It's all about styles: become a pro-designer or a pro-assembler?

[ton37]

my 2 cents: stop 'creating' new styles from scratch or throught 3rd party software. Unless it is fun for you! This can often lead to disappointment and achieving high-quality sounding styles is a skill in itself. Very time consumming.
If you want to achieve nice results, without having to invest too much and with high-quality results, use the quality that is IN the keyboard.  And by that I mean... Style Assembly...! 
A somewhat underexposed and underappreciated function in the Yamaha keyboards.  If you want to expand that a bit: use a suitable (reassembled) Multipad with such a new assembled style.  Then turn off some Styleparts.  Register something to your taste and save it.
See this tutor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHC6aKWf9vY from Yamaha.
A new world has opened up for you, where the sound quality and professional composition are of the same quality as the keyboard you play on.
Nice is not it?
Happy (assem) bling.bling 



FYI: relevant reference to a post by @Sokratis1974: https://www.psrtutorial.com/forum/index.php/topic,68170.msg514637.html#msg514637
PJD also referred to this: https://www.psrtutorial.com/forum/index.php/topic,68170.msg514527.html#msg514527
Another example of combining asembly and creating a style for 'Another brick in The Wall' by Sting can be found under: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pwlQdBbulU(NB, (pls.  set the translator to your language)

[BogdanH]

my 2 cents: stop 'creating' new styles from scratch or through 3rd party software. Unless it is fun for you! This can often lead to disappointment and achieving high-quality sounding styles is a skill in itself. Very time consuming.
...

..  ..
-yes, that made me smile and it made me thinking...

I guess we all have a bit different approach on how to start learning creating styles and that's ok. Because it also depends on what exactly we wish to achieve and what is the motivation. I notice that the main reason why many quit, is lack of patience to learn basics -and without knowing basic stuff, it's impossible to make a decent style. And in my opinion, starting creating a style by using assembly method is just that: skipping basics.
Yes, it's true that assembly method is faster. But resulting style will never be the way we wish it to be -it will only maybe be usable. It's like tearing out chapters from various books and by using them, making a new novel.

About high-quality styles... the only criteria is, it should sound nice for the song we play.

Just my 2c (if worth) 
Bogdan

[DrakeM]

Yes, sir. That is the way to put your custom styles together. You always get a high quality style using pro parts. 

Where to start? You need a lot of "different" Yamaha styles to work with before you begin. The styles are all posted at the PSRTurorial site found under the STYLES/Yamaha tab.

Then you have to put them in Categories. I keep them in their original 11. The newer keyboards have more names, I just stick them in the same 11 based on what they sound like to me.

I was able to create 16 Hawaiian custom styles using just the ONE style Yamaha gives to us. By the way, the "Hawaiian Waltz" is useless, Hawaiian music is always 4/4 timing. I mixed Country, Jazz and Pop style parts to make the styles.

I always start by going to YouTube to find the Song and record it using "Audacity". Then go to "Musicantax.com" to get the KEY and TEMPO (it should to be the same or close). Take the song MP3 over to my keyboard and find drum patterns I will need for the song first. I play the MP3 and the style with just the drum pattern together at the same timing to make sure they match. Then I do the same thing to find the bass patterns I will need.

Then it's game on to find the Drum and Bass patterns used in the song you are making. Most likely there are 3 drums and 2 bass patterns. Then you will search for CHD1 and CHD2 patterns that match the song.

Just throwing parts together is not the way to go. You have to have an idea of what you want the style to be first.

[PhotoDoc05]

Drake,
Thanks for the link --- slight typo --- it's   Musicstax.com

I've been using Tunebat.com, another site for original Tempo and Key.

Jerry

[andyg]

By the way, the "Hawaiian Waltz" is useless, Hawaiian music is always 4/4 timing.

Er, wait a moment. Try 'Pagan Love Song'. Might not be true Hawaiian but let's be honest, a lot of music that people think of as Hawaiian really isn't. "Just for the tourists", as someone once told me!

Back on topic, I go the 'assembly route', too. I know many of the people who create the styles (and sounds, for that matter) in Yamaha keyboards. They use software that's not available to us, of course! But they are also superb musicians.

Let's assume for a moment that I waved a magic wand and gave all those people asking for 'real style creator' on the keyboard, and I'll assume that I also magically gave people all the technical skills to use it. Now, how many of us would then have the musical skills that my friends at Yamaha have? Composition, arranging, orchestration and so on? All absolutely vital. You have to think and play like a drummer, percussionist, guitarist(s), piano player, string section, horn section, plus all the soloists in the 'phrases'.

Do I have those skills? Most of them (but my guitar playing is rather ropey) and I created basic styles as far back as the 1980s! Would I be able to create a good style and be that 'pro-designer' now? Maybe, but I think I'd still leave it to my expert Yamaha friends! I think I'd stick to being 'pro assembler'. I remember back in the mid 1990s when we put that feature into a Kawai keyboard. Simpler by far than what we can do these days but I still managed to come up with some decent custom styles from those that my talented Japanese and American friends had created.

[pjd]

I gave a pitch for Style Assembly in a different thread, so please count me in.

I've built a lot of styles using phrases from MOD, DJX-II, MM, etc. The amount of detail is excruciating. We've always encouraged -- and cautioned -- beginners about the steep learn curve. Pointing them toward Style Assembly is a better suggestion for starting out.

Thanks, Ton -- pj

P.S. Like that gliding marquee!

[rattley]

Hello!

Go ahead!  Discourage me some more!  I need to know what I am getting myself into. And I'm ready for the challenge. It's all good!  I had an old boss who always said "If it was easy everyone would be doing it".  As much as I hated that saying it is certainly true in this case. And think about this..... If everyone was making styles how many would actually be keepers?  We would have thousands more mediocre styles, something that already exists on the web.  Those few gems I find would be much rarer. Unless I'm missing something I don't think the pro style makers have anything to worry about.  Nobody seems to want their jobs except a sap like me!!  -charley

[mikf]

Charley - I'm so confident my hundred dollars is safe. Think I might spend it.
Mike