New Realtime arranger software announcement

[groovyband.live]

So you already have a keyboard which plays accompaniment through a number of styles. Then you attach it to a computer and load this software so it can play accompaniment through a bunch of styles......... 
Mike

Yes, but ..... with added features and usability. Some of them are listed on the home page (https://www.groovyband.live), a more comprehensive list is detailed here (https://www.groovyband.live/features/429/). For those really interested in every detail we have an online manual (https://www.groovyband.live/user-manual).

And since specifications on paper are one thing, and an actual test drive is a completely different thing, we also offer a free demo (https://www.groovyband.live/#demo_download).

Every car let you drive from A to B. But not all cars are born equal. And features-wise and price-wise there is a car brand/model for everybody.

If you are content with your current car no need to change, and nobody forces you to do that. 


We also readily accept criticism because this helps us to improve. We really wanted to be criticized that we gave for free a sizeable amount of licenses to knowledgeable people to hard test our software and give us some feedback (believe it or not, most casual people do not even take the time to read the website front page, and their feedback is therefore worthless). We learned a lot and corrected many of the issues raised. And we want to publicly thank those people for their time and effort (they know who they are).

[gerarde]

groovyband.live,

Before I download a demo and have to to the midi setup on my Genos, it would be nice if you had a video demo.
That way we can all see it in action and that would help a lot.
All software programs that I know of, have demos on Youtube.

Gerard

[groovyband.live]

groovyband.live,

Before I download a demo and have to to the midi setup on my Genos, it would be nice if you had a video demo.
That way we can all see it in action and that would help a lot.
All software programs that I know of, have demos on Youtube.

Gerard

Gerard,

we too would like to have some nice video demos that show the various features of the program. Unfortunately decent videos takes a lot of resources to make (time, money, and especially scarce qualified human resources). Poor videos are quicker to make, but make more harm than good.

We are a small startup company with limited resources, and we have to be extremely selective about how to allocate them. Currently we have higher priority tasks.

But we are not alone with limited resources. If you look at Yamaha (which is a "little" bigger than us) it is the same. They have recently launched a new synth (MODX). I might be wrong, but I do not remember to have seen any Yamaha produced videos explaining how to install/configure the hardware, or teaching this or that feature.

You have to take the MODX manual and read it for yourself (I did, and even found it to be not particularly well written). I do not even see a Yamaha representative answering questions on this (or other) forum. And how much money have they earned with all the Genos and Tyros sold to members of this forum? Can you write to Yamaha as easily as you write to me (I have also already answered a couple of days ago to you in private) and get an answer within, let's say, a couple of hours?

We at least can readily (keeping into account the timezone and normal office working hours) answer your questions if there is something unclear in the manual. 

[mikf]

Every car let you drive from A to B. But not all cars are born equal. And features-wise and price-wise there is a car brand/model for everybody.

Yes, your correct, but what you are offering is is more like a trailer attached to my current car to provide some additional features. I still need my current car.
My summary of the main additional features.....
A lot of new styles - many people will like this although we don't know yet how good they are, and truthfully, I think there may have been more interest if these were offered as compatible styles you could just load into your keyboard. And while a good new style is always welcome to many, by and large we are already overwhelmed with access to Yamaha compatible styles. I gave up long ago auditing these to find the few gems.
8 main variations instead of 4 - A nice extra, but 4 is already quite a lot, so not sure how much this really adds or matters to most. 
Easier editing of styles - Still don't know how much easier, or exactly, what can be done but it seems a relatively modest difference, and the fact is that 90% of Yamaha keyboard users do very little style editing, especially 'deep editing'.

Good luck with your venture, and it seems you have put in a lot of effort to make some things better on the arranger. Some are things that might appear anyway on future models, and a lot of what you have addressed seem to be things that frustrated you as power users of the operating system. The question is going to be how many other people feel strongly enough about these things ( or even notice them) to add additional complexity and invest another 600 bucks to improve them just a bit. 
Mike

[Joe H]

I personally think that utilizing registrations on our keyboard to "arrange" a piece of music can out perform the groovyband software.  (that is if you understand how the Yamaha arranger was designed)

Besides... I would rather "play" my hardware keyboard than "program" software on the computer.  After all that's why I bought a keyboard.

Software that SUPPORTS Yamaha styles is highly desirable, but software that uses a different format and is incompatible with Yamaha SFF2 format is not so interesting to me personally.



Joe H

[EileenL]

I have to agree with Joe,
  I bought a keyboard to play it and use styles that were compatible with it of which there are hundreds about and can be easily edited to suit on our keyboards.

[Jørgen]

...
Software that SUPPORTS Yamaha styles is highly desirable, but software that uses a different format and is incompatible with Yamaha SFF2 format is not so interesting to me personally.
...

Hi Joe

Just my words...

Take at look at http://www.jososoft.dk/yamaha/music_4.htm - and notice all the other arranger software programs. Most of these did not succeed, most probably because they used their own proprietary formats for styles etc.

Jørgen

[mikf]

Their software only replaces the real time arranger software and style edit you already have on the keyboard. You still play it from your keyboard like you do any on board style. But I imagine that this now means that all the controls you have on your keyboard that affect the accompaniment, are now useless. ie registrations, music finder, tempo change etc etc. They would now need to be on the computer. Even if it is true that the styles are more stable, easier to edit etc, these are minor issues at best, and who would trade off all the other things like registrations, etc for that small improvement? Makes no sense to me. 

[Gunnar Jonny]

When read through this thread, it strikes my mind what happened when arranger keyboards came and homeorgan and organ players could not see the benefit of the newcomer. It was a lot of no-no's and telling about how useless this machines was/is. What happened to the homeorgan market?
Now we can see the 'modern world' still goes forward, and DAW and softwarebased stuff grows, and how arranger keyboardplayers start act the same way.
Why is it so that if I can not or will not use it myself, then it's not worth mention, and it certainly not can be useful for others?   
During all my life I've always been openminded about new stuff and features, and even if this software is something many or most of us never will need, it can still be interesting for other Yamaha users. A lot, me included, uses arranger or soundmodule as addon, and the step to put software to a laptop and connect to Tyros or Genos is not far away.
I think that our openminded administrator and moderator that desided to give this software developer a thread at the forum did a good decision, and opened for the future instead of be negative.
Sadly, we often se comments at the forum (and other fora) that give expressions that easily could be read as 'if it don't suits me and my use, it certainly will not suit others', and that is not the same as give constructive critisim.
Again, in great danger to be misunderstood. Just my $0.02.

[Jørgen]

Hi

I consider myself open-minded and look forward to new software coming on the market. I have just tried to point out that it is problematic for this software's success if it does not support the market's de facto standards and formats. Although new standards and formats may be better than the most widely used, they may not be successful. Someone may remember VHS vs. Betamax - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videotape_format_war

As mentioned earlier, it is not the first time that new technology is launched on the market. I was back in 2007 involved in the development of Lionstrac's Mediastation - read http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2007/04/07/lionstracs-mediastation-x-76/ . Although this keyboard contained incredibly many fine features, it "died" after a few years. It did not achieve a sufficient number of users who could develop and customize styles etc. that were in a proprietary format. And without this support - and a number of tools available for this support - the sales figures were far too low.

This software may be successful; but as long as it does not support de facto standards and formats, I doubt that this will happen. Just my $0.02.

Jørgen

PS: Not even an official web site left from Lionstracs...

Later added:
The Lionstracs Mediastation was introduced in late 2003 - https://slashdot.org/story/03/11/10/197202/linux-based-musical-keyboard-workstation-debuts
The company struggled hard to get sales, but there were not much user interest due to mostly lack of styles and other support software.
As a result of this situation I was contacted in 2007 - 4 years later! - to write a Yamaha SFF style to Lionstracs style format converter software. This was - as all conversions are - not an easy task; but in some months I wrote a Java based style converter software. As far as I remember their styles used a huge number of MIDI clips - four in each key for major, minor, 7th and dim-chords...

[gerarde]

What would help, and I have asked is for them to have a video so we can see it in action.
Since it hooks up to a Genos, we know what the sounds would be.
So the quality of the video is not as important as seeing it work and seeing things like the 8 variations, 8 OTS, etc.
I for one do not want to download a demo until I see a video.

Gerard

[MarkF_48]

If not a 'real time' video, post some audio samples to SoundCloud or similar. Even just audio demos with screenshots of the software on Youtube would give some idea of the capabilities. I wouldn't download and install a demo without some idea beforehand of demo sounds. Can't say I'm too keen on online manuals viewed in a browser and would prefer a PDF.

[Al Ram]

I agree that we most be open minded and be willing to explore new technologies.   Otherwise, we would still be playing the first keyboard we ever owned . . . . 

However, it is a balance between our time and the many new products every day in the market. 
There is not enough time in the day to explore every new product so we must be selective and explore the products with most potential to be used for our needs.

Not everyone has the time to read manuals and descriptions.    Even the most excellent product needs a good sales campaign.   In this time and age YouTube is probably the most used platform to show a product in action. 

I was the third person responding to this post . . . asking for a description of what the product does . . . . i was told to read the manual . . . . to me, that is not an answer of a person that wants to do a sale . . . . 

This product might be the best there is but without a proper sales attitude it will probably not fly . . . . ....  however, i wish this product the best if it is going to improve the music production process. 

thanks

[mikf]

I am not looking at this as a keyboard player with a closed mind. I look at it more as a developer/ businessman and think what would I say if this was brought to me for investment. My main thought would be that it is a neat add on, some people will buy it if the styles and the editing really is good. But in the big picture it has little competitive advantage because it uses another manufacturer's proprietary hardware to access a few software accompaniment improvements, and the hardware producer has the financial and resource clout to reproduce these in the near future and crush this, if he ever thinks it matters.
And since it uses a proprietary format for the styles, it really could ends up as an elaborate way and quite expensive way just to sell proprietary styles. So its important how good the styles are. Yamaha has spent years developing and evolving styles, and while a good style making team can come up with a lot of very good styles, 500 excellent brand new styles stretches belief a bit.

In the longer term, I agree that one of the directions for arranger type keyboards is computer based arranger software linked to non proprietary controller keyboards. That has cost and portability advantages and we are seeing a bit of that already. This new system is not that though because you need an existing arranger to use it. Maybe it could morph into something along those lines but the dedicated integrated hardware arranger today does have many advantages like sound quality and all the on board features. Its hard to reproduce all these features on the computer and still make them easy for a player to access in real time playing.
These guys get round the sound quality issue by leveraging the Yamaha proprietary hardware linked to their accompaniment software. But in the process they likely lose the usefulness of several keyboard features. Even if the styles are very good, I don't think too many people will trade off access to more styles, against losing the usefulness of several on board features. But some will.

This would have more chance of wider success if the software could run from easily available keyboard controllers, and could run existing styles. But that of course would take a good sound module, and it would take real money to develop and manufacture. And its much more likely to come from one of the existing industry players, than a small software team. Ketron tried it, but it has remained a small niche. Yamaha has never shown any inclination to move in this direction yet, and I think they have the pulse of the market better than anyone.
Like I said before, good luck to the development team. I take my hat off to that they seem to have achieved, - I hope it turns out to be worth the effort they have obviously put in. Maybe the styles and the software to run and edit them are really good. We wont know until someone buys and reviews. However, I am skeptical about its true marketability even if they are good. Because what we have is already pretty good.
Mike

[groovyband.live]

I was the third person responding to this post . . . asking for a description of what the product does . . . . i was told to read the manual . . . . to me, that is not an answer of a person that wants to do a sale . . . . 

You were not told to read the manual. You were given a range of options from "fast but only few infos" to "more effort and more infos", so that you could decide how much time to invest. Please go back and read again the answer to convince yourself.

Indiscriminately copying and pasting here what is already on the Groovyband.live website is not the best way to use the time and patience of this thread readers.

And here we have also given specific answers to those posing specific questions, both in public and in private. Most people that visit our site do read one or more of the options I gave you (we know thanks to Google Analytics) and spend a few minutes navigating the site. And apparently managed to find the infos by themselves. Some write to us using the contact form or the emails there listed. All of them receive a timely answer.

Certainly if even the "executive summary" right in the front page of the website is too much effort and wasted time to read, then we are afraid you are too high ranked for our humble status.

[gerarde]

groovyband.live,

All of talking about this or that will not get any of us anywhere.
What, IMHO, we need, is to see and hear what the software does.
Once we see and hear that, a better understanding of what you have to offer, will become evident to all of us, again IMHO.

Gerard

[Toril S]

You were not told to read the manual. You were given a range of options from "fast but only few infos" to "more effort and more infos", so that you could decide how much time to invest. Please go back and read again the answer to convince yourself.

Indiscriminately copying and pasting here what is already on the Groovyband.live website is not the best way to use the time and patience of this thread readers.

And here we have also given specific answers to those posing specific questions, both in public and in private. Most people that visit our site do read one or more of the options I gave you (we know thanks to Google Analytics) and spend a few minutes navigating the site. And apparently managed to find the infos by themselves. Some write to us using the contact form or the emails there listed. All of them receive a timely answer.

Certainly if even the "executive summary" right in the front page of the website is too much effort and wasted time to read, then we are afraid you are too high ranked for our humble status.

Groovyband.live. Please fefrain from ironic answers. You have gotten interest, and some opinions, from keyboard players. Take them into consideration when you develop your program further. And thanks for letting us know about your project

[mikf]

Gerard
Presumably you attach your computer with their app loaded it to your keyboard, select a style, then play it just like you would an onboard style. According to them, it is a little easier to edit a style than on your keyboard. Other than that I am not sure what a demo would show, unless I am completely missing something. It would let you hear the quality of a few styles, but as they have 500 that would only be a tiny sample. 
Mike

[gerarde]

Mike,

It would be nice to see how the 8 variations work as well as the 8 OTS's.
Plus since these are their own styles, with their own proprietary format, it would be nice to hear what is different about them over Yamaha SFF2 styles.

Gerard

[mikf]

Plus since these are their own styles, with their own proprietary format, it would be nice to hear what is different about them over Yamaha SFF2 styles.

Gerard - That is the important thing..... are the styles significantly different and better to play than Yamaha styles. All that stuff about them being written on a more up to date platform is not going to matter unless it results in better styles. I that about software expertise or musical expertise??
Mike

[Bill]

Hi All

Why do you not try the Demo.  It takes one minute to install, with no nasty programmes tied to it.

Once installed you only need to connect the PC to your keyboard and select the MIDI for the keyboard and the sound Engine (in my case the same for both.)  I did not even read the manual and I'm by no means a MIDI expert and I managed to get it going.

Then you can try it out.

8 Variations and 8 OTS all freely changeable.  Loads of DSP's to play with (all on screen)

To get the best out of the programme I think you would need a touch screen.

It may not be everyones cup of tea - but give the guys a little bitt on encouragement, they are at least having a good go.

Bill

[Gunnar Jonny]

PS: Not even an official web site left from Lionstracs...

Later added:
The Lionstracs Mediastation was introduced in late 2003 .....

Yes, I rememer it well. There was a couple of models too. I think what kept most possible users away, was the fact it was a complex Linux based machine, and much more than the average arrangerkb player could or was willing to handle. Also it was at a quite high pricelevel.
But, the concept was not any bad idea, but maybe some years to early for its time?

[beano]

what type of lead would i need to connect my genos to my pc..to use the demo...and are they expensive...just asking as i'm intrigued by this  pc arranger businness

[Jørgen]

...
Also it was at a quite high pricelevel.
But, the concept was not any bad idea, but maybe some years to early for its time?

Hi
They started out with 10,000+ euro as far as I remember. In 2007 the priced was lowered to app. 2,500 euro - again as far as I remember - which was absolutely a fair price I think.
Right, it required some more computer skills than an average keybord player normally has.. or better: had at that time... 
I got one as payment for the software program. Did not really fancy it; and sold it after some months. But I think the product in 2007 was "a sinking ship"... after 4 years without anything looking like a breakthrough...

Jørgen

[Bill]

what type of lead would i need to connect my genos to my pc..to use the demo...and are they expensive...just asking as i'm intrigued by this  pc arranger businness

Hi Beano

You connect using a USB Printer Cable.  (Type A-B Cable)

If you have not already installed the Yamaha USB MIDI Driver you will need to do this also. (available from the Yamaha Download Site)

Regards
Bill

[beano]

Thanks for the reply ..bill..gonna browse ebay for them

[groovyband.live]

Thanks for the reply ..bill..gonna browse ebay for them

Those cables are very common and cheap (2÷4 €, depending on the length). Many people have already a few at home (bundled with some other electronic device, such as a printer). You can find them at any local supermarket or TV/Hi-fi/Computer shop (i.e: Media World)). They are also sold by Amazon.

These cables are also (almost) universally used to connect synths, master keyboards, control surfaces, sound expanders, mixers, and many others music related gadgets to computers. Depending on the capabilities of the device they can transmit bidirectionally midi and/or digital audio.

Yamaha arrangers transmit midi only, using a proprietary driver (available only for Windows and MacOS). Other more advanced devices (such us recent Yamaha synths) do not require any proprietary driver (they are said "class compliant", because they use a standardized protocol built-in Windows and many other operating systems out of the box) and transmit midi + many channels of stereo digital audio to and from the computer.

PSR/Tyros/Genos from this point of view can be considered really outdated technology.

[Joe H]

PSR/Tyros/Genos from this point of view can be considered really outdated technology.

Actually, the latest arrangers ARE (from S950 upward) Class Compliant.

Joe H

[groovyband.live]

Actually, the latest arrangers ARE (from S950 upward) Class Compliant.

Joe H

Could you point me to an official Yamaha specification stating that? And why does Yamaha provide (and develop) a proprietary driver if the device (= the arranger) can work even without?

[MarkF_48]

Could you point me to an official Yamaha specification stating that? And why does Yamaha provide (and develop) a proprietary driver if the device (= the arranger) can work even without?

http://faq.yamaha.com/us/en/article/musical-instruments/keyboards/arranger_workstations/psr-s970/10968/9147/?current_page_id=1&sort=best&type=