Two style Engines: Any Good?

[AntonySharmman]

WHY= 160 Polyphony is not enough for this thing.

If 64 notes polyphony is enough for one player in Pa4X then 2.5 players can be supported in Pa5X.

Running out of polyphony in custom resources is a matter of sound developing and architecture of creator just like in Kronos.

[JohnnysNet]

Good points! As someone how is interested in the Pa5X, this feature means to me: more complex productions! Modern music production is often more complex and 2 style/song players means basically, you have 32 tracks in total you could possibly use, right!? If I prepare 2 songs I play along with, a very powerful performance might be the result. As for the polyphony, I too believe, it's mainly a question of good sound design. In case you struggle with that, I think it could be a good idea to record a song as audio and put the mp3 file in the second player.

[Asena]

WHY= 160 Polyphony is not enough for this thing.

If 64 notes polyphony is enough for one player in Pa4X then 2.5 players can be supported in Pa5X.

Running out of polyphony in custom resources is a matter of sound developing and architecture of creator, just like in Kronos.

Hmm , dear Anthony,OK Can you play 2 styles at the same time with 4 Pads, one HUGE piano with Upper 2,&3 with a string sound or else, at the same time??? If you can, make a video, and show us, This is not any competition my friend, Please think twice now, since ITS IMPOSSIBLE! This has nothing to do with skills, this is a limitation issue, on the KORG, there is a limitation , and we know what's that is, or do we?

If you play a piano sound, and you use your Damper pedal, It's going to take a CC , and CC will take POLIY whenever its pressed Down, and when you release that pedal, the Same thing will be backwards!
So even if WE are not so skilled, we do understand that there are limitations.
When you can play 2 styles that use all the power of OSC,s POLYPHONIES, pads that HUGE piano, and all the User 2,&3 without dropouts in sustain/release and more, well i Want to see that .

[AntonySharmman]

Just try the same with only one style in Pa4X ... crystal clear ! I don't remember you ever complain in Pa4X section for the obvious ...
Pa4X with stereo resources have 64 notes of polyphony (128 paired OSC) , Pa5X with stereo resources has 160 voices of polyphony (160 single OSCs)
Not advanced Physics nor Mathematics , just simple arithmetic for children , nothing to do with power users !
Always talking about factory resources , for custom resources I insist that it's a clear matter of skilled programmers to create OSCs priority.
If I want on purpose to run out polyphony , I can do it with just 4 elements of KBD Set as in Kronos with just a Combination ... great achievement

I can find limitations even in 512 stereo polyphony but I do not complain , the fact is that real stereo polyphony is increased 2,5 times from Pa4X and
the real problem here is custom stereo samples bugs that are remarkably reducing polyphony in KBD Set and this must be addressed ...

[Asena]

Just try the same with only one style in Pa4X ... crystal clear ! I don't remember you ever complain in Pa4X section for the obvious ...
Pa4X with stereo resources have 64 notes of polyphony (128 paired OSC) , Pa5X with stereo resources has 160 voices of polyphony (160 single OSCs)
Not advanced Physics nor Mathematics , just simple arithmetic for children , nothing to do with power users !
Always talking about factory resources , for custom resources I insist that it's a clear matter of skilled programmers to create OSCs priority.
If I want on purpose to run out polyphony , I can do it with just 4 elements of KBD Set as in Kronos with just a Combination ... great achievement

I can find limitations even in 512 stereo polyphony but I do not complain , the fact is that real stereo polyphony is increased 2,5 times from Pa4X and
the real problem here is custom stereo samples bugs that are remarkably reducing polyphony in KBD Set and this must be addressed ...

NO, not al all, It does not matter if you have a CLEAR pa5X, and play 2 Styles 4 pads and another elements in Usr 1,2,3.

If you are ok with your ears you hear it very well.
I can explain more , but i do not have time, and it does not matter, but i hear and i know it, .
About the Skills, it,s also a matter, if you just take a sample and put it in one OSC, you have the sound, and we dont need to make bigg deal of that, whenever we use to much polyphoni , the KB cant handle it 100%, 2 player thing is therefor not 100% usefull either.
Like one mentioned here, you cant do much than Start one section of the style element and stop it, Thats all.
Instead, better to copy that part to the style you like it on, and just use one style player.
But since it,s a huge number of math, i,m not capable to handle it

[AntonySharmman]

Asena I do not have either the time to discuss of how you use your arranger and I really don't care nor to explain anything further.
The fact is that Pa5X has 2,5 times more polyphony in stereo samples than Pa4X , crystal clear ! nothing more to add on this.
Users that have bought it are aware and I just remind it to users that are not ...

[worth]

All this back and forth waste of words but not a SINGLE demonstration of how combining 2 styles simultaneously makes for better musicality.

We always go down this technical rabbit hole when the discussion is actually about music .

Show me musically the benefit of combining 2styles that doesn’t sound like some AI monstrosity….

Show me

[karmathanever]

I thought it was designed to just fade-out of one style into another... (like players on PA4x except with styles)

Really can't imagine any situation when I would use it but that's just me.
The testing I did with it for a couple of hours presented several hiccups - in some cases dropping sounds and volumes - was incredibly unstable.

Would seriously like to know who uses this function and in what contexts - maybe situations I've not thought about.

Thanks

Pete

[D575]

I thought it was designed to just fade-out of one style into another... (like players on PA4x except with styles)

Really can't imagine any situation when I would use it but that's just me.
The testing I did with it for a couple of hours presented several hiccups - in some cases dropping sounds and volumes - was incredibly unstable.

Would seriously like to know who uses this function and in what contexts - maybe situations I've not thought about.

Thanks

Pete

Pete, just to be clear before i respond to your question...

Are you not aware of the two style synchronisation with both styles playing at the same time?

[QuiRobinez]

I thought it was designed to just fade-out of one style into another... (like players on PA4x except with styles)

Really can't imagine any situation when I would use it but that's just me.
The testing I did with it for a couple of hours presented several hiccups - in some cases dropping sounds and volumes - was incredibly unstable.

Would seriously like to know who uses this function and in what contexts - maybe situations I've not thought about.

For me it's really useful, I use it in the following situations:

- use an acappella vocal in the second player which plays then in sync with my style (the acappella was prepared upfront for that tempo by me in the daw).

- use a style with custom midi parts specifically for a song, this way I have the song recognisable elements in a style only and I can combine it with any style in the pa5x. Very nice to do this, because the song phrases can be easily created in a new style and then you can combine it with the full styles on the pa5x, ranging from ballads, to funk to blues. The sky is the limit this way and the song is always recognisable because you just play the song recognisable elements from that second style

- Use backing tracks in the second player to play along, the voice can be killed with the voice killer that you can assign to one of the three assignable switches

- load up the same midi file in both players, so you can compare them in realtime when you do the revoicing process

- load up two different styles in both players and mix and match them to find out what works well together, so that you can then create a new style in assembly mode with that combination

- loading a midi file in player 1 and add a backing track with just some well positioned add on patterns in player 2 (like for instance my above and beyond demo).

These scenarios I use a lot and I think it works flawlessly.

regarding the note stealing, I didn't have any problems with it, I agree with Antony, the sounds should make use of the note stealing algorithms, you can program that in your own sounds, the korg has features for that. But I'm used to the old skool 8 note synths or creating productions in a 32 note workstation, so for me the amount of polyphony is insanely high.

If the factory sounds causes problems (and I saw that some of the piano sounds for instance are programmed with lots of oscillators, then you can always, downsize the number of oscillators needed to get a desired result. If you have experience with the old synths then probably sound designers will do this automatically when creating their sounds.

[D575]

Yes, this is good and can be the source for some creative work, but like all things will require some time and effort to produce good results, including unusual matches that work...

Generally, you do not want two base lines running simultaneously when both styles are synchronised...

My personal feelings are that the dual style player system is a little underdeveloped in places, which can make things difficult in certain instances...

Initially in the beginning I also felt this was a gimmick, but, if Korg could exspand and develop the system further, including more polyphony across the hole platform, then Korg might just be onto a winner in the future...

Providing Korg still have the desire to realise this for PA5X ?...

So, to add from my point about "further development of the dual style players" from my previous post on page one of this thread...

Improve access to Player1 and Player2 once locked and synchronised together independently of the X-FADER Slider when both Style Players are active and can be played and heard together...

The reason for this, is so you can have real-time access and complete control of all the functions from the Main Screen or the Control Panel of Player1(Yellow) and Player2 (Blue) with out disturbing the X-FADER Slider...

At the present time you have limited options/access to both Players (1 and 2) unless you choose to disturb the X-FADER which is not practical in many instances once set, and this can be very limiting when needing to access each player independently after synchronisation...

Possible Suggestion for an OS update>
Perhaps something like a double tap of the Style button in each Player would then switch to the Player of choice indicated by the change in colour of the Player chosen (Yellow or Blue)...

This would be very useful and would eliminate the problem of having to access each player by moving the X-FADER Slider, which is Not Practical once the X-FADER Slider has been set between each player in synchronisation mode...

This would allow much more flexibility, which is missing in the present OS considering all of the above.

P.s. Also, a central point maker on screen for the X-FADER position to be included with OS update.

[AntonySharmman]

I saw that some of the piano sounds for instance are programmed with lots of oscillators, then you can always,
downsize the number of oscillators needed to get a desired result

It's not really a matter of lot of OSCs , body multisamples are working in velocity control mode and always one note polyphony is used ,
but you can remove FX and resonance in Style tracks pianos that are completely invisible and waste polyphony !

You can experiment in 2 Style players , splitting a Style of 8 tracks in 2 styles of 4 tracks with sync and show users that we can easily
create a combined 16 tracks Style that I strongly believe that this will be further implemented by KorgPa in the future although initial
concept was a DJ style concept of playing many resources in mixing as Pete thought.

[QuiRobinez]

I saw that some of the piano sounds for instance are programmed with lots of oscillators, then you can always,
downsize the number of oscillators needed to get a desired result

It's not really a matter of lot of OSCs , body multisamples are working in velocity control mode and always one note polyphony is used ,
but you can remove FX and resonance in Style tracks pianos that are completely invisible and waste polyphony !

that was indeed what I ment without going into much detail.

[voip]

Surely one of the benefits of the two style feature is that it allows the player to follow a medley style of playing, that keeps the punters on the floor dancing.

.

[worth]

[quote="QuiRobinez"][quote="karmathanever"]I thought it was designed to just fade-out of one style into another... (like players on PA4x except with styles)

Really can't imagine any situation when I would use it but that's just me.
The testing I did with it for a couple of hours presented several hiccups - in some cases dropping sounds and volumes - was incredibly unstable.

Would seriously like to know who uses this function and in what contexts - maybe situations I've not thought about.
[/quote]

For me it's really useful, I use it in the following situations:

- use an acappella vocal in the second player which plays then in sync with my style (the acappella was prepared upfront for that tempo by me in the daw).

- use a style with custom midi parts specifically for a song, this way I have the song recognisable elements in a style only and I can combine it with any style in the pa5x. Very nice to do this, because the song phrases can be easily created in a new style and then you can combine it with the full styles on the pa5x, ranging from ballads, to funk to blues. The sky is the limit this way and the song is always recognisable because you just play the song recognisable elements from that second style

- Use backing tracks in the second player to play along, the voice can be killed with the voice killer that you can assign to one of the three assignable switches

- load up the same midi file in both players, so you can compare them in realtime when you do the revoicing process

- load up two different styles in both players and mix and match them to find out what works well together, so that you can then create a new style in assembly mode with that combination

- loading a midi file in player 1 and add a backing track with just some well positioned add on patterns in player 2 (like for instance my above and beyond demo).

These scenarios I use a lot and I think it works flawlessly.

regarding the note stealing, I didn't have any problems with it, I agree with Antony, the sounds should make use of the note stealing algorithms, you can program that in your own sounds, the korg has features for that. But I'm used to the old skool 8 note synths or creating productions in a 32 note workstation, so for me the amount of polyphony is insanely high.

If the factory sounds causes problems (and I saw that some of the piano sounds for instance are programmed with lots of oscillators, then you can always, downsize the number of oscillators needed to get a desired result. If you have experience with the old synths then probably sound designers will do this automatically when creating their sounds.[/quote]

This sounds really promising . If you ever feel inclined or can find the time, a video demonstrating some of these uses would be really eye opening in terms of new ways to use this technology . Nothing you have suggested has been pushed by either Korg ( the company or reps ) or enthusiasts promoting the two styled engine feature .