Sequencer Styles

[casiokid]

Is it possilbe to create a new 8 bar style in a keyboard's sequencer using the loop function or would chord changing be impossible.

[DerekA]

It's not clear what you are asking here, you don't create styles in the sequencer (aka MIDI song)

The only way to create a style on the keyboard is to use the style creator. You set the pattern length, then record each part one at a time. The style creator recording function loops round the pattern on the currently selected part until you are finished, then you move on to the next part, etc. When you use the style, it transposes the pattern to match the chord you're playing.

Can you ask your question in a different way? What do you want to do?

[casiokid]

Thanks DerekA

What I'm asking is, if I loop continuously 8 bars of a song, what can can change as I play? On a keyboard without Style Creator.

[SciNote]

An important question is, what kind of keyboard do you have?  That way, we may be able to determine what features it has.

But, as a general rule, a sequencer more or less functions like a tape recorder -- it will just play back exactly what you play when you record, and will not transpose its notes based on the chords you are playing on the keyboard when you play the sequencer recording back.  And on some keyboards, like my PSR-E433, there is a looping function, but (as I recall), it plays a clicking metronome count for a measure or two before each repetition of the loop, making the looping function even less useful as a background accompaniment.  It's more of a teaching tool for helping a keyboardist learn how to play a part of the recorded song.

About the closest I would be able to do to use the sequencer of my keyboard as a style would be to record the background that I want of an entire specific song -- with all of the chord changes recorded into this sequencer recording.  Then, after recording this background, I could just start that sequencer recording to play the background, and I could play along with it.  But of course, this would only work specifically for one particular song -- you'd have to record a specific background of an entire song on the sequencer for each song you'd want to play.  And if, while playing, you made a mistake, you could not "improvise" and repeat a measure or anything like that, because your background on the sequencer would just keep on playing what you had previously recorded.

But, let us know what keyboard you have and, if it's something any of us are familiar with, we'll see if there are any other options for you.

[casiokid]

Thank you SciNote

Currently I don't have a keyboard but I'm looking at the E400 series.  In the past I've had Casio and Korg and have found that the styles are often 'too busy' to be to my liking.  Particularly drum and bass parts.  Therefore in anticipation of buying such a keyboard I was wondering if I could create styles from the sequencer, but I think you have confirmed my own thoughts and conclusions.  Thanks again.

[SciNote]

My pleasure, glad I could help!  So, yeah -- the PSR-E400 series -- that's kind of my area of expertise, as I have the PSR-E433, though I don't use all of its features.  With styles, I usually just keep the auto accompaniment off and only use the drum rhythms.

Currently, the most recent keyboard in this line is the PSR-E463, though most of us are anticipating its replacement -- the PSR-E473 -- to be released within the next few months, though that is pure speculation at this point.  And what additional functions it may have is also pure speculation at this point.

But yes, the E463 has no style creator on board, and I would suspect that all of its looping and sequencing functions work just like on my E433.  And I guess I should clarify what I wrote before -- while the sequencer does, in concept, work like a tape recorder, it is not actually recording the audio of what you play, but it instead records the data of each keystroke you play (such as what note you play, when you play it, how hard you hit the key, the tone selected for that note, and a variety of other information) as you play them.  This is MIDI data.  Then, when you play the recording back on the keyboard, the keyboard's sequencer just sees and interprets this data and uses this data to just tell the keyboard what notes to play, when to play them, what tone to use, and all of the other parameters stored in the sequencer MIDI recording.

I do believe it is possible to send this data to a computer with a "MIDI to style" creator program, and then use that program to create the style on the computer.  But this would have to be done on a computer, not the keyboard.  Once the custom style is created on the computer, it can then be loaded on to the PSR-E463 as an additional style -- I believe the PSR-E463 can store up to 10 additional styles.  The style would have to adhere to certain limitations for it to be able to be loaded and work on the PSR-E463.  For example, I don't think it can be more than 50K bytes in size, and it could only have two variations (the A/B variations), not four variations like you see on the PSR-S/PSR-SX/Tyros/Genos keyboards.

[DerekA]

Also worth noting that the E4xx models have the ability to switch parts of the style on/off as you play, which can make them less 'busy'.

But I guess fundamentally, if you want to create your own patterns that transpose with the chord, you need the style creator. You can get external software to create styles, but if you want to keep it all on the keyboard you need at least a PSR model.