STYLE DISKS
What is a Style?
Styles essentially are the backing rhythms and accompaniments used on so called "Arranger" keyboards. These let the musician play a chord on the keyboard and the style plays the drums, bass and a number of accompaniment instruments to the same harmony as the chord played. Choose say a Bossa Nova Style, play a C chord and you will hear an accompaniment band playing a Bossa Nova backing in the key of C, change to a different chord, say A minor, and the backing band will continue playing in A minor.
All arranger type keyboards have built in styles, but if you want more, or a specific type, you can buy extra ones on floppy disk (assuming the keyboard has a floppy disk drive). Usually these extra styles work in exactly the same way as the built in styles i.e. if the keyboard provides 2 Intro's, 2 endings, 3 fill's and four variations for each style, the styles on disk will have the same number and work in the same way as the built in styles.
Styles, Patterns and Arrangements. What's the difference?
In practice these are the same thing, just the various makers way of expressing what a style is. For simplicity, BCK refer to patterns and arrangements as styles.
Will all styles work on my keyboard?
Unfortunately not! Each keyboard maker uses their own system for creating styles. One assumes they all consider their own system to be the best and so there is not a unified format. Worse still, the formats between models within a makers range varies so it is important to choose not only a style disk for your keyboard make, but also the model. We have tried to give information required on the keyboard makers specific page rather than cloud the issue here.
Click on your keyboard make to see suitable styles.
Want to convert a style from one make to another? Want to make your own styles from a MIDI file song? Check out Style Works 2000. Click HERE
Want to create your own styles without the hassle? Check out Style Factory. Click HERE