acoustic pianist I don't use arrangers on stage, but in the studio, I record Vangelis style, up to 32 tracks in one take. To make my songs interesting I use the power of these "style" pattern sequencers to make the music go from simple to very complex.
My 12 year journey in arrangers has been necessary because it takes six months to a year to understand each manufacturers keyboards and get to full understanding. Like mentioned above with the Casio, a year into it and then DANG!!! not enough memory. And no one is reviewing the style creators...except one review of the Yamana Genos2, but not very complete. I have to read the manuals before buying, but that is not enough to know. Owning is the only way.
Both Yamaha Genos and Korg PA5x have custom styles and expansion features. A real accompaniment player should take time, sit behind the machine and create styles… after this, patching and onboard pre- mixing would sound the machine great. Anyhow you are 100 💯 correct. It is indeed a painful process. It steals 4-6 hours of my time to create a style, mix them, voicings for styles especially on the new Genos and SX series Yamaha arrangers though Yamaha has improved a lot from its previous PSR and tyros series in style creator feature
I only use my Tyros 5 for composition and inspiration, I record the actual tracks with Cubase and rarely even use any Tyros sounds.
There are a few problems with in-depth editing on keyboards.
1) It's easy to say 'just add this and that'. But at some point there's little point using a keyboard over using a USB-keyboard and software. I've been in music retail for nearly 12 years, and year after year I see the same products being re-hashed; new name, same old sh1t. The manufacturers are simply out of ideas. If they do more, it'd make more sense to just go for software instead. If they don't improve however, they'll become dated very soon, so what's left for them to do? One way or another, the road ends.
2) Demographics. Who is the target audience for advanced keyboards? Considering the prices of their flagships (Yamaha, Korg, Ketron, Roland), they're not exactly within reach of the younger generation. The younger generation would currently choose the computer instead. So, the manufacturers could add more efforts making their systems better, but if only a handful o' people would use such improved systems, would it actually be worth the developement costs?
3) Editing. Making styles is rather different from sequencing a song, and often ideas someone might have are based on experience making songs. I'll say that keyboards, with their relatively small screens and traditional paradigms, are not much fun. I read elsewhere it may take up to days for one style. I'd say, if you have the idea in your head, it should merely take an hour, tops. Anything above that is caused by arcane interfaces, which aren't going to be improved as it'd make more sense using a computer to make styles.
4) As I mentioned earlier in the cheese video: it's impossible to define a musical scale based on simple triads alone, yet simple triads are how keyboards do their thing. So, sooner than soon: keyboards get boring anyway, and certainly don't offer the melodic freedom a normal composer can have. This too is a road with, in its current form, a dead-end.
As another commentator suggested, try using just bass and drums and play as though you're in a trio. It's surprising how the cheesiness is much less obvious, and you can better your own playing too.
Very good idea: Lets make a petition to the the manufacturers!
Petition:
"We want you to make better style creation software and user interface for style creation!"
Woody, I really don't see it as a major fatal issue because you can simply load a "song-specific" style and you play it completely differently than the original song. The problem is that because a song is ingrained inside our minds, it's somehow hard to get it off our heads and play something differently.
I think the reason manufacturers do this is because these arrangers are mainly used by wedding/small gigs musicians who are constantly playing covers.
But I hear you in this!
I kind of agree but as I'm sure others have said, the ability of muting certain tracks, remixing parts between styles, changing the groove (time signature), revoicing styles.... I often use styles as the basis of a skeleton for a song. I agree you cannot help but play the songs that the styles were designed to showcase, but often I've reused them on multiple occasions. I guess we could go back to the even cheesier backing accompaniments of the 80s, casios, organs... and all that is possible on these keyboards. I'm a big fan of the built in sequencer, as well as using these keyboards as a master sound source for my DAW. Still the best acoustic and electric guitars 'out the box', strings, just a great user interface and quick way to get to bread and butter sounds. These arrangers ARE open ended, just load up new styles... thousands of them out there. Turn of the styles, use the arpeggios with the left hand ... I rest my case 😊 but still love your videos Woody!
Choose Roland EA7. Problem solved. Independed and not specifc song style. All style multi user styles and welade arrangements. Thats why i never play an other arranger then Roland.
I totally agree with you, with the onboard styles you are limited as a music creator. It`s good for people, that like to cover famous songs, but for me it`s more interesting to create my own songs. So I often use multitrack recording, take only parts of the styles and create the rest by myself.
One of my keyboards is the Thomann AK-x1100, which make it possible to create own styles, but it is too complicated and time consuming. My ideas for a song come spontaneous and I like to create it in time. I don`t like to work for days only for the accompaniment, then the idea and feeling for the new song is gone.