Giving DetroitBeat “Soul”

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I decided to have another go at Yamaha audio style conversion. This time I converted the PSR-S950 “DetroitBeat” audio style to an all-MIDI style called “DetroitSoul”. The name “DetroitSoul” seemed appropriate since most of the MIDI rhythm parts are taken from the Yamaha preset style “Soul”.

The conversion process was a little different.

  • Load DetroitBeat to set up the mixing console and the DSP effects.
  • Enter Style Creator and create a new style. Turn off the audio part.
  • Copy all non-rhythm parts from the MAIN and FILL IN sections of DetroitBeat into the new style.
  • Identify candidate donor styles for the MIDI rhythm parts. The “Soul” and “MotorCity” styles sounded the best (e.g., similar groove, no conflicting beats, etc.)
  • Audition the candidate MAIN and FILL IN sections. “Soul” was the best fit.
  • Copy the RHY1 and RHY2 parts from “Soul” into the new style (DetroitSoul).
  • Build a table of possible donor styles for the INTRO and ENDING sections.
  • Audition donor INTRO and ENDING sections which have the same length as the INTRO and ENDING sections in DetroitBeat.
  • Copy the donor INTRO and ENDING sections into the new style.
  • Double check and fix up the variation effect (DSP1).
  • Copy the OTS settings for DetroitBeat into the new style.

The process was smooth, but still required a lot of button pressing!

Here is a table with INTRO and ENDING section lengths. This table could come in handy when converting other audio styles to MIDI.

Section   DetroitBeat  Soul  MotorCity  FranklySoul  70sChartSoul
-------   -----------  ----  ---------  -----------  ------------
INTRO 1        1        (1)      1           1            1
INTRO 2        4        (4)     (4)          5            4
INTRO 3        8         4      (8)          8            8
INTRO 4        1         1       1           1            1

ENDING 1       2         1      (2)          2            2
ENDING 2       5         3       3           2            3
ENDING 3       5         4      (5)          4            4
ENDING 4       1        (1)      1           1            1

The parenthesized items in the table indicate the source rhythm sections that were copied to the new style. Please note that nothing was copied into ENDING 2. I couldn’t find an appropriate replacement and the ending sounded good enough by itself. Sometimes the right thing to do as a musician is lay out!

ENDING 3 ran on a little too long and the extraneous beats sounded like the drummer made a mistake. I shortened the section length to 4 bars.

DSP1 is configured as a SYSTEM variation effect. Here are the effect settings and parameters:

Category: REAL DIST
Effect: ST AMP VT

COMP SW          ON
COMP SUSTAIN     0.4
COMP LEVEL       6.0
DIST TYPE        Crunch
DIST DRIVE       7.8
DIST EQ          Mid Boost
DIST TONE        7.0 
DIST PRESENCE    6.0
DIST OUTPUT      24

Overall, the end result is musical. The Soul beat is not quite the classic Motown groove. (Think “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” by the Four Tops.) I have a few phrases from the old Yamaha QY70 that might fit and someday I’ll look into it. In the meantime, enjoy the new style DetroitSoul.