39
Style Composer
The E-A7 allows you to program your own styles.
Before explaining the details, there are a few concepts you need to
familiarize yourself with.
What Are Style?
Patterns (Divisions)
Styles are short sequences, or patterns you can select in real-time.
Pattern-based accompaniments usually consist of the following
elements:
5
The basic groove, i.e. the style that is the backbone of the song.
5
Several alternatives for the basic groove that keep the
accompaniment interesting and suggest some kind of
“evolution”
or
“variation ”
The divisions that are assigned to the
Variation
[1]
–
[4]
buttons are called Main 1–4.
5
Fill-Ins to announce the beginning of new parts.
5
An introduction and a closing section (ending).
Programming four to eight patterns for a three-minute song is
usually enough. Just use them in the right order to make them
suitable for your song.
Some Patterns are selected on the basis of the chords you play in the
chord recognition area of the keyboard (major, minor, seventh).
Tracks
Unlike a drum machine, a E-A7 style not only contains the rhythm
part (drums & percussion) but also a melodic accompaniment, such
as piano, guitar, bass and strings lines. That is why the styles work
with tracks–eight to be precise.
NOTE
If necessary, you can even record a second drum track.
The reason why the AccDrums part is assigned to the first track
and the ABass part to the second is that most programmers and
recording artists start by laying down the rhythm section of a
song.
There are exceptions to this rule, however, so feel free to
start with any other part if that is easier for the style you are
programming.
NOTE
Though there are six (melodic) ACC tracks, most styles only
contain two or three melodic accompaniment lines. In most
cases, less means more, i.e. do not program six melodic
accompaniments just because the E-A7 provides that facility. If
you listen very carefully to a CD, you will discover that it is not the
number of instruments you use that makes a song sound
“big”
but rather the right notes at the right time.
Looped vs. one-shot patterns
The E-A7 uses two kinds of patterns: looped divisions and one-shot
divisions.
Looped divisions:
Looped divisions are accompaniments that are
repeated until you select another division or press
[
s
]
to stop
Arranger playback.
The E-A7 provides four programmable looped divisions (VARIATION
[1]
–
[4]
).
Looped divisions do not select other divisions when they are finished
(because they never end): they keep playing until you select another
division by hand (or by foot).
One-shot divisions:
One-shot patterns (or
“Divisions”
) are only
played once and then select a looped division or stop the Arranger.
The E-A7 uses the following one-shot divisions: INTRO
[1]
–
[4]
, FILL
UP
[1]
–
[4]
and ENDING
[1]
–
[4]
.
The division type also determines how the respective tracks are
played back. Any track of a looped pattern that is shorter than
another track is repeated until the longest track is finished. Then, a
new cycle begins.
Here’s how you can take advantage of that: if the drums play the
same notes during four measures, while the rhythm guitar or piano
needs four measures to complete a cycle, recording only one drum
measure is enough, because it is automatically repeated until the
longest track is finished.
Several drum tracks are possible
The Style Composer allows you to assign a Drum Set to any
“Accomp”
track, thereby turning it into an additional drum track.
Using the Style Composer
Access the Style Composer page.
1
Press the
[Menu]
button.
2
Use the direct buttons to select
“Style Composer ”
The Style Composer screen of the currently selected style appears.
Main screen
The right screen shows the status of each track of the division.
This screen shows you what kind of data is in each track, and how
many measures there are.
You can perform the following operations.
[L1] (Division) button:
Use the Value
[-]
[+]
buttons to change the
division (Intro, Main, Fill, Ending).
[R1] (Mode) button:
Use the Value
[-]
[+]
buttons to change the
chord (Major, Minor, 7th).
[R4] [R5] buttons:
Select the track.
[F1] (Mute) button:
Mute the sound of only the selected track.
[F5] (Solo) button:
Play the sound of only the selected track.
Menu screen
The Style Composer provides the following functions.
Track Edit:
For each track, you can delete or copy a specified region
of measures.
Micro Edit:
You can edit the details of the style.
Initialize:
You can return a style to its default state.
Undo:
You can return the data to its state prior to when you edited it
by Track Edit or Micro Edit.
Save:
You can save a style that you created or edited.
Initializing a Style (Initialize)
If you want to create a style from scratch, start by initializing
(Initialize) the style.
NOTE
Initializing a preset style will not erase the data.
