Creating Style using Style Creator vs in DAW! Which one is easier?

[chikitin]

Hi,

To be honest, I have never made a single complete Style from scratch. I sort of learned how to create it in Daw (Cubase 10 in my case). I always thought it would be easier in DAW. It requires

• Task A: having your markers and tracks ready. We may assume I will use a cubase project template for that. But still you need to edit the Markers to reflect your styles length and MIDI tracks 
• Task B: Setting up the desires sound/voices on PSR
• Task C: recording the source pattern for each track in DAW.
• Task D: Save the file .sty file as MIDI 0
• Task E: open the .sty file and Edit the CASM section.
• Task F: importing Style file into the PSR

Of course, I am simplify the process and not considering adding effects, quantize, etc that are always involved. However, I just watched a video and realized that maybe I am wrong and creating styles on PSR/workstation is much easier. 

• Task 1:Call up the Style Creator display. 
• Task 2: From the BASIC page, select a Section.
• Task 3: Create the Source Pattern for each channel.
• Task 4: Edit the already recorded channel data. Here you can edit SFF parameters and rhythm part.
• Task 5:Repeat steps 3–5 as desired.
• Task 6: Press the or [J] (SAVE) button on any of the pages to save the created Style.

Now, if you don't learn the latter method and you want to simply edit an existing style or editing the Rhythm part of a style ( Drum setup), then you want to almost go through Task A-F one at a time which is ready time consuming for me. But this can be achieved in Style creator much easier.

What do you all think?

[panos]

Whetever method everyone uses to make a new style it is very time consuming.
That's what I see
That is why I prefer the assembly function and changing an existing style little by little,section by section on the keyboard to fit to a specific song.
Is the result the best it could be done?
Maybe not but when I done I have repeated the song's patterns so many times that I have learned to play it.
That it was my goal from the very beginning anyway.
To learn a specific song/melody and find a nice arrangement that fits with it's sections and patterns.

If you cannot find easily a pattern for a part that you want,
you can still record someting by yourself,or insert part/parts from a midi file,
where someone else has allready done the job for you and he spent his time to imitate/copy a song to a midi format.

I am not a style maker or anything just saying my opinion.

[DrakeM]

Every song I post at the forum is performed using a custom song style in some way. I learned to use the keyboard's style creator and have never thought about using a DAW program.

I have tried using a program a couple of times to convert a midi song into a style. However I still had to finish it off by using the keyboard's style creator. I had to record a riff into the style parts or to "copy and paste" a riff from another style into the new style.

I don't think I have ever heard a posted recording here at the forum of someone using a custom song style which they created using a DAW program before. Mind you I have heard recordings done that used a DAW created midi file that the keyboardist played along with but I don't recall anyone saying, "Here is the style I created with a DAW to perform this song with". 

I just have never, ever seen such a Style posted and shared here at the forum before. So, I can't testify which method is better as I have never seen one before to compare.

Regards
Drake

[pjd]

Most of my style creation work involves converting a Standard MIDI File (SMF) to a Yamaha style file. So far, I've converted Motif performances (AKA Motif arpeggios) to styles and I've converted DJX-II patterns to "DJ styles."

I did most of the work in Sonar (DAW) and used Jorgen's tools to add CASM and OTS sections. Yep, adding effects and such takes a fair bit of work. Another big problem, at least for conversion from non-PSR instruments, is remapping drum tracks. The DJX-II conversions were especially nasty.

If you would like to read about the conversion process, please see the links below.

All the best -- pj


Links to style creation resources:

http://sandsoftwaresound.net/getting-started-with-style-files/

Motif performances converted to PSR/Tyros styles:

http://sandsoftwaresound.net/motif-styles-for-your-arranger/
http://sandsoftwaresound.net/mox-perf-to-psr-style-part-1/
http://sandsoftwaresound.net/mox-perf-to-psr-style-part-2/
http://sandsoftwaresound.net/mox-perf-to-psr-style-part-3/

DJX-II patterns converted to PSR/Tyros DJ styles:

http://sandsoftwaresound.net/free-djx-ii-styles-for-psr/
http://sandsoftwaresound.net/mining-the-yamaha-djx-ii/

[chikitin]

To learn a specific song/melody and find a nice arrangement that fits with it's sections and patterns.

If you cannot find easily a pattern for a part that you want,

I have many melodies recorded on my voice recorder and would like to do this. For now, I want to have some mockup arrangements using the melodies and maybe later I do professional recording.

I agree, most of the time there are songs similar to what we want. I think I should spend more time to use my Yamaha keyboard for styles. Thank you for the feedback.

[chikitin]

Most of my style creation work involves converting a Standard MIDI File (SMF) to a Yamaha style file. So far, I've converted Motif performances (AKA Motif arpeggios) to styles and I've converted DJX-II patterns to "DJ styles."

Thank you very much. I like what you have done and certainly will look into your material. By the way, I see you do hardware as well.

Thankfully, I have some background in circuit & digital design. I have also the little bits's SYNTH KIT and Arduino by Korg http://littlebits.cc/kits/synth-kit

I hope I can get into that more some day.