So, to shed light on the finer points of Yamaha's style files, we turned to one of the lead style producers from Yamaha's research and development division in England. As a member of a small team of the programmers responsible for all of Yamaha styles, he has worked on every Premium Style as well as the styles that come pre-loaded on Yamaha's keyboards. In our brief interview he let us in on some information that should come in handy to anyone using styles, and will hopefully give you some new insight that you can put to use in your keyboard performances.
Q. What, exactly, is a style file?
A. A Style File contains music (MIDI) and system parameters that are played by
the Style Engine. All Yamaha keyboards featuring Styles have a Style Engine
built in their software. It smoothly and seamlessly recognises and follows
chord progressions played on the keyboard, then instantaneously plays the
selected Style File to sound the correct chord and instruments to provide an
interactive accompaniment.
Keep reading for the full interview, including tips for cool uses for style on your instrument, details on what makes Yamaha's files the highest quality files around, and what exactly goes into the style production process.
Q. What goes into making a style file? What's the basic process, and where do you come in?
A.After deciding what to make, the actual 'making' process is quite
streamlined.
First up is writing the music. Our creative programmers compose the Style
introductions and endings, the main sections, fill-ins and rhythm breaks,
ensuring they will work within the style system parameters, whilst also
capturing the essence of the required musical image.
After creating the musical aspects, the style is then technically checked.
This is a detailed process which includes playing each style section in
every key, using all recognised chord types.
The final stage of 'making' is mixing. Yamaha's studio technicians set
volumes, DSP effects, EQ and many detailed audio parameters, carefully
engineering the final sound field of each style.
Yamaha has a huge range of products, many of which have completely different
sounds. Another creative job is cross-grading Styles so that they get the
best out of each instrument in the range. This ensures customers experience
the best possible quality from their instruments Styles.
My role includes overseeing the creative processes but changes depending on
whether the style itself is destined to be in a product or sold via the
internet as a Premium Style. It's probably a good time to mention that all
Yamaha Premium Styles go through exactly the same 'making' process as the
styles built in the products themselves, ensuring they are of the highest
quality.
Q. How is producing a style different from producing a MIDI song file?
A.A MIDI song file is linear and plays a specific song. A Style reacts in
realtime to chords you play on the keyboard, producing an accompaniment or
'backing band' for the music you are playing.
From a producing point of view, you would either be making an arrangement of
a song or a sound alike, in both cases no original composition is required.
When making a song you don't take care that it sounds good when transposed
into different keys, whereas this is hugely important when making a style.
As a user, for MIDI songs you can turn tracks on and off, adjust the tempo
and transpose keys, but you don't have any real control over the song, it
just plays... With styles you are in control of what the band actually
play, leaving you free to sporadically repeat a chorus or create a new
verse.
Q. Yamaha puts a lot care into making sure that their instruments are top quality, and that same care goes into style file creation. But what does that mean in the final product? How does Yamaha's famous quality come across in a style file?
A.The care and attention to detail of Yamaha's content creating staff is
nothing other than obsessive, the team always goes that extra step to push
the bar ever higher. In the final product this passion becomes clear. Of
course you have the overall sound which has been carefully crafted, but each
individual part of every style has been produced so it plays and sounds like
a real instrument. If you solo parts of the Style like drums, bass, guitars
etc., you can hear the detail that goes into realising each of these parts.
Put the parts together and you have a Style that really sounds and plays
like a band or orchestra.
The content team uses the best possible musicians and technicians to
compose, arrange, check, mix and finalise each style to make sure it sounds
and plays great in our products.
Q. What are some of the coolest uses for styles that you've seen?
A.I think experimenting by turning different parts of a style (RHY, BASS,
CHRD1 etc.) on and off, you can really create some nice results. If you
think of the parts of a style as your band members, you are effectively
changing your line-up.
The vast range of musical genres covered by Yamaha's Styles makes it easy to
experiment playing with different grooves and sounds, discovering new ways
to express your music.
- Doug
Posts
13 comments:
Yamaha do make some good styles. However, there are now better styles available with other providers (the German site De Muziekmaker for example). They are often less expensive than Yamaha and produce a superior product. I used to buy styles solely from Yamaha but now I never purchase from them.
Yamaha need to price their products more competitively. They no longer have the sole preserve to professional styles.
Yamaha styles are superb. There are many musicians who are style obsessed. I gig about 4 to 5 times a week and have settled down to the ones I like and need.
I used to play Korgs (PA80) and liked that their styles' background changed when you switched from a major to a minor or diminished chord. Thus the listener couldn't get used to ONE background melody.
Is there such a thing as a wish list? I would like to make some suggestions. I REALLY like my new PSR S910!!!
How does the style creator feel about the pirates on eBay selling cds containing those Premium Styles? What is the status on copyright of professional styles?
Hi guys,
Thanks so much for your comments. Keep em coming - we're happy to answer any questions you have about styles and style production. For now, here are some responses straight from our venerable style producer.
To Helmut:
"Yamaha styles do have this functionality. Each style has unique major and minor introductions and endings. Also many styles 'switch' arrangement in the Main sections depending on the chord you play. For example, if you play a major triad using a session style and then play a diminished chord, the accompaniment completely changes its pattern.
If I've missed the point here, let me know! In the meantime, I'm pleased to hear you are enjoying your PSR-S910."
To Anonymous #1:
"I am involved with content which is developed for an actual product or for the Yamaha Premium range of content, available on yamahamusicsoft.com. From a quality point of view, Yamaha Premium Styles are all produced and technically finalised to the same standards, using exactly the same processes as Styles that are built into the instruments themselves. We make many different versions of each Premium Style in order to get the best out of each compatible instrument, and all Premium Styles come complete with 4 One Touch Settings. But, I'm not responsible for setting the final sale price!
I do think it's great that many companies are offering fresh new content for Yamaha instruments, several of them already sell content on the yamahamusicsoft store. For example, MIDISpot Styles are available as well as Styles created by Yamaha. I personally hope more companies provide content for the instruments and expand the choice for our end users."
To Anonymous #2:
"Copyright is the same for Premium Styles and Styles built into the instruments. Customers can use Styles freely as part of private or public performances as well as commercial audio recordings. Customers can also edit a Style and share that edited Style data with other users. However, sharing the original unchanged Style file data is a breach of copyright.
The question about pirating I'm sure would be answered similarly by most professional content development businesses - it is stealing! Making high quality content is expensive. The knock-on effect of pirating means less investment for making new content products and puts many of the independent content making companies in financial turmoil. For end users pirating lowers content quality and reduces choice."
- Doug
Re: "Customers can use Styles freely as part of private or public performances as well as commercial audio recordings".
Just out of curiosity, are there any cases of Yamaha styles that have been used on a well-known commercial recording?
I don't gig anymore, but find styles excellent for trying out new ideas for compositions.
Multi-pads too get a big vote from me, especially the percussion ones.
All styles/mp's are beautifully mixed.
Some serious hard work involved by the Yamaha guys which has really paid off.
nozzmoking,
Thanks for a very good question. Yes, I've heard a few mentioned, but I'm not going to spread any rumors without confirmation. I'll let you know when I can confirm for sure a list of recordings that use styles.
In the meantime, keep enjoying your styles. Glad you like them as much as we do.
- Doug
Doug,
I'm reasonably competent on the keyboard, and understand harmonic progressions, etc. Having watched the various video examples of the use of styles, I find playing the keyboard that way somewhat frustrating. I learned to the play the piano the old fashioned way as a kid, playing from a printed score, note for note. I've gotten reasonably comfortable playing from a fake book lead sheet, but still find it awkward to strictly play block chords in the left hand and melody in the right, with the required split keyboard. I find I'm most comfortable with the keyboard set to full keyboard, and just playing over the rhythym backing instruments normally. It works pretty well, but I end up giving away the opportunity to switch lead voices via the one touch settings, since I end up turning them off. With the full keyboard responding to my played harmonies, it makes for strange sounding lead instruments (out of range, etc.) Any thoughts on how I can improve my playing? I like the variety that styles offer with the split keyboard, but have a hard time playing around the keyboard split!
Anonymous #3,
That's a great question, and a problem that never occurred to me before. Hopefully it has occurred to our programmers, and they'll have a good answer for you. I'll see what they have to say and report back.
- Doug
Anonymous #3,
Here's an answer for you:
"The One Touch Settings are made with split keyboard in mind because this is the way the majority of customers use the product. If you are using the Full Keyboard fingering mode, you will get better results bypassing the OTS and using 'full keyboard' instruments – such as pianos, e.pianos etc. and use them across the entire keyboard range which avoids the split points. This way, you can play the instrument like a piano."
Evidently, our programmers are aware of some of the peculiarities of the full keyboard mode and are working to make improvements for the future.
- Doug
from Anonymous #3:
Doug,
Thanks for your responses to my question. That's pretty much what I already do. I use piano settings, a variety of keyboard sounds and layered piano/keyboard sounds, along with organs for my playing over the background style instruments (Acmp ON and OTS Link OFF). It's not bad, and kind of fun like playing with a backup group. I sometimes pick piano/pianist oriented styles and use guitar settings for my playing. It's quite nice sounding, too. More simple bass and drum set styles would be helpful. They would mimic a piano trio. Add rhythm guitar for piano quartet settings.
What I guess I feel like I miss out on is soloing on some of the great other instrument sounds. I've seen people playing piano/keyboard right hand over a left hand bass part with drums occasionally, but can't say I've done much of it. Can the keyboard be set up with a split with just bass on the left and piano/keyboard on the right and have the style play reading full keyboard for the harmonies? It seems like that could work for what I was describing. I'm sure your programing guys can work that out. Just a simple system upgrade, right. I play on my CVP 409 at home, but play out with a PSR 3000. Amazingly similar feature set, considering the age of the PSR 3000. No Super Articulation voices and a few less new styles, etc. but otherwise pretty comparable. Add some extra styles on a USB stick and I'm pretty much good to go.
One other question if you don't mind. The arranger keyboards seem to be the best fit for me to be able to play solo, with backing, but why are they all limited to 61 keys? How about an 88 key arranger keyboard? That's how I ended up with my CVP 409 at home. The extra elbow room on the keyboard is really nice sometimes. I'd like to upgrade my PSR 3000 someday, but I'm trying to hold out for an 88 key arranger from YAMAHA. Makes sense to me!
Hi Anonymous #3,
Thanks for more good questions.
It sounds like what you're describing with a split point could be possible. As you probably know, the PSR-3000 does let you set up separate voices for the left and right hand sections of the keyboard, defined by a split point you can set yourself in the instrument settings. I'll check with our programmers though, and see how this works with the full keyboard style mode.
As for your suggestion for an 88 key arranger, unfortunately, I can't really comment on anything regarding plans for new instruments, but I'll pass along the suggestion to the people who might be able to do something about it. I'll also pass on your request for more "simple" styles. I definitely see what you mean and agree that these sorts of styles are often very useful.
- Doug
Anonymous #3,
I'm back with a response from our programmers:
"It sounds like it will help to experiment with turning style parts on and off. If you press the [CHANNEL ON/OFF] button near the display, the 8 instrument parts making up the Style appear at the bottom of the screen. If you just want the Style to play drums and bass for example, simply use the [1-8] buttons beneath the display to turn off the Style parts you do not want to hear. This really makes the onboard Styles hugely flexible, especially as these changes can be stored into Registration Memory for instant recall.
For the Split Point question, things are a little more complex. If for example you wanted to play with a Bass in the Left hand and a Piano in the Right, I would set the bass voice to the LEFT voice section and the Piano to RIGHT1, then if you press the Direct Access and the ACMP button, you will be able to set the Split Point position of the LEFT voice. Unfortunately, when the instrument is set in this way, it is not possible for the Style Engine to determine a chord for triggering the style – in fact, it will use the LEFT part (the part that is playing the bass), to determine the chord and this clearly will not work as the bass is a simple monophonic part with no chord information. One option in this case is to turn the ACMP button off and use the Style START/STOP button to start just the Drums of a style and play along with that, but obviously then you will need to provide all of the harmonies yourself."
Hope this helps!
- Doug
Anonymous #3
It may seem to be a bit late to make this suggestion about your PSR3000.
You could try connecting an 88note remote keyboard to your PSR3000 via the Midi In and Midi Out ports.
The midi settings can be used to switch midi parameters Off & On to create a user midi template.
Both keyboards can be played at the same time with or without split points, using the P85 as a remote keyboard and the PSRS910, Tyros 2, 3, &4, as the Host keyboard.
The host instrument voices can be assigned to the different midi in channels and the style engine can be set up to recognise the chords from the remote and host keyboards, saving the parameters as registration memory.
After trying other brands of remote keyboards, the Yamaha P85 stage piano with 88 note graded keys, was reasonably priced, midi compatible, felt like a real piano keyboard to play and connected via the midi ports to PSRS910, TYROS 2,3 & 4. easily.
There are some limitations, the midi settings can take some of trial and error to make it work properly and I am not 100% sure that it would work on the PSR3000.
Some technical knowledge in this area is useful.
(The keyboard owners manual shows how to connect midi devices and change the midi and voice settings.)
Recommend visiting your local Yamaha Dealer they may be able to help with this set up.
Hope this suggestion is helpful?
Wayne.
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