How can I test many styles?

[VilleGuy]

Time for a dumb question from this newbie:

What is the best way to test/audition a ton of styles? I've gathered hundreds of styles and would like to check them all quickly, but could use some advice on how to do it.

Thanks in advance.

[Normanfernandez]

Copy them to a Pen Drive, and play it back directly from the keyboard.


I personally think there's no Shortcut.
You'll have to listen to them one by one.

[Pino]

Delete them all. 

Save 10 of the best styles on your keyboard
Match 2 or 3 songs per style, that's 20 to 30 songs
Play your keyboard everyday till you can play at least 20 songs back to back.

My advice, spend your time playing.
You will go further.

Pino

[Fred Smith]

Gary Diamond had the best advice some time ago.

All of us tend to accumulate styles we might use "someday". But we never get around to "someday".

So when you download a style, audition it immediately. If you're not willing to incorporate it into your repertoire right then, delete it.

Cheers,
Fred

[DrakeM]

Look at the styles you have and sort out the ones which have the NAME of the song as it's name. Then throw out the Songs you know you are never going to want to play. Next listen to the styles that have NAMES you think you would play and throw out the styles that sound like JUNK.

The styles that don't have a Song NAME ... you throw out all of them. Those styles are only good for PARTS to create a custom style. You already have all the styles you need to do that ON YOUR KEYBOARD.

I have said this before: You are going to "waste" more time going through styles to find one you can use THAN if you would just put together a custom made songs style for a song "You want to play" on your keyboard.

It isn't that difficult to learn to do, have you even tried to put one together?

I only use Gary Diamond's collection, Gerald's collection, Maximan's collection.  I also I use a collection called PRO-Styles that I use only for parts and it has some great patterns and riffs contained in them. And of course I collect every YAMAHA factory and Style Pack styles from past and present keyboards that I can get my hands on. 

Regards
Drake

[VilleGuy]

Good advice from everyone, with special thanks to Drake.

[Toril S]

I do it a little differently. Because styles inspire me to compose new songs, I like styles that are not especially made for a song. I audition a lot of styles, and seldem delete a style. Style auditioning is part of my workflow. But I only listen to some every day, and yes, there is much junk, but when I find a gem that I can use I get my reward. A melody is born.

[Henni]

1. Put the styles you want to test in one folder.
2. Select Intro 3
3. Play a chord
4. Just before the intro is finished, select the next style
5. Go through all the styles in this fashion.

Intro 3 is normally a good indication of what resides in the rest of the style.

[Toril S]

Agree with Henni!

[mikf]

Truth is - its a pain. And the amount of junk in a large number of downloaded styles is often huge. Also many of the styles that actually work will be duplicates, or just pre- set styles with a tempo change (or very minor editing) then re-named. That is the reason why I long ago stopped collecting styles  Unless you do what Gary suggested, and Fred repeated here, and audition and cull immediately, they can be pretty useless. Its like hoarding thousands of old screws just in case. You can never find the one you need so you go and buy more.
Mike

[beykock]

Henni is absolutely right.

BUT ...
A sty = a midi file, correct ?

Is there not a free software prog available that makes it possible to listen to the styles in a pc or ... wishful thinking  ?

Babette

[Dick Rector]

Henni is absolutely right.

BUT ...
A sty = a midi file, correct ?

Is there not a free software prog available that makes it possible to listen to the styles in a pc or ... wishful thinking  ?

Babette

Big problem is that on most pc's you are very limited with the voices. They have ONLY the standard 127 midi voices and not the enormous amount of the beautiful Yamaha voices. My PC is next to my keyboard and I have connected them together. Using headphones connected to the keyboard I play the style or midi on the pc but use the soundprocessor of the keyboard. That way you here the 'real' sound.

My two pennies for today.

[VilleGuy]

Thank you, Henni. Tips like that, drawn from experience, help newbies like me save a lot of time!

Al

[alanclare]

Gary Diamond had the best advice some time ago.

All of us tend to accumulate styles we might use "someday". But we never get around to "someday".

So when you download a style, audition it immediately. If you're not willing to incorporate it into your repertoire right then, delete it.

Cheers,
Fred

Excellent advice Fred. The trouble is, it comes too late for the many of us who have garnered Styles (predominantly via this forum) without giving a thought to how we were going to use them. I have about 1,800 on a usb-stick, and I can spend a lot of time, rather aimlessly, wandering through them. I think I'm going to go through them and see how Henni's method, using Intro3 works out.

Alan

[Pino]

Well, my post 'delete them all' may seem crazy,

But, after auditioning 3rd party style over the years and gaining nothing.
I prefer to 'edit' what I have on my keyboard or other Yamaha styles like Genos styles

Getting familiar with an app like 'StyleMagic' is the best way forward.
Then you can import midi intros and make real 'song styles'

Well worth the investment in time and the small purchase cost.

Pino

[alanclare]

Excellent advice Fred. The trouble is, it comes too late for the many of us who have garnered Styles (predominantly via this forum) without giving a thought to how we were going to use them. I have about 1,800 on a usb-stick, and I can spend a lot of time, rather aimlessly, wandering through them. I think I'm going to go through them and see how Henni's method, using Intro3 works out.

Alan

Oops! I've just asked my laptop how many files on my StylesBackup stick. 18,500! Pino - I won't need to delete them; I'll see what life's like without them. I'll take a bit of persuading that it's worth it to spend the time learning how to use StyleMagic, but I'll have a look at it.

Alan

[Jørgen]

Hi

Ooops, oops and oops again...   
120,000 + styles... 
And I stopped collecting some years ago...
Hardly ever looked in the collection, just collecting... 

Jørgen

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[VilleGuy]

I assume StyleMagic only work on PCs?
Sigh.

Al
(A Mac user.)

[rikkisbears]

Hi,
I've only been collecting factory styles for the last few years, too many user styles about to try and sort thru. Collected every style I could many years back when I had the 9000 pro, spent all my time deleting duplicates and dumping useless styles.

Currently sorting thru the factory ones  I've managed to collect,  to  work out what's missing and of those missing which ones sound best on my  sx900. I'm only basing duplicates on intro's , though I was told fills can be different too
Not sure I'll worry about it to that degree though.

Surprising how different versions of exactly the same style can sound, some good , some not so good.

[alanclare]

I've had a look at StyleMagic and it's going to require a lot of effort and time before I could call myself proficient in its use. I'm going to carry on with what I've got and use the Style Editor to play around with styles.

Also 53 Euros is a bit off-putting.

Alan