Whats Your Approach For Storing User Styles With Linked Registration

[Nova227]

I have good understanding of the Registration concept but i am not sure how to organize my large collections of imported user styles.

I know that once you have set up a Registation and linked it to a User Style you can not move the style or change the name ,while a Registration can be stored any where and moved because its liked to the styles location and name.

When i am reviewing a batch of user styles from my collection I copy the files to a folder on my User Drives for review. The styles that have potential for a song i save it to folder called "Good". I use the USER Drive for this because it provides the tagging system for Favourites.

When i create a song from the one of these styles from the "Good" folder I move it to a file folder on the USER drive called " Linked". I create my Regestration and respect the fact that i cant be modifying anything in the Linked folder.

Does this make sense. I seems complicated but it insures the link between the Style and Reg is not broken.

Is there a better approach ?

I am using SX 900

[MadrasGiaguari]

Dear Nova,

how to organize Styles and Registrations is a very personal matter, and there are many ways to do that.
IMHO it should preliminarily made clear WHAT is your FINAL TARGET.

In my personal case, my final target is to have many Registrations Banks, each related to an ARTIST (Beatles, Procol Harum, Frank Sinatra, ecc.), where I have ONE SongStyle for each Registration.
The Registrations will automatically be listed in alphabetical order; therefore it is very easy and fast to find the Artist whose songs you want to play.
In the same area of these registrations I place also Banks that do not refer to one single artist (as above) but to  songs of various Artists that could be considered of the same category.
As an example, I have a Bank named MixDisco, where I have popular Disco songs from the '70s; another Bank named MixBolero, another named MixSlow (Jazz), ecc. When I fill up the MixDisco Bank with 10 Registrations (=10 Songs), then I rename the Bank as MixDisco1, and make a new empty Bank named MixDisco2 (or 3, or 4 ecc.).

But this is the FINAL TARGET.

In order to may get to the point that I save a Song/Style in a specific Registration Bank, as described above, I must have a rich amount of Styles  to may choose from to select the one that could better fit  the Song that I have in mind.
I recall that one of the Forum members once suggested to do a deep search among available Styles in order to identify the Style that can decently be used for that particular song. And I agree 100% to this concept.

Therefore in the User area I have a folder called MyStyles, including Preset Styles (not all, but only the ones that I think I may use, considering the genres of music that I like to play) and other Styles downloaded from this Forum, or from other sources on the Web.

In this folder named MyStyles, I made the following subfolders, each one containing Styles of the same or similar category, for easy search:
-6/8 & Waltz
-8Beat
-16Beat
-Ball Room
-Dance
-Jazz
-Latin
As you can see, this does not correspond to the Preset Styles organization. But I found easier to search a Style.

In order to better identify the Styles in the same subfolder, I rename the original Style name, by adding (at the beginning of the Style name) the category (and sometimes the sub-category), the Tempo value.
For instance:
-the Preset Style FusionShuffle, has been copied in the 8Beat subfolder, and renamed as "8Fk 080 FusionShuffle", where 8Fk means Funky, 080 is the Tempo.
-the Preset Style PowerPopBallad, has been copied in the 8Beat subfolder, and renamed as "8Rk 061 PowerPopBallad", where 8Rk means Rock, 061 is the Tempo.

This renaming method automatically  creates a list (within the 8Beat subfolder) where the Styles will be listed one category after the other (first all generic 8Beat Styles, then all 8Fk Styles, then 8Rk Styles, ecc.) and, within the same category, the Tempo value will progressively position the Styles.

Every time I download new Styles, I put them in a new Folder (out of MyStyles folder) named very simple just to remember where the Styles come from. If YOU would publish a set of Styles, I would download them to my computer in a folder named Nova, copy into a Usb stick, load the folder in the User area; start to play one Style at the time and listen very carefully.
If I don't need a Style, I just delete it.
If I think that the Style is interesting, and different from the ones I already have in MyStyles collection, I RENAME the Style with the same criteria described above, and MOVE immediately that Style in the MyStyles subfolder pertaining to the new Style. So the new Style has been added to my collection.
Let's make an example.
In Nova set I find a nice Bossa Nova, called JazzBossa3. I rename as Bs 125 JazzBossa3 Nv (=from Nova set), review the Style to improve it (often needs to be "converted" to Genos sounds, if the Style was made with an older arranger); MOVE the Style to MyStyles/Latin.

Let's proceed to the conclusion....

This way I got my Styles collection. But I need SongStyles.

So, if I like to have a SongStyle for "My Way" (Frank Sinatra), I'll go straight to open the subfolder 8Beat and start to play Styles whose Tempo is around 70. Finally I find that 8 068 PianoBallad (Preset) is very good for My Way.
Change OTS if needed, edit the Style for better matching with the song, change Tempo to 70, and SAVE it in a large folder called SONGSTYLES (where I presently have about 500 Styles) renaming as "MyWay 8 PianoBallad".

Now, go to Registration mode, go to SongRegistrations folder (that you need to create once for all), open (or make, if not yet made) the "FrankSinatra" Bank, and save "MyWay 8 PianoBallad" in the first empty Registration of this Bank.
When saving, make sure that "Voice", "Style" and "Tempo" are checked. Go to Registration Edit and rename the new Registration as "My way".

As you can see, I use the registrations only in the final step of the process. I don't use the registrations for organizing the Styles, but only when they become SongStyles.

Of course there are many more details that could be mentioned, but the above information at least let you understand a method for organizing Styles and SongStyles. And, most important, this is the way I PERSONALLY like to organize Styles.

If you need any clarification about what I tried to describe, please tell me.

Ciao

Angelo

[Fred Smith]

I have good understanding of the Registration concept but i am not sure how to organize my large collections of imported user styles.

I know that once you have set up a Registation and linked it to a User Style you can not move the style or change the name ,while a Registration can be stored any where and moved because its liked to the styles location and name.

When i am reviewing a batch of user styles from my collection I copy the files to a folder on my User Drives for review. The styles that have potential for a song i save it to folder called "Good". I use the USER Drive for this because it provides the tagging system for Favourites.

When i create a song from the one of these styles from the "Good" folder I move it to a file folder on the USER drive called " Linked". I create my Regestration and respect the fact that i cant be modifying anything in the Linked folder.

Does this make sense. I seems complicated but it insures the link between the Style and Reg is not broken.

Is there a better approach ?

I am using SX 900

I don't see a better approach. My potential styles are in a folder called Inventory, but the process is the same. Test time out, and ones I want to use I move to my performance folder.

Cheers,
Fred

[Nova227]

Thanks for the feedback. I seem to be using the same reasoning as you guys.

Since RAM memory is so cheap. It would be great for Yamaha to include all resources linked to a Registration saved to one file that is - contains user style , pads and voice plus all reg setting.