style arranger keyboards and software

[stephen.hazel]

First off, the layout on this site is TERRRRRRIBLE !!  God help us all !!

 

I have some questions about .sty files and the software that makes use of them.

 

I guess there's BandInABox and Yamaha PSR keyboards that do this slightly different ways. BandInABox's styles seem to be ONLY for it. But the Yamaha .STY files seem to be publicly documented extensions to the midi format.

 

I don't have a PSR keyboard and have only JUST barely gotten into bandInABox.

 

But my question is about how the different tracks are "filtered" into the final midi result.

 

There seem to be 4 types of tracks: percussion, bass, melody(phrase) and chord.

 

Chord can be either "just transpose it from C" or "voice lead the notes from the last chord"

 

I'm a computer programmer and want to do what the Yamaha PSRs do in software on my pc (as part of my pet program pianocheetah). 

 

Does anybody have experience with MAKING style files? Or know how the algorithms work to turn the .STY midi events into the final midi stream?

 

I think for chord tracks, you transpose from C to whatever the root of the chord is and then strip out notes not in the chord type. (I guess the B is adjusted 1 halfstep down if you're doing a 7th chord?)

 

Percussion track is easy - no transposing at all.

 

But I'm not sure about the melody(phrase) and bass tracks. There seem to be plenty of accidentals in them.

If I just transpose from C to the keysig, they SEEM to sound pretty terrible. Should I be stripping out notes not of the chord or something?

 

Anyways, if somebody can point me to how those PSRs work their magic (or band in a box, for that matter), I'd be most grateful 

 

Thanks much