Playing song and style simultaneously?

Alexsey · Post by **Alexsey** » Wed Jul 22, 2015 1:41 am

Hello everyone, I've got my Pa900 a few days ago after very long process of choosing between it and yamaha's psr-s950 and I have a small question (and definitely more in the future):

Is it possible to play midi, mp3 or any pre-recorded performance while playing style? Pa900 seems to block player controls in style mode while Yamaha's instruments doesn't have any problems with that - both Song and USB Audio player is available during style playback.

Snorkum · Post by **Snorkum** » Wed Jul 22, 2015 2:12 am

I guess I don't quite understand the question. Matter of fact I don't understand why you would play and MP3 and style at the same time. Or midi and the style at the same time.
I do jave a little bit of a hard time understanding the use of it. <aybe I am missing something here?

Alexsey · Post by **Alexsey** » Wed Jul 22, 2015 12:57 pm

Ok let me explain:

1) Reason for Style + MP3: backing voices. I know this can be done via sampling + pads but maybe there is a bit better way to do this?
2) Reason for Style + Midi or any pre-recorded performance: What if I want to play additional musical phrase during the style? I can't play it with my right hand because I already play lead melody with it and I can't set it to pads because as far as I can see there is no way to disable chord variations for MIDI pads.

Thoraldus · Post by **Thoraldus** » Wed Jul 22, 2015 1:56 pm

Alexsey,

Some things to know ...

1. Midi & MP3's can only be played in Sequencer & Song mode.
2. PADs can not be loaded with audio files, MP3 or WAV. They are basically single channel MIDI files per PAD
3. PADs CAN have their NTT (Note Transpostion Table) set to no transpose. (otherwise you couldn't play drum or percusion on a PAD)
4. PADs can be set to repeat or just play once.
5. You can save MIDI files or MP3s to Songbook entries.
6. If you load an MP3 or Midi Songbook entry while in Style mode the keyboard will automatically switch to Song mode.
7. Switching to Style mode while playing a MIDI or MP3 in Song mode will immediately stop the playback of the MIDI or MP3

That being said. You could create User Drum Kit samples with your desired audio and then play them back in PADs with no transposition.

Sam CA · Post by **Sam CA** » Wed Jul 22, 2015 4:22 pm

Alexsey wrote:Ok let me explain:

1) Reason for Style + MP3: backing voices. I know this can be done via sampling + pads but maybe there is a bit better way to do this?
2) Reason for Style + Midi or any pre-recorded performance: What if I want to play additional musical phrase during the style? I can't play it with my right hand because I already play lead melody with it and I can't set it to pads because as far as I can see there is no way to disable chord variations for MIDI pads.

1) Not really. Sampling is really meant to be used for real short percussive material, so you can loop them over and over.

2) You can use pads to play midi phrases in sync with your Style in real time, and you can set it so it would not transpose with your Chord progression. In other words, it would keep playing the melody regardless of what chords you play. If that's what you want to do, then it's possible.

jimsweb · Post by **jimsweb** » Wed Jul 22, 2015 7:35 pm

if Yamaha can do this, Korg can also.

I have always wondered, why did they disable song play while style play mode is active. It's a good idea to trigger and play midi and audio patterns along with style play mode - it will simply give more power to players.

Korg please do something on this to have it enabled.

Sam CA · Post by **Sam CA** » Wed Jul 22, 2015 9:18 pm

jimsweb wrote:It's a good idea to trigger and play midi and audio patterns along with style play mode - it will simply give more power to players...

To just trigger midi and audio patterns? You can use Pads to do just that! You can also use audio grooves as part of Style tracks, though it's meant to be used with non-transposing percussive material.
Playing an audio mp3 file (like a whole mp3 song) along with a Style is not possible as it doesn't serve a purpose.

I don't think Yamaha is able to transpose audio tracks in real time as part of a chord progression. I don't own one, so i'm not sure about that. Still I find it hard to believe.

Snorkum · Post by **Snorkum** » Thu Jul 23, 2015 1:23 am

Sam CA wrote:
jimsweb wrote:It's a good idea to trigger and play midi and audio patterns along with style play mode - it will simply give more power to players...
To just trigger midi and audio patterns? You can use Pads to do just that! You can also use audio grooves as part of Style tracks, though it's meant to be used with non-transposing percussive material.
Playing an audio mp3 file (like a whole mp3 song) along with a Style is not possible as it doesn't serve a purpose.

I don't think Yamaha is able to transpose audio tracks in real time as part of a chord progression. I don't own one, so i'm not sure about that. Still I find it hard to believe.

Sam, can you please explain to me how I can get an audio pattern into a PAD? I have been trying for awhile and was never successful. It would be very educational for me to see how you can do this.
Thank you.

jimsweb · Post by **jimsweb** » Thu Jul 23, 2015 1:29 am

hope this helps -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg6FBEkeSow

Sam CA · Post by **Sam CA** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 6:34 am

jimsweb wrote:hope this helps -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg6FBEkeSow

Yes, this would be it.

valio7771 · Post by **valio7771** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 1:31 pm

I used to have a PSR-2000 some years ago, and it was able to play MIDI files and Styles at the same time, which was very handy in some occasions and I miss this feature in my PA-900. But it was more of...style to be complimentary thing to the MIDI file that was ALREADY playing. Basically style tempo is synced to the song player and when you start a style it mutes whatever was marked as a drum track in the MIDI file. Than you could manually mute any other track playing in the MIDI and have the style play over it, trigger fills, intros, endings, and even could change chords automatically if the MIDI file has chord track in it, which as AWESOME! Using that function you could have made an instant remake of any song using any of your styles, your creativity is the only limit in that. And it was able to save all those setting in a single Performance and recall it back the way you saved it, with the muted tracks, chosen style, Upper/Lower sounds and etc. There was also a way to save all those style related settings inside the MIDI file itself, and any time you play that file it will set it instantly for you.
I'd definitely love to have that feature back as a future update in my PA-900, cause I think it's only a software limitation. PSR-2000 is 2001 year model using floppy drive as only meaning to import any MIDI files, Performances and Sounds, and PA-900 is from 2014 having in disposal an arsenal of ways to interact with it, so what's the reason for not having that feature as well?

As for using that with MP3...I don't think it's able to work the same way since the keyboard can't recognize the MP3's tempo, or you have to set it manually...but if you've ever tried to perfectly match style tempo to a audio track, you'd know that this could be a very challenging task. Still it's not impossible thing to achieve, but it is definitely not as native and intuitive matter as the MIDI file to Style synchronisation is.

Sam CA · Post by **Sam CA** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 4:04 pm

valio7771 wrote:I used to have a PSR-2000 some years ago, and it was able to play MIDI files and Styles at the same time, which was very handy in ........

Was this midi a specially programmed file for this purpose, or any midi song file? Because if the midi file has melodies and Chord progression I don't see how this could be handy at all. The voicing and melodies will get messed up within the next 2 bars.

valio7771 · Post by **valio7771** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 6:37 pm

Sam CA wrote:Was this midi a specially programmed file for this purpose, or any midi song file?

For what particular purpose do you mean?
You could do it with any MIDI file that the keyboard is able to play without having to be specially programmed to do so. If you mean 'Will the style pick up the chord progression from any MIDI file' the answer is NO-it won't, except if the MIDI file it self contains those dedicated MIDI messages (most of original backing tracks have them) with chord progression for that particular song, and they will be read by the style and changed accordingly with the right timing*. Otherwise you have to manually change chords along with the MIDI file if you are familiar with the song. You can use only the drum tracks from the style if the one from the MIDI file is not enough convincing for your taste, or only for the sake of changing that boring and predictable sounding MIDI file. Or do the complete opposite, to leave only that awesome guitar solo from the MIDI file and mute everything else so the style is doing the arrangement, there is some many practical uses of that function. Can you imagine 'Smoke on the water' on Reggae (for example)? As long as you are reasonable enough not to chose incompatible meters, like 3/4 or 6/8 while the song is on 4/4 and vice versa, or the MIDI file count is on double up/down tempo, you're pretty much free to pick any style to favour the MIDI file.
Yes, it could happen that some of the tracks from the MIDI to overlap with style accompaniments, say...if you don't stop the bass track from the MIDI file, you'll get 2 bass guitars playing different bass line and it's gonna sound really messy, that's why you should stop one or the other (it's common sense).
Chord progressions and timing are least of your problems when they coincide. There's no problems 2 or more rhythm guitars to play same chord progression even though with different rythmics. Solo melodies will be played as they are as long as you don't mute them, they are not affected what so ever.
And what about 'being messed up in 2 bars', I didn't understood that part as well?

*same applies for Pads

Sam CA · Post by **Sam CA** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 5:04 am

valio7771 wrote:
Sam CA wrote:Was this midi a specially programmed file for this purpose, or any midi song file?
For what particular purpose do you mean?

Aren't we talking about playing Midi and Style simultaneously? That' exactly what I'm talking about!

What I'm saying is also common sense. Style structure is completely different from that of a midi song file. A midi song file has harmony and chord progression as well as specific melodies. A "general purpose" Style has none of that. It's basically consisted of one Chord, so every time you play a chord progression in real time, the keyboard calculates the transposition value based on the original key which is always the same and predictable. We're talking simple math here.

Midi song files are different.

So let's say you have a midi file with the following Chord progression recorded in it:

4/4 | Em | C | Am | B7 |

Midi and Styles are running together and you play the Am Chord on the first bar. You will get Am for the Style. What will happen to the harmonic structure of the midi file? I guess that's the part I don't understand, as I've never owned that keyboard. For non-transposing materials like drum set and such, I totally get it.

valio7771 · Post by **valio7771** » Sat Jul 25, 2015 10:26 am

Sam CA wrote:A "general purpose" Style has none of that. It's basically consisted of one Chord, so every time you play a chord progression in real time, the keyboard calculates the transposition value based on the original key which is always the same and predictable. We're talking simple math here.

Aaah, now I get what concerns you, Sam!

And YES, that's exactly how styles work, by transposing this same chord every time you press chord, and you think that the song will be transposed along with the style as soon as chord is changed in the style, and again my answer is NO-this does not happen. The mechanics of the internal style transposition has no effect on the MIDI song at all. I guess you are going unnecessarily deep inside that problem, when that's a thing that concerns the engineers that write the software for the keyboards, but if they cracked it on what today we can consider as a 'mediocre' keyboard back in 2001 and it works like charm since, why you should be worried what's the code line they've written to evade this transposition issue? I urge you go ahead and try it yourself on any post PSR-2000 model, they all have this feature.
But I promise you I've had that keyboard for 8 years and I wasn't delusional every time I was using this feature, it's a real working thing.