Do you merge songs with styles?

[sugarplumsss]

I spoke in person with a yamaha expert on our keyboard. It was a rushed conversation, but
I believe for my dual purpose... saving registrations for styles, and for saving MIDI songs... he recommended saving them both as registrations.
I wanted feedback from those who do as I do... using both style based performances as well as MIDI song performances on the same gig.

Is it an error for me to mix a style in the registration with a MIDI song?

I have been attempting to accomplish these saves... I am careful to uncheck song in the memory content when saving only style. I am not sure why.. but it seems more to the purpose of that registration for style only.

Anyway, I was hoping to engender discussion on this topic.

[travlin-easy]

They are different animals and cannot be merged.

Gary

[Pino]

Same animal, can be merged and saved to registrations

Gary, as soon as you check✅ 'Song and Style" in the Registration memory then it will merge the midi

The keyboard only understands one thing and that's MIDI, no matter where it's coming from.
When you press the "sync start" on the Song Control then it will pay whatever midi information is in the tracks and will "sync" along with a Style.


There are many options to saving midi and style to Registrations

1   Midi out for SongBook page turn (1 per Reg, can turn page 1,2,3 same song and back)

2   Midi out to control my Ketron SD 40 voices, (1 Voice change per Reg)

3   You can play the midi with the Style and change the chords

4   you can record a counter melody and have control over everything by
   entering the CC, eg, voice, volume, reverb, and play alone with a style.

5   import drums and a bass line from a midi file and play along with your style
   turn off tracks 10 and 11.

But there are certain rules and better if familiar with midi CC'c
Has to be the same Key, and must follow the bar numbers of the song.

Pino. 🎹

[sugarplumsss]

Gary, I miss our chats. Pino, cool..
So between the Yamaha tech and Pino and Gary.. we have two opinions.
Not, absolutely not, in the spirit of politics today.. but rather in the spirit of sharing, learning, opening up to new ways of looking at things:
I would like this conversation to go further.

But before we do, let me clarify the term "merge" or merging Style and Midi song.

I think this term, merge, was misleading. I play style files as registrations  and Midi songs, independent of one another.  Pino, perhaps I misled you!

The only reason I used the term merge, is the REGISTRATION commonality between styles and Midi songs...  and the registration was the advice the Yamaha fellow ( a smart fellow ) gave. ( Again, I did not have opportunity to question him on the details of this "merging" of style and Song, as applied to live gigs.

My question kind of backs up into another area as well... you older folks know the expression  ' the knee bone is connected to the leg bone'.  The issue in the background has been gone over many times... namely how to organize songs for quickest access on live gigs, where "dead air" is not viewed favorably.

OT but related: I was thinking of a wishlist item for future Genos... and this feature would magnetic a genos' value even more so.
Imagine talking to the genos with song requests that are already loaded in??
Sorry for the divergence.

So can we open up this discussion about best way to save many styles associated with songs, and also MIDI songs?
While many of you, most of you... are not in my shoes... understand that I am approaching old age and am forced to eek out a living in music, the only profession
I am knowledgeable about.
So these factors all come to bear on this challenge of labeling and deciding best ways to store.
1. SPEED of loading songs- regardless of midi songs, or style files.
And
2. speed is connected to the smartest way to organize on T4.

[DrakeM]

I got a question on this. Are you saying I can start a Midi file (to play the intro) and then flip over to the style seamlessly, and play the rest of the song using my style on my PSR-S950?

[Fred Smith]

I got a question on this. Are you saying I can start a Midi file (to play the intro) and then flip over to the style seamlessly, and play the rest of the song using my style on my PSR-S950?

It depends on your definition of "seamless". This would be mine:

1. Your registration loads both a midi file and a style, with the mains set appropriately.
2. You start the midi manually with the play button.
3. While the midi is playing, you press the Sync Start/Stop button
4. When the intro is done, start playing.

But, as you're good at modifying styles Drake, why wouldn't you just put the intro into a user style?

Fred

[Fred Smith]

So can we open up this discussion about best way to save many styles associated with songs, and also MIDI songs?
While many of you, most of you... are not in my shoes... understand that I am approaching old age and am forced to eek out a living in music, the only profession
I am knowledgeable about.
So these factors all come to bear on this challenge of labeling and deciding best ways to store.
1. SPEED of loading songs- regardless of midi songs, or style files.
And
2. speed is connected to the smartest way to organize on T4.

As always, I think registrations are the best solution. A registration can have both a midi file and a style memorized in it.

You should have one registration bank per song, and name the bank with the song title. Then all your songs are in alphabetical order, which is the easiest way to find them. You can find the next registration while the ending of your current song is playing. Note that you can load a registration while an ending (or any part of a style) is playing. Just don't trigger the first registration until the style has finished.

On a Genos, you can also have playlists. which may make it easier to find songs in certain situations (when they're organized by genre, for example).

Hope this helps,
Fred

[DrakeM]

Thanks Fred.

I may mess with trying to use both in a registration later.

I play by ear and I do write the intro notes on my lead sheets, but I have to remember the melody of the intro. For new songs, I sometimes can't recall what the intro is off the top of my head and putting a midi at the start would make things really simple.

Cutting up a Midi file and using it in a style is not easy to get the timing right, I wish Yamaha would make it simpler for us.

I have pretty much given up trying to convert a midi into a style with the software I have. It is more efficient to just search for the needed parts that come with the keyboard (and all the older Yamaha styles) to make a custom song style. Then just Record some of my own fills to the style to finish it out.
Regards
Drake

[sugarplumsss]

I got a question on this. Are you saying I can start a Midi file (to play the intro) and then flip over to the style seamlessly, and play the rest of the song using my style on my PSR-S950?

No, I am not!   Interesting idea you have, but it never occurred to me.
Just styles and songs, independent of one another.

Yamaha sells MIDI songs at around $9 a piece, that really ( generally speaking, there are a few imperfections ) sound professional. I wish I had known about higher quality MIDI songs prior to a year ago.

I have not done this yet, but you can completely mute, or alter the volume of any of the 16 parts.. also slow down the tempo. and change the voices of any or all of the 16 parts. What this means is, you can learn the parts the creator of the MIDI file used. I am amazed at the detail of some of these songs... it would take me untold hours to eg learn the precise melody, or bass part or various keyboard parts that Yamaha transcriber spent to copying each part of a pop song.
Now, ALL these songs are not that detailed, but some are, and I am still impressed by this level of craftsmanship. 

[sugarplumsss]

Fred
You say "as always", and I am seeing registrations are The Way.

I know this has been brought up before,  but why do you say, one Bank per song?
Is it to have voice modifications at the ready in other registrations within the Bank?

I can foresee having 500 songs, maybe even 1000 songs.
Do I scroll with a wheel!! to move through the alphabetized long list??

[panos]

Hi sugarplumsss,
I don't gig to know if it is more convinient to have two different folders or just one.
I would probably choose to have one folder with a distinguished icon,mark or letter to know which registration is to be played by me with a style and which with a midi song.
For a keyboard makes no difference if they are in the same folder or not.
It can "understand" what it should play.
We use folders to make things easier for us to find.
For the keyboard they could all be in one single main folder(styles+midis+voices+regs+pads+wav files etc) it's the same thing for it.

Drake, for intros with melodic parts I would use the Midi2style and got extracted some parts exactly as they were  from a midi file that would be played from the keyboard,like the long intro 3 that we have on Yamaha's styles.

Another way to use a style with a midi song is this:
If you have recorded a midi song on your keyboard with a style(like the covers we do),
while you play the midi file you can press the Start/Stop button
and choose different styles so you can listen to your cover how it would sound if you have recorded it using other styles.
It won't play any style parts from the original style and will only use parts of the new style you will choose.
It will keep playing the right hand melodies, it will play the chords and it will navigate through the Main Variations(intros-mains-fill ins,break) as you have recorded it.
Just to see if the song could fit nicely with another style.
The good thing about this is that it won't play all the midi parts along with the style as it will do with a third party midi song.

[sugarplumsss]

Panos

I just discovered the large number of ICONS that are available when you Use NAME

So far I just use one of the ICONS called MIDI for the registrations intended as MIDI songs.

[Fred Smith]

I know this has been brought up before,  but why do you say, one Bank per song?

1. To find songs quickly. They are all in alphabetical order.
2. I actually have 26 subfolders (A-Z) to accommodate all the registrations I have. So when I'm looking for "Tammy", I just look in the T folder.
3. Using one bank per song allows you to support an intro, an ending, tempo changes, transpositions, voice changes, style variation changes, fills, breaks, etc. And these are all done without taking your hands off the keyboard. One reg per song is too boring to me, and requires too many manual interventions (intro, ending, fill, etc.)

Fred

[sugarplumsss]

I have been mainly gigging
But with limited time, I am making slow progress.

The issue with tyros "getting confused" between
The style tempo which I assume is associated
With the registration tempo that style was saved as

And the tempo of the MIDI SONG

there seems to be a conflict

And unless youve actually tried saving a registraiin
With both MIDI SONG and a style
You may not notice this issue

The yamaha rep who gave me inout was the person
Who said save the song as a registration

He also said  i should hit the +  -  buttons simultaeously
To reset the song tempo.

I am wondering if I can do a save to reg
That makes  pressing both tempo buttons,
Unecessary

[Fred Smith]

Yes you can have your registration set the tempo properly. Just make sure the song tempo and the style tempo are the same when you memorize the reg.

Fred