I live in a small country town (Echuca) in Australia. We have a 5 piece "Swing/Jazz" combo consisting of Trumpet, Trombone, Alto Sax/Clarinet, Guitar and Keyboard. The keyboard (Yamaha PSR 640) also give us Bass and Drums. (We couldn't find real ones, but that's another story.

I do all the arranging using band in a box (9.5) with its included styles. So I arrange to the feel of what BIAB is giving me, which works well. Sometimes however, it doesn't and trying to find a style on the keyboard to go with the new arrangement just doesn't cut it.

Now I know that BIAB does it better, but can I download the style files from the keyboard and use them in BIAB to create a better arrangement. Sorry to be so long winded.

regards

Peter

No

I've never tried this, but it might work (or not). I believe the Yamaha style files are basically MIDI files. You might try renaming the file to .mid and then load the MIDI into BIAB and use BIAB's style wizard to create a new style based on it. You may have to remap certain instruments and you will need to know how Yamaha lays out the file (intro1, intro2, style1, altstyle1, transition1, ending1, etc. - you should find that well documented on the web). It would take a little work, but it might solve the problem. You'ld know pretty quickly if it works or not.

I don't think you can convert an actual style file to .mid but you can use a style to record a song using the PSR's internal sequencer. That will create a midi file of your song so you can either save it to disc or transfer the file to your PC via midi. I found the manual for your PSR on the web, look at pages 127-130 on how to set that up. Then open the midi file in Biab and start playing with the Stylemaker.
That keyboard is pretty old, it's only 32 voices. Depending on how complex your arrangements are, you might notice some dropping of notes if you're using it for playback but if you're only using it for bass and drums backing, no problem.

Bob

He said he is using BIAB 9.5. Isn't that before the style wizard was introduced? Maybe my memory is just bad.

Well, since it's 9.5, I presume he meant 2009.5 (since there was no intermediate version between the very old version 8 and version 9 - which I still have). 2009.5 does have the MIDI style wizard, which I thought was introduced around version 12, or maybe 2004 (but I don't fully remember).

I came in at 12 and thought I rembered being told that the style wizard didn't exist before that. Didn't really know anything about how the version numbers went before that but thought he was saying a version before 12.

Hi, Keith -

Actually, MIDI style wizard was added in version 12. I put together a PDF document awhile back with the feature list of each version from version 9 through version 2007.5. I guess I need to update it for version 2008, 2008.5, 2009, 2009.5, 2010, and 2010.5.

Sorry Guys - Yes, version is 2009.5

Thanks for the replies I will try a few of your suggestions

regards

Peter,

Be sure to check out the "conductor" feature in Biab.

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