New Zealand
Total Posts: 13
Joined: September 19, 2014
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Hi Mike,
I am a lifetime VIP semibreve member and own a KN7000 keyboard.
My 2 favourite style series downloads from your site are:
1. Y2 version V5, (last updated 25th May 2015) now with 87 of 445 styles, - 358 to go !!
2. R1 version 2 -2
As a suggestion, why not complete the 2 style series but only make them available on the VIP member's site,
This would give the site more content and incentive for members to upgrade to a VIP member.
Must admit, I'm really looking forward to receiving the outstanding styles ASAP and get my next fix!!
Regards,
Harry
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Posted on March 31, 2016 at 8:27 AM
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United Kingdom
Total Posts: 1055
Joined: February 2, 2014
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Re: STYLE SERIES Y2 (YAMAHA) AND R1 (ROLAND) FOR KN7000 KEYBOARD
Hi Harry and Nam,
Thanks for the support and interest guys (and the feedback). I'll answer your questions briefly as I see them...
Styles Series R1 will always remain free. I want to continue to offer some free content for a wide range of instruments.
Styles Series Y2 I'm thinking of moving to a VIP collection. Y2 is an extremely challenging conversion. Some of the Styles in that Series have taken a few hours work each and there are some of the 87 that I'm still not happy with. I'm thinking of moving it to VIP simply because so much work goes into it.
There are quite a number of reasons for starting new Series whilst others are 'not finished'.
The main one is that it gives everyone a wide variety to choose from. After all, you can take any of the individual Styles that might suit a tune you like and develop it into exactly what you want, because most of the work is done. Many Members like to do that. The basic conversion is done, you can audition the ones you like and then choose your favourites to improve.
Another reason is that the various Series support slightly different groups of models of Technics instruments. This is because some formats convert to particular models more easily than others. So, by having several series we have more Styles available across the board. If I had stuck to Y2 until it was completely finished we would have a very limited number of Styles indeed.
Probably the most important reason is that converting the Styles is a learning process. The more I do, and the more divergent they are, the more I'm learning about it. There's a huge amount to learn. Also, we get very little feedback indeed so whilst I (when I'm saying "I" and "we" I count John in this)... whilst we're developing ways of getting consistent registrations, MSAs etc, we don't really know which ones are best received by the Membership. our tastes might not be the same as yours. So, John and I meet up a few times per year and work out between us how we're going to proceed (and we don't always agree either!). We think it's important to package things up consistently and try to get a good balance across all of the various content.
The eventual aim is to bring all Series up to a certain standard with registrations in Panel Memory etc, all fully documented and added to the APP, with Home Pages, Performance Pads and so on.
I use a combination of Styleworks editing along with working at the keyboard itself. Styleworks has quite a few glitches, and also many nuances to learn about. Converting from Roland gives completely different problems to converting from Yamaha for instance. Drum sounds will be in the wrong octave and trigger incorrect sounds, all conversions happen with a 'baseline instrument' that has to be edited and so on. To explain, if a Style has any type of trombone in it, for example, then it will always convert to be a Bright Trombone. If that sound doesn't suit the Style then it has to be changed to a different trombone in all the variations, fills, intros endings (20no) and auditioned. That's just one sound. In each of those variations the reverb, chorus, velocity, balance, volume and other parameters have to be made to match and to sound right, in combination with the drums and all the other parts.
I'm also keen on Song Suggestions, which is one of the reasons that the Cool Styles Series is one of my favourites. Notice that for many of those Styles each Panel Memory has a suggested Song as the name of the Panel Memory. The tempo is set, split point etc. Thinking of the Songs and typing the names in takes ages so do give them a shot.
Getting back to Harry's main questions. You'll see a rapid development of those two series, Cool Styles Series and Summer Styles Series over the coming months with Y2 being my top priority because I too love that Series. I've learned a lot of new techniques that will make Y2 slightly easier to edit the next time around and I've made some new custom drum kits that deal with the main problems, which are the drums being all over the place. I've converted Y2 here about four times but the results are not good enough to publish, you would be very disappointed. I needed to get these new drum kits together first so that at least the drums play correctly without whistles and timpani everywhere, before going in and editing each Style individually on my KN7000. Of course, from there the drum kits have to be re-created on the older models too.
Most of that background work is done, so look out over the next few months as all of these Series will 'step up a gear'.
Aside from all of that, as you'll know if you keep up with the newsletters, I've gone through some big changes in my day job and am now settled in. Over the past few weeks I've concentrated on some new features on the websites and next I'll be getting back to editing the various Styles Series. I'm not planning on releasing "new Series containing hundreds of Styles" for the time-being but you will see some new Styles too, in small numbers and well-developed, along with additional support for other models.
John and I have been busy making spreadsheets and all sorts of other documentation that will stand us in good stead in maintaining consistency and, probably more importantly, remembering what we did last time so that we can repeat it (what balance and chorus did we use in variation 3 of Style 204 in such-and-such Styles Series? It is pretty hard to keep track of).
Just so that we're clear, Y2 Series has been a bit of a personal "Mount Everest", so I'm determined to conquer that one soon and release it. I'll then go back up and down it improving the view!
Best wishes,
Mike
Posted on April 5, 2016 at 9:47 PM
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