+2Bogdan, I agree with you 100%.
Kurt
I'd have to agree with Bogdan & Kurt, Woody is just just stirring $@!#!@ up and not really looking at the ins and outs of *anything*. *But* to each his own; I know a lot of people think Leigh Wilbraham is just waffling nonesense; and while I'll admit he's often lacks succinctness, he's usually trying to actually teach something new, and people shouldn't dismiss him out of had.
For starters, both the PA5x and G2 have styles from the 2020's. But they *are* trying to spread them across for 2 reasons:
1) nostalgia: most of the people with disposable income are in their late 40s to 60s, and so 60s, 70s and 80s hits are the first thing they'll try out an new keyboard with)
2) If you've already made the style in the old keyboard, put them in the new one. The PA5x for example, only launched with 400 styles, of which 320 already existed on the PA4x (after the final OS update). So you're going to get a lot of leftovers from keyboards before, only disappearing when the artist themselves loses relevance (e.g. they used to inclulde Britney Spears styles, Chrisinta Aguilera, Cher... )
But Woody is completely wrong here in his rage mongering: the fact is? even the old, old keyboards were song style specific.
Go back to older boards, and this was still the same; song specific styles. I know because when Yamaha, Korg or Roland came in for training sessions, they'd immediately show what each style was used for (and in fact, there was a music finder on Yamaha where you could find the synonym for a song name, and it would call up a style, going back to at least the T1, CVP209 from 2002. 60Second Waltz was the style for Minute Waltz, Big Apple was New York, New York (yes, 20+ years ago, a lot of the styles referenced stuff from the 30's and 40's, although the Sinatra version of seminal hit is actually from 1980). Seriously, look at the stye lists for the CVP209; 30s and 40s Big Band!
From the PSR3000/T1: RootRock seems generic (8 beat repeating bass rock); but was designed for The Cars "Just What I needed".
GuitarPop (which later became 90sGuitarPop) was for Sixpence None the Richer "Kiss Me".
6-8 Orchestral was designed for Righteous Brothers "Unchained Melody"
16Beat was designed for Elton John's "Nikita"
Analog Ballad? Chris DeBurgh's "Lady In Red"
BritPop? Oasis "Wonderwall"
USPop? Britney Spears "Hit Me Baby One More Time"
These are all from over 20 years ago.
It was actually because customers complained it was too difficult to figure out which song each style is for that they started adding decades so you could narrow it down. Not because they were any more generic 20+ years ago.
Now, 60sRock2 was for *any* 12 bar blues, and I think that's where the crux of the 'complaint' really comes from: back in the day, it was the chord progressions that really differentiated songs; but with so many hit songs being based on the same chord progression (one of them being the 12 bar blues), it literally became a matter of slapping different melody and lyrics onto the same backing. Johnny B Good, Great Balls of Fire, Hound Dog, Tutti Fruiti... of course one style could be used for all, as all of those songs use very similar arrangements!
The simple proof is in the pudding: the Genos launched with 911 styles, but a playlist of 1599 songs. That means that nearly every style is doing double duty, therefore you can't say that they're all just for one song. They are optimized for a song or 2, yes, but *none* of the styles is completely song specific (except Billie Jean, with its ridiculously specific bassline, that if I played another song with it, you still no it's Billie Jean's arrangement
And it's a bit looney to complain that someone else is deciding what songs you play; the point of including so many styles is to give you a *range* of *genres* to select from. This is pure clickbait for $$$, nothing else. The *only* thing I agree with is the style creator, which I don't find to difficult to use already, they should lower the barrier even further so that anyone can make their own beats.
If his video made you go "yeah, they're all cheesy! Why should Yamaha decide *for* me?" You've fallen for the bait, I'm afraid. Arrangers have *always* been like this, and if you just use the built in OTS (suggested sounds) they almost always will sound cheesy. It's up to you to figure out what to actually use, but as I've said before, I make it a point to avoid cheesy in all my videos.
But if you're complaining they're not modern enough, G2 has styles for (and PA5x has many of these as well)
There are styles for
"Blinding Lights" The Weeknd (2020)
"Shape of You" by Ed Sheeran (2017)
"Shake it Off" Taylor Swift (2014) which is identical in arrangement to APT (2024!) & is very close to the arrangement for Marry You (2010)... both Bruno Mars)
Taylor Swift's "Love Story (2008)"
the Eurodance pack (available on Yamaha Musicsoft) contains a style for Taylor Swift's "I Knew You were Trouble" (2012), as well as BEP's I Gotta Feeling (2009), Lady Gaga's Poker Face (2008), and M5's Moves Like Jagger (2011).
Maroon 5's "This Love" (2002)
The version of the Top Gun theme (which I only modified slightly for my YouTube video) is from 2022.
Need I go on?
You can additionally purchase styles like Bruno Mars' Just the Way You (2010) Are on Yamaha Musicsoft as well.
You're *not* going to tell me songs from the 2020s and 2010s are "ancient".
Mark
Statistics: Posted by amwilburn — Sun Jan 05, 2025 9:15 pm