SX900 internal styles organized into meaningful categories

[RagJose]

Hello fellow SX900 owners!  I am quite new to this forum as a registered member, although having obtained quite a bit of insight as a guest over the years.

I got me an SX900 a few months ago, while keeping my old and faithful 3000.  The SX is quite a step from its predecessors, but a complaint I had is about how Yamaha reorganized the Styles in this model.  Users of previous models have probably noticed that "Ballad", "Country" and "Swing&Jazz" are gone, and the related styles were scattered between "Pop and Rock", "Dance" and "Jazz" categories.  The latter includes Pops and Ballads, despite its name.  Moreover, as Yamaha's creativity has traditionally had it, many 16-beat and 6/8 style names bear no hint about their time signature.  Also, like in previous models, under "Ballroom", "Movie&Show", "Entertainer" and "World" we find styles belonging to all categories.  Finding the most suitable style for a song is a challenge, at least before an extensive experience with the particular keyboard model is achieved.  The 3000 has little over 400 styles.  The SX900 has 525.

I eventually took over the task of classifying each of the SX900 styles under one of 12 categories:

00B ("Free" styles)
03B (Waltzes)
08B (Ballads, softer Pop)
12B (6/8 by convention, but 12/8 in fact)
16B (Ballads, slower Pop)
Dnc (mostly with Bass Drum on every beat)
Lat (all colors of Latin except Brazilian)
Mch (Marches)
MPB (Brazilian popular music - Bossa, Samba etc.)
MRB (Brazilian regional music - our "country" styles)
PRk (Pop and Rock, faster styles)
SJz (Swing and Jazz)

The job took me several days, but the resulting list is proving quite useful to expedite finding (or not) a satisfactory internal style for a given song, either a new one or one played on a previous keyboard.  The default tempo of each style, which I recorded along with its assigned category, helps in further narrowing down the choices.  I'm sharing this list here, as an Excel spreadsheet, hoping it turns out useful to at least some of you, and would appreciate any feedback or questions. 

Cheers -- José

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[J. Larry]

 As an SX 900 owner, I don't like the present organization of styles.  Much prefer what we had on previous models.  I spend too much time looking, searching, trying to recall where everything is located.  Must continue to remember that Bluegrass and Country Waltz are in "World", as one example.

[rene]

i agree , it's not practical
there can no longer be an alphabetical classification which was easier to find a style.

from britanny , france

[blackpool]

Thanks for the list ....I have several which I use and they are handy, but
An easy solution to find the 'most' suitable styles in my opinion is  -

Convert the Tyros 5 music finder records - uk version to a playlist ( and any other 'decent' music finder files you might find ).
Tyros is best as its up to date and extensive and also has the 3 upper voices ( unlike psr with 2 )
You will find this provides a registration bank for each record/tune as well as a huge single playlist

This system will use the factory 900 styles which match the old T5 files in every case in the conversion.

Then -Simply search your song name in the registration screen and your resulting style and example tempo will be be there for you in the results in a reg bank of its own  ( each music finder record has then an individual bank ready made for you with its own song title )

I have several MF files converted to playlist .... I dont bother with the playlist myself but do find the registration banks VERY handy as a search option. Although I am aware you could search in Playlist, i find registration much better as i also have my own work in there. Plus why bother with all the memory of huge playlists when its really the registration info which contains the styles which you need.

I fully agree it is difficult as genres are VERY mixed on the 700/900 indexes

Once you have the search results of the song names and style  - a good tip is to then move to your style screen and type in your style result title to check against your User/usb contents by searching the same style name . and you then get lots more options to try as possibilities.
Many of imported styles are song titled, so its often worth doing a style title search as well as a song title search while you are in this screen, so you dont miss anything ... I have tens of 1000's of styles so you can imagine !!!!

I hope i made sense with this ....lol ....but it sort of works for me in a simple way ....and for me it has to be simple...

Keith

[EileenL]

When you find a style you use a lot or want to find it quickly put it into favorites. I find this works well
and saves a lot of time searching.

[blackpool]

Yes thats a good tip Eileen and i for one do do that

But i think the point Jose was making here was ...it is finding them in the first place

Keith

[RagJose]

Thanks to all who responded, and to Keith in particular for the detailed procedure he described.  Moreover, he is absolutely right on his comment to Eileen's post - the challenge I addressed is to find the style you like most but don't yet know the name of, in a new keyboard you're not yet familiar with and whose style naming and organization don't help.

In fact, Eileen, I kind of did what you suggested, as I attributed my own "grades" to each of the 525 styles as I auditioned them.  I did not include my grades in the spreadsheet, as they reflect my own taste and background.

Back to Keith and his suggested procedure, I guess I will eventually have to get into playlists and registrations, as Music Finder is gone in the SX's.  There are questions I'd like to ask about your procedure, but will send them in private as I feel they deviate from this thread's subject.  I would comment, though, that in my experience MFD "migration" is not really accurate or complete, as equivalent styles are often named differently across models.  I had this problem when trying to move my repertoire from the 2100 to the 3000.

Cheers -- José

[blackpool]

If you have not seen this before Jos'e  ( i have posted it in the past )

Really you can forget playlist here ....just use the conversion as a 'vehicle' to then provide the named registrations which it creates.
as said I actually deleted the playlist created by the conversion

The T5 MFD files are IMHO converted to the most suitable styles on the SX

Note that this demo is for the Genos but it works in the very same way for SX

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nB6ntNgJhM

Simply then go to you reg screen and search the results ... but if you need any other help, yes, no probs ...get in touch or start a new thread.

Keith

ps... i keep banging on about this ...but playlists are simply 'lists' so when an MDF is converted it HAS to also create registrations for the playlist to get its data from. yamaha ( and tony in the video ) fail to explain this and it is a hidden gem !!

[Fred Smith]

i agree , it's not practical
there can no longer be an alphabetical classification which was easier to find a style.

from britanny , france

There never was an alphabetical classification.

But you can put them in alphabetical order simply by copying them.

Cheers,
Fred

[blackpool]

Yes Fred .... but now we have an easy search option, i personally dont see the need for an alphabetical list

Keith

[Fred Smith]

Yes Fred .... but now we have an easy search option, i personally dont see the need for an alphabetical list

Keith

Sorry, but I do. Everything else is organized alphabetically, why not styles? What benefit is there in the current organization?

Cheers,
Fred

[blackpool]

I take your point - but the conversions from MF are automatically placed in alphabetical order in the reg banks . obviously by song title not style
Its not something that I have ever considered on genos or sx  re styles.  but i suppose if anybody want to look through lists then yes it would matter. and as you say by copying it would work fine

keith 

[EileenL]

It is easy to move your playlist to the order you want to play it in and only takes a minute to do using
the UP and Down arrows. Don't forget to re-save it though.

[RagJose]

I see the discussion drifted a bit to sorting and/or searching, but these only come to be an issue when you already know which style you are after... If you'd like to select an internal style of a keyboard you're not yet familiar with, knowing what's behind misleading or cryptic (though creative) stylenames facilitates looking it up.

For instance, let's say I'd like to find a nice style for a slow 16-beat ballad.  At the SX screen I can search for "16", but many possibilities will not be presented just because "16" does not appear in their names.  That kind of situation is what set me to carry the "survey" that resulted in the spreadsheet I've shared.  With it, in this instance one can filter just the styles labeled as "16B" for audition.  The default tempo can also be used to further shorten the list.  And then, "favorites" can be flagged, as Eileen pointed out.  Hope I made myself perhaps more clear...

Cheers -- José

P.S.: I mention this within the spreadsheet itself, but you can use it as a starting point to modify "my" categories and/or define your own - Larry could, for instance, label Country styles as a separate category, say "Cty", wherever they lie under the SX style tree.

[blackpool]

I fully take your point Jos'e it is difficult at best ....for a way to find the best options.

Not sure if Peters latest offering might help as well, see this thread - if you have not already ...
this has a 'find' facility of course and there are 1000's of styles matched with their suitable songs, see -
https://www.psrtutorial.com/forum/index.php/topic,44805.0.html

In fact if you look at that forum cat. 'music finder' you might find some of the threads useful

In the meantime, good luck with your project and do look into converting some of the 'better' MFD stuff around into registration banks, it is not difficult...It really has made my life a lot easier when trying to find a suitable style.

Keith

[RagJose]

Thanks again, Keith!  Guess it will take some time to get up to speed with the heaps of information already in the Forum.  Will visit the Music Finder threads as soon as I can.

Took a look at the link you provided and downloaded Peter's 2018 spreadsheet, a huge compilation of suggested Styles for more than 8000 Songs alphabetically organized.  Wow.  But found out he recently started another thread (https://www.psrtutorial.com/forum/index.php/topic,55098.0.html) making available a new spreadsheet, much more complete, and constructed the other way around - from Styles to suitable Songs, most entries with multiple songs for each Style.  Hats off to him!

In this last file, he lists 1960 unique styles, more than any single keyboard could offer.  I'm curious about whether he kept track of where each Style came from, as I know from experience that often homonymous Styles are not quite the same across models.  But maybe he meant his list just as a search starting point.

Regards -- José

[rcpilot]

Looks to me like no one likes the SX900/700 styles categories and organization.
I do wander who is the idiot at Yamaha that changed it from what was pretty darn good before??
Lee

[Toril S]

So do I!

[RagJose]

Exactly, Lee.  That's why I eventually created the spreadsheet I shared with my opening post in this thread.  Everytime I set to play a new song, or a song I had in my repertoire at a previous keyboard, it expedites the finding and choice of a matching, or at least suitable, SX900 style.

Whoever decided to change the styles organization at Yamaha is probably no idiot, but the reason behind it was certainly not to make our life easier  ...  a nice attitute would be to justify, or at least explain the change in the manual or in their online material, as a courtesy to players of previous models.  They did that about the end of Music Finder, although not very convincingly.  Playlists+RegMemories allow more flexibility as far as settings, but I still find Music Finder more convenient for live gigs.  It is in no way "obsolete".  I keep my 3000 for the road, and the SX mostly for studio work.

José

[Toril S]

Please look at this thread. Enildo also rearranged the XS styles.

https://www.psrtutorial.com/forum/index.php/topic,54683.msg427096.html#msg427096

[RagJose]

Thanks, Toril!  Checked it and posted a message to Enildo.  Coincidence, another Brazilian...

[Pino]

I agree, looks like it was done in a hurry just to get it out.

Enildo has done a really good job and included many style but it does not show the tempo which is important to me.

Pino