Custom Styles - Definition and How to Create Them

kaimei19

I'm uncertain about what makes a style a Custom Style for the purposes of classifying styles on StylePlayer.io. For instance, when I search and filter on Custom styles I get Factory styles returned. I know this because I suggested some of them as suited to particular songs. So what does make a style a Custom Style?

is it a Factory style but has been edited to have either an original non-factory song-specific intro, ending or both?
is it a Factory style but has been edited to have at least appropriate song-specific OTS?
is it a Factory style but has been edited to include at least one user-created song-specific variation (A, B, C or D)?
is it a Factory style that has altered by cobbling together other Factory style bits/intros/variations/endings to make it song(s)-specific?
is it a style, created either from scratch or midi and parsed into at least some style parts using Jørgen Sørensen's midi2style, Yamaha's Midi Song to Style, Style Creator, or any of several style creation programs?

Somehow I think that all of the above make a Custom style. Some more than others. I'm not sure that I'd be too impressed or interested in a factory style that has been edited to just change "Acoustic Guitar" to "Nylon Guitar", or "Sweet Strings" to "Theatre Strings".

I've not yet uploaded an original custom style to this site so I'm ignorant of the process. Is there, or might there be in the future, some way of indicating what's custom about a style? For instance, check-boxes to indicate a new intro, ending, variation(s), OTS? And what defines a duplicate upload?

I have been exploring various methods of creating new styles, using the software tools mentioned above and have achieved limited success. I have found that some straightforward songs convert to style from midi quite readily but if one attempts "Rhapsody in Blue", "Bohemian Rhapsody" or the "1812 Overture", then think again.

Perhaps this site, at some time, might have sections in the StylePlayer.io Community for providing assistance and help in creating, modifying styles for the various software packages - even if it's just collated links to on-line tutorials elsewhere, or links to forums where these things are discussed.

StylePlayer

kaimei19 Currently a factory style is considered to be original unmodified style. Everything else is a custom style.

This separation would be useful mostly for people who want to find unmodified original styles from other keyboards.

The first problem is how to make sure only unmodified factory styles are marked as factory and nothing else. I could be uploading all factory styles myself and not give people an option to mark their styles as factory, and if they try to upload the same factory style I already uploaded the site should detect the duplicate. This would be an ok solution from technical standpoint, but I want to see if I can avoid uploading any content myself, I want everything to be user contributed. Each time a new keyboard is released I don't want people to wait until I find the factory styles for them (for example I don't have SX920 styles still), and I am not really looking forward to doing that task each time. So I think instead we need to allow people to mark styles as factory, but have a way to correct the mistakes.

Now how to separate real custom styles from slightly modified factory styles. I think there could be a very wide variety of cases that would be difficult to formalize. It could be anything from only slightly modified OTS section to all tracks modified except drums, and everything in between. How to define at what point it is a new style and not an existing style.

My hope is that people would note the style origin it the description. And when it's not mentioned we can let any users leave style reviews (which is high on my todo list).

It should be also doable to automate detecting similar styles. We can detect how many midi events are similar between styles, and group similar styles this way. So when you are looking at any style you can see a list of similar styles and % of their similarity. That actually would be really awesome, I will add it to my todo list to explore.

Regarding style creation, that's something I am also really interested in tackling. I want this to become not only the primary source for finding styles, but also for the style creation. There are still too many features I want to complete before moving to the style creation portion, so not sure when I will get to it. I think we will be getting into style editing gradually starting with modifying existing styles (revoicing, editing OTS), and gradually adding more and more features until we can create new styles from scratch.

I also have big plans regarding the documentation and tutorials, and want to have a whole sister project dedicated solely to it, already have some ideas how it would work, planning to get it up before the end of the year. Documentation would be essential before going further into style/voice/registration editing as everything there is based on undocumented file formats and features. We need to document and organize all the fragmented knowledge that is currently spread across random sites and forums, I also want to share everything I discovered while working on this project so this knowledge is not lost. I think each developer rediscovering everything on their own from scratch each time is why the progress has been so slow in this area, we need a place where we all can share and accumulate our knowledge.

kaimei19

StylePlayer

You've clearly given it a lot of thought.

StylePlayer The first problem is how to make sure only unmodified factory styles are marked as factory and nothing else. I could be uploading all factory styles myself and not give people an option to mark their styles as factory, and if they try to upload the same factory style I already uploaded the site should detect the duplicate. This would be an ok solution from technical standpoint, but I want to see if I can avoid uploading any content myself, I want everything to be user contributed. Each time a new keyboard is released I don't want people to wait until I find the factory styles for them (for example I don't have SX920 styles still), and I am not really looking forward to doing that task each time. So I think instead we need to allow people to mark styles as factory, but have a way to correct the mistakes.

New keyboard factory styles. You may wish to assign that task to just one or two cooperating contributors - just to have an accurate list of a keyboard's styles in a drop-down for search is great - easy to identify if the factory style is already there (usually it is) and it excludes the opportunity for typing transcriptions, etc. Already I see we have duplicate factory styles for some keyboards - the problem is that one shows suggested songs, the other doesn't.

StylePlayer My hope is that people would note the style origin it the description. And when it's not mentioned we can let any users leave style reviews (which is high on my todo list).

This implies that there is a text field for a contributor to complete on upload? Or maybe in the future? Either way that would go a long way in assisting someone searching for a style with assessing its suitability. For example "This style based on 12-8PopBallad_5#.T547.sty but with custom Intro, VarB and Ending"

StylePlayer Regarding style creation, that's something I am also really interested in tackling.

Look forward to it in due course.

In the meantime I have so many scores that are crying out for suitable styles - and without this site it takes ages to try out the available factory styles. Here I can quickly evaluate what's available, download if necessary, create a registration, fine-tune for voices, etc and link it to the score in MobileSheets so the registration loads the score and vice versa. Brilliant.

StylePlayer

kaimei19 Already I see we have duplicate factory styles for some keyboards - the problem is that one shows suggested songs, the other doesn't.

Currently it detects exact duplicates only, if you change a voice (or a single note) it won't consider it a duplicate. So those must be not exactly the same (if you believe they are, can attach the links and I will check what's different).

kaimei19 This implies that there is a text field for a contributor to complete on upload?

Yeah there is, called "description". It is optional and rarefy being filled (it is also not that prominently surfaced even when it's filled, maybe need to make it more noticeable). I don't want to make it required to add extra friction for uploaders or force them to put there meaningless text if they don't have anything to say. I have high hopes for style reviews, so if someone thinks this style is just a factory style with some meaningless change they can note that.

Let's wait a little and see what would be the biggest problem moving forward. Currently I am trying to be as easy on the uploaders as I can and let them upload whatever they want and put as little restrictions as possible to get the momentum going. If we see that we are drowning in low quality content we can start being more demanding.

kaimei19 In the meantime I have so many scores that are crying out for suitable styles

Where are you getting your scores from? I find it pretty difficult to obtain good scores. Most of them just have oversimplified single note melodies in the right hand that make it sound too plain. I am trying to find scores where the right hand is full of chords and harmonies, that's what makes everything come alive.