Style Editor

In the Style Editor you can modify styles or create them from MIDI files. Initially you will be presented with the simple view. This is the easiest way to adjust the instrument settings.

Simple view

In the upper left corner you can select a variation in the style. The instruments that play on each of the channels 9-16 are listed with their instrument names. The number of the active channel has a yellow light besides it. When you press the play button the active channel will be played repeatedly. While playing you can activate another channel by clicking on its number. Check "All tracks" to play all channels at the same time. The variation is by default played in chord C but you can specify another chord.

You can adjust the settings for each channel instrument. Point to a knob in the column under "v" and keep the left mouse button down while dragging it up and down. You will hear the volume of the corresponding instrument go louder and softer. Click the right mouse button on a knob to set it to its default value (which is maximum for volume). The same way you can adjust modulation, pan, chorus and reverb. Not all synthesizers or instruments support changes of all these effects.

Left click on an instrument name to bring up a selection list of instruments as defined in Preferences/Voicelist. You can also type the patchnumber of the instrument directly in de column under "pat". If you have multiple banks with instruments then the msb and lsb (most and least significant byte) of the bank number can be typed under "msb" and "lsb". Right click to clear the instrument definition of a channel.

To edit the notes in a channel right click the "events" column. Select in which view you want to edit the events:
Events List, Piano Roll or Staff. You can insert, delete and edit notes. If you add notes beyond the bar length of the variation they will be omitted. If needed make the variaton longer by changing the number of bars in the Style Editor window. If the new variation length is longer, you will be asked if you want to fill the extra bars with repeats of the events already present. Yes would be a good answer unless you want to add all the notes in the new bars yourself. You can edit the events in the extra bars to create more variety.

When you check the Record option and click on the Play button, then anything that is received from the MIDI In port is recorded. After playing is stopped the notes (events) recorded in the last (not-empty) repetition are included.

In some styles you see "alt" in the events column instead of the number of events. That means there are alternating tracks for this channel. When you try to edit these events you will get an error message that tells you to either simplify the channel or to switch to advance view and edit the tracks separately. You can remove the alternative tracks and keep just one track for each channel with the edit menu option Simplify Style.

Advanced view

Click on the Advanced button to go to the Advanced view. Now there are16 tracks. In the Track parameters on the right you see the Destination channel, which is often but not always the same as the tracknumber.

"Apply changes to" links the parameters to other variations, when you change a parameter in one variations then the linked variations will be update too.

The track name can have maximum 8 characters.

Destination channel is the channel where the track will be played. Only channel 9 thru 16 are available for Yamaha styles. Usually 10 is for drums and 11 for bass.

Source chord and type indicates in which chord the notes in this track are played. E.g. CMaj7 will contain the notes c-e-g-b in the eventlist.

Transposition type defines how the notes in track are transposed according to the played chords. Select Bypass for drums, Bass for bass and Chords for other instruments. Select melody is you want to maintain a melody in e.g. an intro, wether they match the chord or not.

Note Low is the lowest note allowed in this track. Lower notes will be raised an octave.

Note High is the highest note allowed in this track. Higher notes will be lowered an octave.

If the base key of the chord played is higher then the High Key then all the notes played will be lowered an octave.

Retrigger Rule defines what happens to notes that are still sounding (between note-on and note-off) when a chord change occurs. Stop will end the note, use it for instruments with sharp attack like piano. Retrigger will end the note and play it again at its new pitch, use it for instruments with slow attack like strings. Retrigger to Root will end the note and play it as the root note of the new chord, use it for the bass. Pitch shift will be ignored in OMB because in MIDI it is not possible to shift individual notes, only the complete channel.

Note Transposition Rule indicates wether the notes are transposed or not. Drum tracks should be "root fixed" all other tracks should be "root trans".

The Control events panel shows the events for the instrument settings like patch and volume. These are activated when the style is loaded and stay the same for all variations. It is advised to keep the destination channel the same for corresponding tracks in all variations and in the control events, but you may encounter styles where this is not the case.

The Mute panel is used to define alternate tracks for the same destination channel. This creates more variety.The selected track is only played in chords that are checked here. Note mute defines the root note of the chord (Dm will be played if D is checked). Chord mute defined the chord type (Dm will be played if m is checked).

Edit menu

Variation Add: Add a variation to a style. Select a variation that is not yet present (if any). Specify the desired length in bars of the new variation. Select an already existing variation to copy the track and mute parameters from. Specify to copy the events also and to fill the events to length if the new variation is longer.

Variation Delete: Delete the current variation.

Variation Velocity: various effects to apply to the velocity (loudness) of the notes in the variation. You can specify to change more than one variation.

Variation Import: Rip a variation from another style. Because the instrument settings are probably different for each channel in the imported variation, it is advised to choose the option "Copy initial controllers to eventlist" when requested. You can also choose to copy the tempo to the eventlist to ensure that each variation is played in the correct tempo.

Variation Copy: Each possible variation is labeled, both existing (boldface) or empty. Above each label you can select which already existing variation should be copied to this variation.

Track Clear: Remove the notes (events) in this track.

Track Velocity: various effects to apply to the velocity (loudness) of the notes in this track. You can specify to change more than one variation.

Track Import: Rip a track from another style. If the instrument settings are different for the imported track, you should choose "Copy initial controllers to eventlist" when requested. If you are going to play this channel with the same instrument in all variations then choose "Copy initial controllers to initial controllers".

Track Drum Note Conversion: Change the drum notes. Activate a drum channel (usually 10). Select a note and specify a new pitch or a new velocity or choose to delete these notes. Select other notes and specify what to do with them. You can choose to do the conversion in all the variations. Press the Apply button when ready. You can save your specifications in a note conversion table and load it later to do the conversion with other styles.

Track Cut Events: Remove events from specified types.

Track Copy Events: copy events from specified types.

Track Paste Events: paste copied events.

Simplify Style: Remove alternate tracks. Place all the tracks on numbers 9-16 with a destination channel equal to the tracknumber.

Create a style from a MIDI file

With the
Style Wizard button you can create a new style from a MIDI file.