I solved this problem by avoiding entirely arranging accompaniment lines and playing only bass by myself in my left hand, engaging an additional guitar player who sang along with just rhythm patterns from the keyboard, adding my comping with my right hand, mainly using piano like sounds. In this way we were playing gigs for decades, taking advantages of really well made rhythm patterns of Yamaha DGX and Roland E-series, using fill-ins and intro/ending possibilities, thus avoiding suggestions by a manufacturing teams and somewhat boring arrangements. Bass line played liva and natural sound of guitar made our music vivid and interesting, and our approach to the repertoire flexible.
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.
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!
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.
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.😀
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.
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.
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!
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
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 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 UA-cam? 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.
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.
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 !
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: ua-cam.com/video/yYfPbMFM5wo/v-deo.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 ua-cam.com/video/CYeas-GcTpM/v-deo.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!
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 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 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Just a clarification for those considering the KORG PA5X🎹: it’s correct that the PA5X “Song Book” feature contains numerous well known popular radio hit “titled Songs STYLES.” However, within each of the “categories of genres of STYLES of global music”there are many Styles that are not “Song Title” based, but are of a particular music style for playing one’s own Improvised (eg. Jazz or Country or Ballad or Rock, or World music, etcetera) instrumental 🎹🎶 or accompanying singing one’s own song. I have enjoyed playing creative improvisational music on the PA5X 🎹 for over a year now, and have never experienced being locked into playing someone else’s song or instrumental. Enjoy playing a PA5X 🎹🎶. Woody’s many keyboards review videos are informative & appreciated and enjoyed too - especially his contagious smile. 👍🤗🎹🎶
Hi Woody Finally convinced by watching your channel, I’ve been a Pa5X owner for a couple of months now. I absolutely love it. Thank you! Although I’ve only been an owner of this beauty for a short period, I’ve been using PC based music tools and digital synths for a number of years, my DAW of choice is FL Studio, but have great difficulty in getting the Korg Pa5X to work as you’d expect with the DAW; Ok I’ve given up. I agree with your points. Yet again you hit it on the nail with your observations. IF Korg were to bring out their own Windows / Mac program that complimented the Korg Pa5X as they have done with some of their modern synths, as well as being Korg Collection and especially DAW compatible, obviously it would be a game changer for sure. Thank you again.
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.
this is very helpful - as someone just considering what instrument to buy - I am a relapsed pianist - looking to get a bit of musical fun without the hours of practice I used to do - I also want an instrument I can compose my own stuff on - I am wondering if these arranger keyboards although enticing are not really for me
Hi Woody, I agree 100% with all your thoughts on this subject, especially when it comes to tackling the Styles Creator, even the thought of tackling something like that is way beyond me my capabilities, and I have skipped over that section pretty quickly in the past. It definitely would be interesting to get the comments from Korg or Yamaha about your video, but let’s be honest, that would never happen. Keep up the good work Woody, always very much appreciated. From Geoff, a poor Genos One owner.
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.
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
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.
I watched this video again and totally agree about the style creators. It is very complex to create a great style and the learning curve is very steep. Yamaha has it Midi song to Style application but that should build into the Yamaha Arrangers and Korg Pa5X is missing the Style Creator Bot still. In the Pa4X it is implemented but also this can have some improvements. Hope Korg will implement an improved version in the Pa5X. I mentioned Go Keys from Roland for having standard styles. I own a Korg i3 for a few days and also these styles are very standard. Nice to have "baby arrangers".
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
Spot on, Woody! I bought a PA-1000 a few years back for the same reasons - to be able to create music without having to turn on the computer. Needless to say, it was not as easy as the sales pitch or the professional demonstrators show it to be - after a while I realised its focus is to play the built-in songs and eventually buy more songs to play - so I sold it and bought a synth instead, and record on the computer. After the shenanigans with the D-50 demo song copyright strike, I was wondering if recording a cover using the built-in songs from an arranger keyboard will trigger UA-cam's algorithm and flag the song? Love the channel, keep up the good 'play' (it's not work, is it?)!
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 😅😂
Wow - when you jump between the Korg and Yamaha with all of these, it really showcases how much better the Korg sounds! Yes, I agree with you on making these easier to use to modify and create styles. You can do most of what you are describing on the Korg Pa5x but it is very complex. I have tried a few times on mine and I give up -- then I just select a few of my favorite generic styles (such as "Blues Shuffle") and play along. Also, lately, I've had fun playing some of my favorite jazz standards over the song specific styles. Thanks Woody!
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...
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 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
The real trick to using arrangers is pulling lots of things OUT. Muting all the things that make the style too busy. In general they put more parts into the styles than are ever needed.
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.
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
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)
Hello Woody, what about the most important feature that is missed off many keyboards? Yes, the UNDO button with several also levels of UNDO. I just now lost my favourite Organ setting on my Hammond XK4 and no undo button……..!!
Woody , I understand the point you are making .. Think about about it , most people who are going to buy a very expensive arranger will be the over 40s and they will often play songs from their life journey .. So modelling styles on genres and songs is not a bad thing plus many keyboards give you the facility to program your own beats and styles ... We are not far away from Ai technology that will make the style for you in a matter of seconds .. Keep up the good work on your channel
yeah, i get that too. i am trying to help design an arranger that attracts a younger generation of musicians, who are used to making music in other ways...
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 UA-cam 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 (ua-cam.com/channels/Nq6hIqGcG6MBMM0_M9cGiA.html) does, however in German (UA-cam videos nowadays come also with subtitles in a language of your choice which can e helpful to understand).
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.
Just the guitar mode is worth the money. You can really sound like a great fingerpicked guitar if you learn to use that magic and powerful mode. Extremely powerful.
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?
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.
I observe that the drums in the Korg are very distinct (especially the kick and the snare) whereas in the Genos it seems to be compressed and a bit muffled. Anyone else feel the same?
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.
Most people want to to play or hear popular songs. Any UI that makes it easier to compose new styles is always going to be work. Take working with DAWs to create music for instance. I have a Korg PA1000 of which the styles are more generic and find it sometime difficult to find one to match a certain song I want to play. The bottom line is that I would want Korg or any other company to keep adding those popular song styles, but at the same time adding better functionality to create your own (although I still think it would be work that takes away from playing).
You nailed it. To create a personal new style with these arrangers is a pain in the bu**. Using a midi files are not ideal too. An external DAW is pointless but it's better. 🎉❤
The styles may be quite 'song specific' but I have watched many UA-cam 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. 🙂
Thank you for your video! You are actually talking me out of buying an arranger. If I have to create my own tracks, I don't need an arranger to play them back. Also, playing live with an arranger, at least the videos I've been watching, are not so much a musical performance by the person, it is a person mostly pushing the right buttons at the right time and not doing a whole lot of actual playing. Dunno. I typically play with a 3 or 4 piece jazz band and I have to PLAY the keys and perform on a fairly high level. Having to occasionally play solo, I would love to fill in some of the things I just don't have enough hands to do live but I'm not so sure an arranger is my answer. Creating my own backing tracks, even though less spontaneous, seems way more practical, and would be 100% me playing, not something I sorta kinda fit into someone else's mold.
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!
Interesting thoughts. I have been playing arranger keyboards for 40 years and now have a Genos2. I can address the point of view of a home player (sometimes playing out, in the past, with a small band) who wants to make style playing as creative as possible. While it is true that it is currently not easy to edit or even use style-assembly on the Genos (or previous models), the creative use of registrations in which you substitute other voices for style voices and especially mute (and then bring in) differeny style tracks for different registrations, greatly expands the creativity involved in style playing. I should also mention that using the multipads, sync-stop, and more unusually, creating registrations that use more than one style (e.g. a Freeplay at the beginning, a more laid back one in the middle, and a full rocker for the last few registrations) also allows almost infinite creativity. All this, of course in addition to mixing the 3 right hand voices and using the left voice appropriately (usually turned off by default in Yamaha's registrations). Admitedly, this can only be done after you familiarize yourself with the styles and multipads on your instrument to know which ones are appropriate for the genres you play that you can you can edit and combine. There is no "bot" to do this and such a "bot" will not replace musical taste. Doing what I suggest allows the style player to use the arranger with creative style arrangement, analogous to the way a synth player would revoice and register their instrument. The Genos2 comes with about 1600 registration banks programmed by Yamaha (once you register your instrument). I regard those as just a starting point that allows me to rearrange and re-register things to my taste and to obtain more diversity in playing. Finally, Yamaha also makes available (once you register) on the order of 30 premium voice and style packs and some of those are very good and useful.
I have Roland G-1000. It was Roland's flagship arranger back in the late 90's. It also has a feature of converting MIDI song to Style, but I never used it. Out of hundreds built-in styles and hundreds that are on the factory ZIP-disk, there are only few that sound very close to popular 80's songs. The rest of them are neutral ones which is great. I totally agree with you Woody
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.
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
Hi Woody, great point! How many people, that buy these arranger keyboards, are in their late 60's 70's? Its obvious that korg and Yamaha are targeting older retired people with money in the bank who love the 70's 80's music. The percentage must be enormous. Korg and Yamaha must think that people want (lower demographic) either have a synthesizer workstation or an arranger keyboard ( higher market percentage). to blend the two would be ideal, but probably would not be cost effective for the manufacturers. I had a Yamaha PSRew410 for a while and loved it but got sick of the styles. I went back to my trusty Triton LE and old Roland FP-5 for creative inspiration . keep up the good work, cheers.
I agree - but I think this goes all the way back to bombastic demo songs selling keyboards in the 80’s/90’s. “Just The Way You Are” sold me on the PSS-170. It changed patch every bar to show off all the sound capabilities. By the time I upgraded to a PSR-300 in the early 90’s (for MIDI! Hurrah!) suddenly I got 15 demo songs and you could play the lead line along to them.. it’s just all downhill from there into these monstrosities of cheese 😊
I used to play in a duo where I used a roland BK-7 arranger module. Although there were all these hit song styles I never had a problem finding a style that was usable with any of the obscure tunes I tended to play. I actually recorded a cover tune of a Los Lobo song where I used an intro which I stole from the original record (just a 4 bar percussion ) On my recording it was uncanny how seamless the drums/piano fit in with the original version.
Over the Past Couple of weeks I have started experimenting with combining tracks from different styles to create a new style on my Korg Pa700. It’s also possible to take out tracks that makes a style song specific and replace with tracks from generic styles. Just takes time if you sit and learn but the possibilities are endless. But this is also possible on Yamaha Arrangers with its style creator.
Have you had a look at the “Session Players” feature of Logic Pro? If you had, do you think something along those lines might be good for a future arranger?
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 agree with you completely. Still arranger keyboards are the best we have. Lucky those who don’t recognize much songs but are not so good at it because was living behind the Iron Curtain. So maybe I am enjoying more of these style as a “free styles”, while I am not recognizing the “main song” for it. It gives me more creativity as you had mention before. As a guitar, which is one of the main, popular and powerful instrument, it would be lovely to have also more control over its patterns creating our own and playing guitar style live more flexible.
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.
My problem is I want to arrange a certain song, but trying to find the right style is so time consuming and they are all not suitable it’s an impossible task. I have trouble using this keyboard Yamaha PSR SX900 which is a nice instrument regardless
I remember the Yamaha CVP’s had a style in it that Andy Simpson (Yamaha Homeworld shop owner in Stirling & laterly freelance with Keyplayer Edinburgh and Kenny’s Music Glasgow) used to play brilliantly, it was the Pirates of the Caribbean theme
I am "arranger curious" and have a lot of questions. But first my take on the song specific styles. Drop them. The onboard sequencers could be used in the same way how Yamaha FMP on the Electone series works. FMP let you play along a sequenced track and you can play as much as possible life, while the sequencer changes the sound when needed. Sometimes just for one or two notes :) No need for those styles. Also Yamaha styles, from flagship Electone to humble PSS, are often very recognizable and over played. That kind of sucks when you want to make your own music. Now some questions: 1) Older arrangers often allow for different patterns for different chord qualities. For example minor, major and 7th chords all have their own "sub style". Looks like the current Yamaha and Korg models lost this ability? If so they really should bring it back as it make styles less static and repetitive. And if the ability is still there how can you utilize it in your own styles? 2) The Yamaha PSR510 from long ago had a "one touch" setting for each style. It activated a preset registration with extra effects that where not otherwise available. Among those effects where some that started playing when you stopped playing the right hand. For example a brass section that played a fill pattern or a second melody instrument that repeated the last two measures you just played. My question, are these types of effects still part of what the PSR / Genos / Pa can do? They where a lot of fun to play with, but I never see them mentioned in reviews. 3) How about kidnapping the Yamaha CEO? Demand for his release, put SFV manuals on PSR900 and Genos. Seems reasonable to me.
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.
Thank you for your video Woody. I can see where you’re coming from. Style writing is however a complex and involved process. I’ve done quite a bit of it for two major keyboard manufacturers. With all the best will in the world I can’t see how one can simplify it in a satisfactory way. There are as you say PC style creation tools which can assist specific musical tastes, But to create a finished professional musical style requires a very thorough musical understanding coupled with an in depth understanding of the technology. To date I’ve not been able to produce a style in under 3 days. Regards your comment on song specific styles, I do understand. However if one disregards the intros and endings listening only to the main patterns I’d suggest a lot (not all) of those styles would sound musically generic. Perhaps using a different Intro/ending would help ‘not’ imply the suggested song. Or maybe create you own intro by being more imaginative with the styles by muting various parts and creating your own chord sequence. I think arrangers can be very creative tools and assist song writers in producing more finished backing tracks. But if I was looking to do this, I’d create the bulk of the track on the arranger keyboard itself and then import into a DAW as a midi file to allow further editing and importing of sounds. The day I said goodbye to my Roland MC500 microcomputer and turned to software for my sequencing needs, was a day I’ve never regretted. 👍
My first drum machine was a Roland TR77 in 1972 .........I think we are light years away with an arranger. I can only dream of what I could have done with a Korg Pa5x instead of 2 drums machines and 5 keyboards..........
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
As others have noted in the comments, I think the issue is using the proper tool for the purpose intended. For instance, a talented vocalist with minimal keyboard skills who wanted to perform solo could use one of these high level arrangers to get first-rate results. Songwriters could use the numerous individual instruments and rhythm tracks to work out their music, or maybe choose a less full-featured (and expensive) machine that can still get it done. Maybe the real problem is we have too many excellent choices these days?
I bought a Korg Pa1000 arranger 6 years ago or so. I have NEVER used it as an arranger, I just bought it for the warm and great sounds it has, co's that's what I'm looking for :)
Big hello Woody , That was nicely and precisely explained and hopefully the big brands are watching and listening, top end arranger keyboards are kinda like overpriced memory cards without a delete function, they are all packed with the same crap styles that are useless for making unique music , Yamaha are probably the best at filling internal memory space with useless crap that can't be deleted , me thinks that's a big waste of memory that could be used on better features. Creating styles on arrangers is basically creating loops but the genius's at Yamaha have an amazing ability to over complicate a simple loop process that makes explaing E=MC2 to a child easy , Yamaha needs to change there approach on the design of arranger keyboards and to make all their styles available to download to keyboard instead of packing them with crap that won't be used , I've 4 Yamaha arrange keyboards and I don't use any of their styles....that's a lot of styles that won't be used for one very simple reason...... they're all crap or as you would say ...Cheeseie . Brilliant video Woody , really enjoyed watching and listening. 😎AK☘️ 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍🎹🎹🎹🎹🎹🎹🎹🎹🎹🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪
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.
Thanks Woody, I have a PSR SX-900. I've heard people say Korg and Yamaha market arrangers to one-man-band/solo performers especially for their flagship arrangers. And that is why we don't see mutli-track out functions of these arrangers via audio-interface in the keyboards, and why the focus IS on these major hit songs and NOT on songwriting/production. Simply because Korg and Yamaha intend to keep their flagship arrangers and flagship synths/production workstations marketed to two different groups. DUMB!!! Thanks, Woody, for stating that it is ridiculous for these companies to tell us how we should use their products!!!! I use the PSR-SX900 for SONGWRITING AND SONG PRODUCTION. With registrations I make extensive, complex changes with instruments, mic effects, guitar effects in one song that (basically constant and many midi change commands in a single song) that I could never even do in Cubase!!! In case you don't know, in the SX-900 when you create a song, you can change not only the drum kit for the chorus for example (and all 16 instruments for that matter, in a flash via registrations), but simultaneously your mic setting, guitar or bass setting using the internal effects. So NOT having an internal multi-channel audio interface going from the SX-900 to Cubase is a bummer. The Montage and MODX plus have that. Oh but wait, that's a different market than me. ( I know the Genos 2 has a stero out via interface but not the same) These pro arrangers do the same if not more in terms of music production than: Workstations with sequencers such as the Fantom/Montage, The MPC boxes, The pattern type production workflow similar to Ableton Live, and can have faster workflow than a DAW. Aren't scenes like registration? Effects on the audio inputs? Midi sequencers on board? Hey Korg and Yamaha, you already have their features overlapping. How about maybe make a one-man-band arranger, and a songwriter/production arranger? Thanks, Woody, for saying what these companies need to hear! Sometimes I think I'm crazy, but then I see a product like the MPC Key 61 by Akai, which is very similar to any arranger keyboard: phrases, arpeggios, and drum patterns with a keyboard to add your own melodies/layers and audio inputs. And so, yea, these functions are for PRODICTION AND SONGWRITING. Yamaha!
Wow great info. Is it possible to play real chords while using a style? All I can do with the left is make the chord changes for the style while my right hand plays the melody.
@@KB-py6jd Hey, yes you can. On a PSR-SX model you can do this. This is a demonstration from Sweetwater and Yamaha. I have it starting right where you need it to. ua-cam.com/video/J4uEfFVPQsg/v-deo.htmlsi=_TXZcLaAEd1_Wvof&t=640
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.
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
Good video Woody, I've been watching your reviews for a while. Personally I love these arranger keyboards, they are superb! I think the points you made are very valid but you said yourself you can do multiple things to get around the limitations of the styles being specific to particular songs. I think these machines give you the best of both worlds, you can use the styles to do covers of songs which the styles are specific to or you can create your own styles or adjust the instruments of existing styles, which is pretty easy. And you can also download other styles or you can use as a conventional synth and play individual parts with your band. No biggie in my opinion, ..........btw, the Genos 2 sounds amazing! Thanks for posting!
all that is very true! great points and thanks. i actually have a fun challenge video coming soon to see if you can recognise disguised song-specific styles...
I solved this problem by avoiding entirely arranging accompaniment lines and playing only bass by myself in my left hand, engaging an additional guitar player who sang along with just rhythm patterns from the keyboard, adding my comping with my right hand, mainly using piano like sounds. In this way we were playing gigs for decades, taking advantages of really well made rhythm patterns of Yamaha DGX and Roland E-series, using fill-ins and intro/ending possibilities, thus avoiding suggestions by a manufacturing teams and somewhat boring arrangements. Bass line played liva and natural sound of guitar made our music vivid and interesting, and our approach to the repertoire flexible.
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.
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!
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.
I wish the manufactures would listen to you. One of them should hire you to help them design one.
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.😀
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.
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.
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!
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
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 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 UA-cam? 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.
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.
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 !
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: ua-cam.com/video/yYfPbMFM5wo/v-deo.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 ua-cam.com/video/CYeas-GcTpM/v-deo.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!
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
absolutely. Well said
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.
Which one Ibe to go PLS
Nautilus or pa x5
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.
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
You need to test out the Akai MPC key 61. You're gonna love that one!
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…
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.
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?
Wow thanks for this has really changed my mind about what new keyboard I will buy .
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.
Just a clarification for those considering the KORG PA5X🎹: it’s correct that the PA5X “Song Book” feature contains numerous well known popular radio hit “titled Songs STYLES.”
However, within each of the “categories of genres of STYLES of global music”there are many Styles that are not “Song Title” based, but are of a particular music style for playing one’s own Improvised (eg. Jazz or Country or Ballad or Rock, or World music, etcetera) instrumental 🎹🎶 or accompanying singing one’s own song.
I have enjoyed playing creative improvisational music on the PA5X 🎹 for over a year now, and have never experienced being locked into playing someone else’s song or instrumental.
Enjoy playing a PA5X 🎹🎶.
Woody’s many keyboards review videos are informative & appreciated and enjoyed too - especially his contagious smile. 👍🤗🎹🎶
Hi Woody
Finally convinced by watching your channel, I’ve been a Pa5X owner for a couple of months now. I absolutely love it. Thank you!
Although I’ve only been an owner of this beauty for a short period, I’ve been using PC based music tools and digital synths for a number of years, my DAW of choice is FL Studio, but have great difficulty in getting the Korg Pa5X to work as you’d expect with the DAW; Ok I’ve given up.
I agree with your points. Yet again you hit it on the nail with your observations.
IF Korg were to bring out their own Windows / Mac program that complimented the Korg Pa5X as they have done with some of their modern synths, as well as being Korg Collection and especially DAW compatible, obviously it would be a game changer for sure.
Thank you again.
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.
The Rosanna vamp is uncannily accurate. It sounds like a loop.
But what else can you do with a groove that distinctive?
this is very helpful - as someone just considering what instrument to buy - I am a relapsed pianist - looking to get a bit of musical fun without the hours of practice I used to do - I also want an instrument I can compose my own stuff on - I am wondering if these arranger keyboards although enticing are not really for me
Hi Woody, I agree 100% with all your thoughts on this subject, especially when it comes to tackling the Styles Creator, even the thought of tackling something like that is way beyond me my capabilities, and I have skipped over that section pretty quickly in the past.
It definitely would be interesting to get the comments from Korg or Yamaha about your video, but let’s be honest, that would never happen.
Keep up the good work Woody, always very much appreciated.
From Geoff, a poor Genos One owner.
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.
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!!
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.
I watched this video again and totally agree about the style creators. It is very complex to create a great style and the learning curve is very steep. Yamaha has it Midi song to Style application but that should build into the Yamaha Arrangers and Korg Pa5X is missing the Style Creator Bot still. In the Pa4X it is implemented but also this can have some improvements. Hope Korg will implement an improved version in the Pa5X. I mentioned Go Keys from Roland for having standard styles. I own a Korg i3 for a few days and also these styles are very standard. Nice to have "baby arrangers".
Hi Woody, I agree with you, thanks for putting it clearly. In my case, this doesn't help me want to buy these great keyboards. Greetings
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
Great point I really haven’t realized this before thank you for bringing it up
Spot on, Woody! I bought a PA-1000 a few years back for the same reasons - to be able to create music without having to turn on the computer. Needless to say, it was not as easy as the sales pitch or the professional demonstrators show it to be - after a while I realised its focus is to play the built-in songs and eventually buy more songs to play - so I sold it and bought a synth instead, and record on the computer. After the shenanigans with the D-50 demo song copyright strike, I was wondering if recording a cover using the built-in songs from an arranger keyboard will trigger UA-cam's algorithm and flag the song? Love the channel, keep up the good 'play' (it's not work, is it?)!
Which synth did you got instead of pa1000?
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 😅😂
Wow - when you jump between the Korg and Yamaha with all of these, it really showcases how much better the Korg sounds! Yes, I agree with you on making these easier to use to modify and create styles. You can do most of what you are describing on the Korg Pa5x but it is very complex. I have tried a few times on mine and I give up -- then I just select a few of my favorite generic styles (such as "Blues Shuffle") and play along. Also, lately, I've had fun playing some of my favorite jazz standards over the song specific styles. Thanks Woody!
Great, it's not only me who thought exactly the same while listening to the video! The Korg sounds so much more PRO. 💪👍
I am a yamaha guy from way back and yet I also found the korg pa5x sounds much better than the genos.
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...
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 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
The real trick to using arrangers is pulling lots of things OUT. Muting all the things that make the style too busy. In general they put more parts into the styles than are ever needed.
What is a DAW?
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.
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
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)
Hello Woody, what about the most important feature that is missed off many keyboards? Yes, the UNDO button with several also levels of UNDO. I just now lost my favourite Organ setting on my Hammond XK4 and no undo button……..!!
Woody , I understand the point you are making .. Think about about it , most people who are going to buy a very expensive arranger will be the over 40s and they will often play songs from their life journey .. So modelling styles on genres and songs is not a bad thing plus many keyboards give you the facility to program your own beats and styles ... We are not far away from Ai technology that will make the style for you in a matter of seconds .. Keep up the good work on your channel
yeah, i get that too. i am trying to help design an arranger that attracts a younger generation of musicians, who are used to making music in other ways...
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 UA-cam 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 (ua-cam.com/channels/Nq6hIqGcG6MBMM0_M9cGiA.html) does, however in German (UA-cam videos nowadays come also with subtitles in a language of your choice which can e helpful to understand).
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.
Just the guitar mode is worth the money. You can really sound like a great fingerpicked guitar if you learn to use that magic and powerful mode. Extremely powerful.
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?
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.
I observe that the drums in the Korg are very distinct (especially the kick and the snare) whereas in the Genos it seems to be compressed and a bit muffled. Anyone else feel the same?
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.
Most people want to to play or hear popular songs. Any UI that makes it easier to compose new styles is always going to be work. Take working with DAWs to create music for instance. I have a Korg PA1000 of which the styles are more generic and find it sometime difficult to find one to match a certain song I want to play. The bottom line is that I would want Korg or any other company to keep adding those popular song styles, but at the same time adding better functionality to create your own (although I still think it would be work that takes away from playing).
what is the song name at 3.30?
You nailed it. To create a personal new style with these arrangers is a pain in the bu**. Using a midi files are not ideal too. An external DAW is pointless but it's better. 🎉❤
The styles may be quite 'song specific' but I have watched many UA-cam 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. 🙂
Thank you for your video! You are actually talking me out of buying an arranger. If I have to create my own tracks, I don't need an arranger to play them back. Also, playing live with an arranger, at least the videos I've been watching, are not so much a musical performance by the person, it is a person mostly pushing the right buttons at the right time and not doing a whole lot of actual playing. Dunno. I typically play with a 3 or 4 piece jazz band and I have to PLAY the keys and perform on a fairly high level. Having to occasionally play solo, I would love to fill in some of the things I just don't have enough hands to do live but I'm not so sure an arranger is my answer. Creating my own backing tracks, even though less spontaneous, seems way more practical, and would be 100% me playing, not something I sorta kinda fit into someone else's mold.
you make some valid points, and glad i was able to help, arrangers are def not for everybody
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!
Interesting thoughts. I have been playing arranger keyboards for 40 years and now have a Genos2. I can address the point of view of a home player (sometimes playing out, in the past, with a small band) who wants to make style playing as creative as possible. While it is true that it is currently not easy to edit or even use style-assembly on the Genos (or previous models), the creative use of registrations in which you substitute other voices for style voices and especially mute (and then bring in) differeny style tracks for different registrations, greatly expands the creativity involved in style playing. I should also mention that using the multipads, sync-stop, and more unusually, creating registrations that use more than one style (e.g. a Freeplay at the beginning, a more laid back one in the middle, and a full rocker for the last few registrations) also allows almost infinite creativity. All this, of course in addition to mixing the 3 right hand voices and using the left voice appropriately (usually turned off by default in Yamaha's registrations). Admitedly, this can only be done after you familiarize yourself with the styles and multipads on your instrument to know which ones are appropriate for the genres you play that you can you can edit and combine. There is no "bot" to do this and such a "bot" will not replace musical taste. Doing what I suggest allows the style player to use the arranger with creative style arrangement, analogous to the way a synth player would revoice and register their instrument. The Genos2 comes with about 1600 registration banks programmed by Yamaha (once you register your instrument). I regard those as just a starting point that allows me to rearrange and re-register things to my taste and to obtain more diversity in playing. Finally, Yamaha also makes available (once you register) on the order of 30 premium voice and style packs and some of those are very good and useful.
I have Roland G-1000. It was Roland's flagship arranger back in the late 90's. It also has a feature of converting MIDI song to Style, but I never used it. Out of hundreds built-in styles and hundreds that are on the factory ZIP-disk, there are only few that sound very close to popular 80's songs. The rest of them are neutral ones which is great. I totally agree with you Woody
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.
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
Hi Woody, great point! How many people, that buy these arranger keyboards, are in their late 60's 70's? Its obvious that korg and Yamaha are targeting older retired people with money in the bank who love the 70's 80's music. The percentage must be enormous. Korg and Yamaha must think that people want (lower demographic) either have a synthesizer workstation or an arranger keyboard ( higher market percentage). to blend the two would be ideal, but probably would not be cost effective for the manufacturers.
I had a Yamaha PSRew410 for a while and loved it but got sick of the styles. I went back to my trusty Triton LE and old Roland FP-5 for creative inspiration . keep up the good work, cheers.
By The Way, live looping is undergoing a major development, I am seriously following this
I agree - but I think this goes all the way back to bombastic demo songs selling keyboards in the 80’s/90’s. “Just The Way You Are” sold me on the PSS-170. It changed patch every bar to show off all the sound capabilities. By the time I upgraded to a PSR-300 in the early 90’s (for MIDI! Hurrah!) suddenly I got 15 demo songs and you could play the lead line along to them.. it’s just all downhill from there into these monstrosities of cheese 😊
I used to play in a duo where I used a roland BK-7 arranger module. Although there were all these hit song styles I never had a problem finding a style that was usable with any of the obscure tunes I tended to play. I actually recorded a cover tune of a Los Lobo song where I used an intro which I stole from the original record (just a 4 bar percussion ) On my recording it was uncanny how seamless the drums/piano fit in with the original version.
Over the Past Couple of weeks I have started experimenting with combining tracks from different styles to create a new style on my Korg Pa700. It’s also possible to take out tracks that makes a style song specific and replace with tracks from generic styles. Just takes time if you sit and learn but the possibilities are endless. But this is also possible on Yamaha Arrangers with its style creator.
Good view - thanks for this video.
I fully agree with you. The styles should be much more generic.
Hello,
what do you think of Kentron Eventx?
Regards
haven't had opportunity to play one, have never even seen one!
Do the regional versions have the same problem. I’m thinking of the Arab /turkish editions
Have you had a look at the “Session Players” feature of Logic Pro? If you had, do you think something along those lines might be good for a future arranger?
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 agree with you completely. Still arranger keyboards are the best we have. Lucky those who don’t recognize much songs but are not so good at it because was living behind the Iron Curtain. So maybe I am enjoying more of these style as a “free styles”, while I am not recognizing the “main song” for it. It gives me more creativity as you had mention before.
As a guitar, which is one of the main, popular and powerful instrument, it would be lovely to have also more control over its patterns creating our own and playing guitar style live more flexible.
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.
My problem is I want to arrange a certain song, but trying to find the right style is so time consuming and they are all not suitable it’s an impossible task. I have trouble using this keyboard Yamaha PSR SX900 which is a nice instrument regardless
I remember the Yamaha CVP’s had a style in it that Andy Simpson (Yamaha Homeworld shop owner in Stirling & laterly freelance with Keyplayer Edinburgh and Kenny’s Music Glasgow) used to play brilliantly, it was the Pirates of the Caribbean theme
Well said Woody.. that’s why it has custom style feature
I am "arranger curious" and have a lot of questions.
But first my take on the song specific styles. Drop them. The onboard sequencers could be used in the same way how Yamaha FMP on the Electone series works. FMP let you play along a sequenced track and you can play as much as possible life, while the sequencer changes the sound when needed. Sometimes just for one or two notes :) No need for those styles.
Also Yamaha styles, from flagship Electone to humble PSS, are often very recognizable and over played. That kind of sucks when you want to make your own music.
Now some questions:
1) Older arrangers often allow for different patterns for different chord qualities. For example minor, major and 7th chords all have their own "sub style". Looks like the current Yamaha and Korg models lost this ability? If so they really should bring it back as it make styles less static and repetitive. And if the ability is still there how can you utilize it in your own styles?
2) The Yamaha PSR510 from long ago had a "one touch" setting for each style. It activated a preset registration with extra effects that where not otherwise available. Among those effects where some that started playing when you stopped playing the right hand. For example a brass section that played a fill pattern or a second melody instrument that repeated the last two measures you just played. My question, are these types of effects still part of what the PSR / Genos / Pa can do? They where a lot of fun to play with, but I never see them mentioned in reviews.
3) How about kidnapping the Yamaha CEO? Demand for his release, put SFV manuals on PSR900 and Genos. Seems reasonable to me.
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.
Thank you for your video Woody. I can see where you’re coming from. Style writing is however a complex and involved process. I’ve done quite a bit of it for two major keyboard manufacturers. With all the best will in the world I can’t see how one can simplify it in a satisfactory way. There are as you say PC style creation tools which can assist specific musical tastes, But to create a finished professional musical style requires a very thorough musical understanding coupled with an in depth understanding of the technology. To date I’ve not been able to produce a style in under 3 days. Regards your comment on song specific styles, I do understand. However if one disregards the intros and endings listening only to the main patterns I’d suggest a lot (not all) of those styles would sound musically generic. Perhaps using a different Intro/ending would help ‘not’ imply the suggested song. Or maybe create you own intro by being more imaginative with the styles by muting various parts and creating your own chord sequence. I think arrangers can be very creative tools and assist song writers in producing more finished backing tracks. But if I was looking to do this, I’d create the bulk of the track on the arranger keyboard itself and then import into a DAW as a midi file to allow further editing and importing of sounds. The day I said goodbye to my Roland MC500 microcomputer and turned to software for my sequencing needs, was a day I’ve never regretted. 👍
My first drum machine was a Roland TR77 in 1972 .........I think we are light years away with an arranger. I can only dream of what I could have done with a Korg Pa5x instead of 2 drums machines and 5 keyboards..........
You should do another go at Band-in-a-Box as a followup.
It's definitely its own set of problems but it's much closer to what you are asking for here.
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
As others have noted in the comments, I think the issue is using the proper tool for the purpose intended. For instance, a talented vocalist with minimal keyboard skills who wanted to perform solo could use one of these high level arrangers to get first-rate results. Songwriters could use the numerous individual instruments and rhythm tracks to work out their music, or maybe choose a less full-featured (and expensive) machine that can still get it done. Maybe the real problem is we have too many excellent choices these days?
I bought a Korg Pa1000 arranger 6 years ago or so. I have NEVER used it as an arranger, I just bought it for the warm and great sounds it has, co's that's what I'm looking for :)
Big hello Woody , That was nicely and precisely explained and hopefully the big brands are watching and listening, top end arranger keyboards are kinda like overpriced memory cards without a delete function, they are all packed with the same crap styles that are useless for making unique music , Yamaha are probably the best at filling internal memory space with useless crap that can't be deleted , me thinks that's a big waste of memory that could be used on better features.
Creating styles on arrangers is basically creating loops but the genius's at Yamaha have an amazing ability to over complicate a simple loop process that makes explaing E=MC2 to a child easy , Yamaha needs to change there approach on the design of arranger keyboards and to make all their styles available to download to keyboard instead of packing them with crap that won't be used , I've 4 Yamaha arrange keyboards and I don't use any of their styles....that's a lot of styles that won't be used for one very simple reason...... they're all crap or as you would say ...Cheeseie .
Brilliant video Woody , really enjoyed watching and listening.
😎AK☘️
👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍🎹🎹🎹🎹🎹🎹🎹🎹🎹🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪
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.
Thanks Woody, I have a PSR SX-900. I've heard people say Korg and Yamaha market arrangers to one-man-band/solo performers especially for their flagship arrangers. And that is why we don't see mutli-track out functions of these arrangers via audio-interface in the keyboards, and why the focus IS on these major hit songs and NOT on songwriting/production. Simply because Korg and Yamaha intend to keep their flagship arrangers and flagship synths/production workstations marketed to two different groups. DUMB!!! Thanks, Woody, for stating that it is ridiculous for these companies to tell us how we should use their products!!!! I use the PSR-SX900 for SONGWRITING AND SONG PRODUCTION. With registrations I make extensive, complex changes with instruments, mic effects, guitar effects in one song that (basically constant and many midi change commands in a single song) that I could never even do in Cubase!!! In case you don't know, in the SX-900 when you create a song, you can change not only the drum kit for the chorus for example (and all 16 instruments for that matter, in a flash via registrations), but simultaneously your mic setting, guitar or bass setting using the internal effects.
So NOT having an internal multi-channel audio interface going from the SX-900 to Cubase is a bummer. The Montage and MODX plus have that. Oh but wait, that's a different market than me. ( I know the Genos 2 has a stero out via interface but not the same) These pro arrangers do the same if not more in terms of music production than: Workstations with sequencers such as the Fantom/Montage, The MPC boxes, The pattern type production workflow similar to Ableton Live, and can have faster workflow than a DAW. Aren't scenes like registration? Effects on the audio inputs? Midi sequencers on board? Hey Korg and Yamaha, you already have their features overlapping. How about maybe make a one-man-band arranger, and a songwriter/production arranger? Thanks, Woody, for saying what these companies need to hear! Sometimes I think I'm crazy, but then I see a product like the MPC Key 61 by Akai, which is very similar to any arranger keyboard: phrases, arpeggios, and drum patterns with a keyboard to add your own melodies/layers and audio inputs. And so, yea, these functions are for PRODICTION AND SONGWRITING. Yamaha!
Wow great info. Is it possible to play real chords while using a style? All I can do with the left is make the chord changes for the style while my right hand plays the melody.
@@KB-py6jd Hey, yes you can. On a PSR-SX model you can do this. This is a demonstration from Sweetwater and Yamaha. I have it starting right where you need it to.
ua-cam.com/video/J4uEfFVPQsg/v-deo.htmlsi=_TXZcLaAEd1_Wvof&t=640
I totally agree with you. I want more universal styles. Greetings.
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.
Wasn’t that the point of General midi SMF? If you just want to play along.
Your on point
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
Good video Woody, I've been watching your reviews for a while. Personally I love these arranger keyboards, they are superb! I think the points you made are very valid but you said yourself you can do multiple things to get around the limitations of the styles being specific to particular songs. I think these machines give you the best of both worlds, you can use the styles to do covers of songs which the styles are specific to or you can create your own styles or adjust the instruments of existing styles, which is pretty easy. And you can also download other styles or you can use as a conventional synth and play individual parts with your band. No biggie in my opinion, ..........btw, the Genos 2 sounds amazing! Thanks for posting!
all that is very true! great points and thanks. i actually have a fun challenge video coming soon to see if you can recognise disguised song-specific styles...