Yamaha has got to be Joking, right

[J. Larry]

I've got no complaints about Yamaha styles.  I think the onboard styles of the SX 900 are great.  I take a lot of requests and can usually find a style that will work.  I don't have the time nor inclination to modify or create styles.  Neither have I ever used the extra packs, although I should try them sometime.  Many of the factory styles are still waiting to be used.  There's more than enough, for sure.  I agree with the point made about "blues".  We need a few more of those styles.

[Amwilburn]

Mark, you sell Genos for a living....if there was another 10 or even 20 Country styles on the Genos, would it make ANY difference to sales? I doubt it, because I don't see that kind of thing as a big sales differentiator.
My guess is the typical buyer wants to know how good it sounds, how easy it is to operate and what it costs compared to alternatives. Maybe some particularly well informed buyers get into detailed features. But how many styles of a particular genre ..don't see it. And if they did, more than 70 would seem good!
Mike

Correct. The fact that Genos has 25 fewer Country styles than the G2 bears that out.
But that's also partially due to the ease of modifying and creating styles for Yamaha arrangers compared to other brands (hence why there are so many styles out there)

Drake & Bogdan: 8 hours? for anything with guitars, no, it'll take a little bit longer, correct. But without (e.g. a dance /trance style) those *can* be professionally done in a few hours (3 to 4). But anything with Megavoice guitar and Bass takes a bit longer, but with their tools, 8 hours is in the right ballpark, but maybe an hour or 2 more in the most difficult acoustic cases.

Not allowed to reveal actual numbers, but relative numbers:
USA has approx 8.5 times the number of Genos sales of Canada. And Germany has almost 200 x the US sales. (which means over 1000X the sales of Canada, yes)

Insane? yup!

Does that mean I *don't* want more country styles? I want more *everything* styles! So I'd happily take more country, retro pop, etc. But my market is one of the smallest, so what I want doesn't pull as much weight as I'd like :p

Drake: did you also grab the Genos 2 complete pack's 10 country styles? If not I can email you,

Mark

[BogdanH]

...
USA has approx 8.5 times the number of Genos sales of Canada. And Germany has almost 200 x the US sales. (which means over 1000X the sales of Canada, yes)

Insane? yup!
...

Wow.. wow... I believe you.. but it's unbelievable 

Bogdan

[pjd]

OK, maybe I was too subtle in my first response because I didn't want to diss any particular genre of music.

I live and play music in the USA. Trust me, there are not 340 million country music (or is that "country AND western") fans in the USA. The USA market is just as fragmented as anywhere else, maybe more so, "cultural melting pot" and all that.

The bottom line is: Everybody wants more styles. Meanwhile, Yamaha Musicsoft has gone backwards, selling a mere subset of its previous offerings.

That's why I'm building my own styles. I applaud people like Drake who forge their own styles, too, and share them.

I also agree with J. Larry. Sometimes the lack of a specific style is an opportunity to re-interpret a song using a similar or even a vastly different style. If I want to sound like the record, I'll play the *&^$% record.   

Peace, everybody. Enjoy diversity -- pj

[pjd]

Drake & Bogdan: 8 hours? for anything with guitars, no, it'll take a little bit longer, correct. But without (e.g. a dance /trance style) those *can* be professionally done in a few hours (3 to 4). But anything with Megavoice guitar and Bass takes a bit longer, but with their tools, 8 hours is in the right ballpark, but maybe an hour or 2 more in the most difficult acoustic cases.

I'm working on a downtempo (electronica?) style now and I'm already two days in. That's starting with about 10-12 MIDI clips. No gitters.  I've probably got another couple days to go in order to get everything into Cmin7, apply effects, find better voices, choose OTS, and get everything into style format. And, and! That's stealing INTROs and ENDINGs from existing styles because I'm not talented enough to do those from scratch.   

It takes a lot to do a decent style no matter the genre.

All the best -- pj

[mikf]

Relative to population Canada and US are about the same, but arrangers are about 800 times more popular in Germany than in North America. This surely has little to do with styles provision, and has to be more related to culture. Arrangers just haven't grabbed the traction in North America they have elsewhere. There certainly aren't 800 times more 'German' styles than Country styles on any arranger.
Mike

[KurtAgain]

[...] When the home organ market started dying in the 1980s [...]

Fun fact:
The companies Boehm and Wersi still exist or are back. They would both be happy to sell you a nice home organ for 40,000 euros or dollars. 
(Not a typo)

https://www.keyswerk.de/
https://www.wersi.net/en/en-start/

[andyg]

Yes, they are two of the last remaining home organs that you can get outside of the Asian market. You can always get a Yamaha D-Deck or Stagea as an import via Tarotrade. Ringway produce some good instruments for the European market and I believe that Fletchers In Florida are going to re-re-voice one model (it's already been re-voiced once for the UK!) and sell it in the USA (probably for double what it is in the UK!). And I suppose we should include Tokai in Brazil, though it seems that they're concentrating on Hammond type clones.

Not all Wersis and Bohms are that expensive and they're positive bargains when you think what Lowrey organs were being sold for in the USA!

I'm also one of the people that will re-arrange and re-interpret a given song using the internal styles - I've been doing that for 54 years now, when the 'style' was just one of a  handful of pretty poor sounding drum patterns! A few songs use a custom style, like 'Hey Jude' or 'Apache' but most still use what's there in the first place.

It's a skill that all my students learn from Day One.

[mikf]

Custom song styles are a different thing, I understand why some gigging musicians  might sometimes want a closer simulation of some original recordings for public performance . Although to be honest, if I was gigging I might think midis are better for that.
But like Andy, I think there is huge selection of styles on the modern TOTL arrangers, and have never found it hard to play almost any song using them. And no matter how many more are provided, they would still have to be generic, not custom song styles. While nobody would turn down more styles, I doubt if even more generic styles would make a  big difference to buyers. The fact is there is already many more styles on the keyboard than I regularly use.
Mike

[DrakeM]

Hello again 

Here are 7 examples of song styles I have put together. 8 hours is about average for putting one together. I have chosen one style from each decade. Each song was a number one hit except for "Peggy Sue", which only got to #3.

The 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's are pop tunes styles. From the 90's and newer I have lost interest in pop tunes. I stick to Country and since 2020, the country is too much pop for my taste as well. 

All the guitar, bass, horn, drum and break patterns are from various Yamaha styles. The only expectation is the "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" style. I recorded a short riff for the intro. I did record additional horn riffs in the bridge section. It was easier to record it myself than to search for it.

From that 1950's "Peggy Sue"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKUXfs8ABOE

From the 1960's "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn4w30Cd1h8

From the 1970's "Old Time Rock n Roll"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yxTItSL5Eg

From the 1980's "Islands in the Stream"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LokzmQ3k4NI

From the 1990's "Don't Rock the Jukebox"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU6Ta8JEh6s

From the 2000's "It's 5 O'clock Somewhere"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E01zPZZbHcE

From the 2010's "Who Are You When I'm Not Looking"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL6-9dhukEU

Point is Yamaha could put styles like these together faster than I can. They need to hire 2 more people. Their keyboards should have a couple thousand song related styles included by now.   

There are 340 million in USA verses 84 million in Germany, which is a 4 times difference in customer base. I know not all are country and schlager fans. But Yamaha is catering to the schlager fans a lot more than to the country fans.

Most country fans don't listen to newer pop and certainly not the ones 60 and older.

You don't need a midi file to sound like the original song but you do need to sound close to the original and styles allows you to do that. Plus you can extend the song using a style should folks get up and start dancing halfway through the song. Something you can't do using midi files.   

Drake

[Amwilburn]

Hello again 

Here are 7 examples of song styles I have put together. 8 hours is about average for putting one together. I have chosen one style from each decade. Each song was a number one hit except for "Peggy Sue", which only got to #3.

Point is Yamaha could put styles like these together faster than I can. They need to hire 2 more people. Their keyboards should have a couple thousand song related styles included by now.   

There are 340 million in USA verses 84 million in Germany, which is a 4 times difference in customer base. I know not all are country and schlager fans. But Yamaha is catering to the schlager fans a lot more than to the country fans.

Drake

-First of, great custom styles and examples (and performances)! Nicely done, Drake!


-That's what I'm trying to say; there *are* 1599 entries in the Genos 2 playlist (so almost 2000 songs you can play, out of the box), before even installing the DX7 and Completele expansion (which ups total number of styles on board from 800 to 911, *not* including other expansion packs, just what are esseitnally OS updates). Which ups the total number of playable songs to almost 2000, right out of the gate! (not including the dozen or so expasions for G1 that they've converted for G2. Which is the most *ever* of any keyboard out of the box!

Could they do more? Absolutely. But being #1 by a margin of more than 2 to 1 (Korg PA5x and Ketron event are both about 400). But wait, only 200 of the styles are actually new; the rest came from previous other keyboards and Clavinovas?! Well, same with the other 2 (Korg PA5x only has about 130 new styles out of the 400). So again, I agree they could do more, but they're already offering the most content by a large margin.


-I think you missed what we were pointing out; 336 mil pop only doesn't amount to 334m arrangers sold; the 83 mil in Germany actually sold over 1000 times the population of Canada (39 mil); if they were the same ratio, Germans would've only purchased double the number of Canadians. But it's over 1000 times! And again, you'd think the USA would sell 4 times more Genos than Germany, but Germany sold nearly 200 times more! To put that into % age, it means the average Canadian and American are just as likely to buy a TOTLA Yamaha arranger, but the average German is over 600 times more likely!

By the way, I have zero interest in Schlager myself. But have faith; launching with *only* 911 styles in the first month (again, the most ever), I'm sure there are more to come.

Your 8hr ballpark is correct (but obviously some will take longer, some might take less); I think their general strategy is *launch first* (so the launch isn't delayed any further) and then get local guys to do local styles; which makes sense.

After all, if it takes 8 hours ballpark to build a style, and they have 2 guys making styles, if they added another, say, 400 (which amounts to another 20 styles per category or so), that would be approx 3200 man hours, so ÷ 2 for 2 guys, ÷ 40 for 40 hours a week, the Genos 2 would've had to launch *40 weeks later* if Yamaha had done it that way. ie Genos 2 would've launched Sept of 2024 instead, and then we'd get people moaning it's been 7 years since G1!

Launching with *only* 911 styles, and then added them regionally, in order to launch sooner, makes sense, no?

Mark

[KurtAgain]

Drake, even though I'm German, I like American country music better than Schlager and I wish you as many country styles as possible. But if Mark is right, Yamaha's customer base for TOTLA in the USA is not 4 times larger than in Germany, but 200 times smaller. Or am I translating "customer base" incorrectly?

[Amwilburn]

You want even crazier? Japan as 123M people (more than triple the population of Canada) but their Genos market was *non-existent*.
https://jp.yamaha.com/

It wasn't even featured on their own website; the last pro PSR featured on Yamaha's own Japan website is the PSRs670
https://jp.yamaha.com/search/index.html?search=psrs

If you search Genos (1 or 2) it will only bring up manuals.

However, their Electone market was *infinitely* larger than Canada's, as the market is non-existent here.

Which means even Canada's tiny Genos market was significantly larger than Japan's, despite less than 1/3 of the population!

Mark

[KurtAgain]

Yamaha probably isn't interested in incorporating too many song-related styles into its keyboards. Because at least in Europe there is an ecosystem of professional style producers around their arrangers. And that in turn makes their arrangers more attractive to potential customers. If Yamaha themselves provided too many song-related styles, they could destroy this ecosystem.

[Amwilburn]

Yamaha probably isn't interested in incorporating too many song-related styles into its keyboards. Because at least in Europe there is an ecosystem of professional style producers around their arrangers. And that in turn makes their arrangers more attractive to potential customers. If Yamaha themselves provided too many song-related styles, they could destroy this ecosystem.

Interesting, I hadn't thought about that!

Mark

[KurtAgain]

On the German Yamaha website you can download some "practical books" (Praxisbuch) that are only available in German. Here are two quotes about the history of our arrangers (translated by Google and me):

Back at the time of the PSR-6700, in 1991, Yamaha had invited a group of musicians from England, the USA and Germany to help create the musical content. [...] There are no solo entertainers in Japan like there are in Germany, Austria or Switzerland.

The developers traveled around the world in the mid-90s, visiting America and Europe, and especially came to Germany and England. They not only interviewed local Yamaha employees and music store owners, but also went where "the music is". They took part in entertainer club meetings and sat down for evenings in Dance halls where solo entertainers played - and eagerly took notes. Technical advances, effective market research and international collaboration with musicians and music data programmers proved to be a very successful concept.

Edited by the author: Quotes shortened and formatted.

[soryt]

Complaining over a machine you don't have or can afford is so idiotic, so I say enough now

[rattley]

Hello!

Am I missing something?  Maybe I have a different approach to onboard styles. First let me say that the current Genos2 onboard styles are the best. I am using the onboard styles so much more than the previous Yamaha's I have owned. I think they are that much better than before. 

Let's say your keyboard comes with 500 styles. Boasting about the number of styles you have onboard is meaningless if a lot of them aren't acceptable.  How many of those styles are you really going to use? Yamaha provides a good assortment but when it lacks what do you do? You either modify the existing styles or find more. On my computer I have been using Reason. They now use a monthly subscription giving me access everything they offer for $20 per month. With this option I have been able to use all the high dollar stuff when ever I want and costing me no more. It works for me. Could a similar approach be used for styles too?  Of course I would like to "own" the styles I buy, but if I found some styles that were absolutely glorious I would consider "renting" them.

It is now so easy to transfer files with USB. One could literally have over 100,000 styles on 1 USB stick. I'm thinking that the number of onboard styles becomes less important when one has access to an infinite number of other styles found elsewhere. Just my observation............. -charley

[mikf]

Or put another way.....if they added another 30 generic country styles on the Genos how many more keyboards would they sell.  My money is on no more, because that is not a critical sales driver given the choice we already have. And that choice already beats the competition. In fact amazing style availability might be Yamahas biggest market advantage.
Mike

[Divemaster]

Hello!

It is now so easy to transfer files with USB. One could literally have over 100,000 styles on 1 USB stick. I'm thinking that the number of onboard styles becomes less important when one has access to an infinite number of other styles found elsewhere. Just my observation............. -charley

And it's easy to lose the lot!
USB sticks, whilst mostly reliable are not as reliable as pc hard drives.
So always BACK THEM UP!

I think we're probably all guilty of a bit of 'file hoarding', but be realistic about downloaded styles, and voices. I mean, how many of them do you actually use? Do you really need those 600 R&B styles? Or 700 Ballroom styles?
Weed them down. Dump the duplicates.
Keith

[KurtAgain]

What I really need is not more styles, but rather that the keyboard doesn't mess up so often. After all this time, it should know that I wanted to press the other note, shouldn't it? I think I need AI in the next keyboard. The older I get, the more AI I seem to need.

[BogdanH]

@KurtAgain: Thank you for that interesting short excerpt from Praxisbuch, which kinda explains why "it is as it is".
Btw. No AI please! It's mistakes that makes our music authentic and unique 

...
I think we're probably all guilty of a bit of 'file hoarding', but be realistic about downloaded styles, and voices. I mean, how many of them do you actually use? Do you really need those 600 R&B styles? Or 700 Ballroom styles?

I think the same way.
For two hours continuous playing, we only need about 40 styles! And even those styles will already have basic similarities, because we usually only play particular music genre -more or less. That is, by using one good style, we can make several song specific styles out of it (the difference is mainly in arrangement and tempo) -I'm taking about simple pop/entertaining music, of course.
Listen to Status Quo, Fats Domino, Modern talking, etc. (they sold millions of records) -all their best songs have the same basic rhythm. And country music is no different. What I'm saying is, if we would have 400 generic country styles, then they would sound pretty much the same.

Bogdan

[ton37]

Btw. No AI please! It's mistakes that makes our music authentic and unique 
.......

Bogdan

Good Grace... Glad to read, so the happy accidents in my music are very authentic and unique ... it's a shame no one likes it .. 

[EileenL]

I agree Keith,
  If we are honest how many styles do we actually use whether entertaining or just playing at home. I would guess under a hundred and yet many have thousands stored away. Think of the time taken trying to find one. Time that could be spent playing.

[mikf]

Some enthusiasts get a lot of fun out of making styles that are really close to the original recording arrangement. Even going to great lengths to get that perfect guitar sound. And if that floats their boat, great. But no amount of work put into the style will compensate for mediocre playing or singing out of tune. And the other side of that coin is that the good players and good singers often don't worry that much about style 'accuracy'. They know what listeners hear.
Mike

[DrakeM]

Complaining over a machine you don't have or can afford is so idiotic, so I say enough now

Let me assure you, without batting an eye, I could fill your house up with boxes of Genos 2 keyboards. 

[DrakeM]

I agree Keith,
  If we are honest how many styles do we actually use whether entertaining or just playing at home. I would guess under a hundred and yet many have thousands stored away. Think of the time taken trying to find one. Time that could be spent playing.

Actually 400 different styles at a minimum. 25 different one hour sets each containing 16 songs. Nobody hears a repeated song without it being requested until I rotate through each set.   

[mikf]

But that assumes every song needs a different style, and that is not necessary. I remember watching our old friend Don Mason do a a full evening at his restaurant, and he never used anything except on board styles. And he didn't use fraction of them. He was a quality player and nice singer.
When you play a style that is close, set the right tempo, play your own intros and endings well, and set a nice vocal over them, you really don't need that many for typical live play in a club, restaurant or care home. When I played with small live bands we couldn't exactly reproduce recordings - or even tried to.
Mike

[BogdanH]

Some enthusiasts get a lot of fun out of making styles that are really close to the original recording arrangement. Even going to great lengths to get that perfect guitar sound. And if that floats their boat, great.
...

I do that sometimes mainly because of two reasons:
1. If I particularly like some song -main reason.
2. To find out what I'm able to make on my keyboard -to learn actually.

That is, I'm not under pressure and I don't feel the need to prove something to anyone. Most of the time I just play the same melodies again and again 

Btw. I agree with post that you just wrote.

Bogdan

[Paula]

my thoughts on styles
when playing a song I don't need to have the style sound exactly as the original artist who made the song famous , I am me  I am not Dolly or Johnny Cash or whoever, I listen to You Tube and find most of the time that the song I am about to play has been done by many different musicians and in different styles by many different people so I like to make the song my own, I do usually tweak and modify a style as well as add multi pads  and  I sometimes buy a style that works for the song I don't want to spend all my time making styles I want to play and enjoy my Key Board
I do have the Genos and I like it much maybe someday a Genos 2 I am sure they are now the best right now my pocketbook. says keep the Genos.
Paula D