Mark Bramnik

Hi Guys, First of all, @Bavi_H, thanks a lot for your answers. I'll definitely give them a try and will check on more styles, I'll also will try to use other modifications to test these settings and will update. @Mark Morgon-Shaw I haven't really tried other DAWs I've tried Style Magic which is another specialized software for Yamaha arranger keyboards, and obviously it doesn't have issues like this. In general, MixMaster integrates only with Cakewalk, and since it was free and "easy-to-understand" it has become an obvious choice for me (I'm not a musician and just study for my own joy and fun)... I'm not experienced with other types of DAWs - but I'll do my best to try and update. In general the style handling in Yamaha arranger keyboards is not an easy and straightforward process, because unfortunately Yamaha do not provide any software to handle this task and the arrangers themselves do not have many on-board style modification options. I can't estimate whether its a niche issue, to me it looks like there many people who own various yamaha keyboards (I believe its the most widespread company when it comes to arrangers), and some of them would like to create styles. These people (including me) would be really glad to see a solution for this issue, because IMHO, Cakewalk has the best midi editing capabilities - way better than anything available for Yamaha keyboards, of course its only my personal opinion...

Hi Bavi_H, First of all, thanks a lot for your detailed answer. I really appreciate it. I'll have to understand what you've written in a first message because I'm a relatively newcomer in DAWs in general, but bottom line I think I'm suggesting to implement a setting in the Cakewalk that will activate a "non-intrusive" mode of operating the midi files that were already created somewhere else. From your answer I understand that such a setting doesn't exist, and this is an unfortunate situation. As for the arranger's forum. I've asked this question in the psrtutorial which is the best international forum for yamaha arrangers owners. The thread itself is available here: https://www.psrtutorial.com/forum/index.php/topic,63571.0.html Frankly I was hoping to get more answers here Note that ckobu, a guy who runs an excellent youtube channel about advanced concepts in arrangers even made a video about this long time before I've discovered this issue by myself: In the video he suggests to apply a series of "manual" conversions in the mixmaster after the modifications to the midi file that Cakewalk does. Probably he is familiar which which messages Cakewalk tends to add, and uses an another feature of Mix Master which allows to shift all the selected events to the fixed amount of ticks (specified in the UI of mix master). But to me it sounds as a workaround. I personally suggested to somehow automate this in the mix master itself - for example to memorize the position of mandatory markers, so that the program could calculate the "diff" but I'm not familiar with the code of MixMaster to estimate whether its possible or not. In addition probably it won't be the best possible solution because in future versions Cakewalk might start adding different messages so that it will be really hard to track how to resolve this "diff"...) So all-in-all I believe a solution at the level of Cakewalk could be the best in this situation. It could be great if someone from the Cakewalk Developement Team could answer whether it is something that might be considered for implementation or there is no chance that Cakewalk will implement something like this in future? In general MixMaster (which is by far the best known Yamaha Specialized Software) doesn't integrate with any DAW but the Cakewalk... Thanks a lot again, Regards, Mark

Hi Guys, First of all thanks for answering me and sorry for a delayed response, I wish I could dedicate to music more time Anyway I'll explain this issue as detailed as I can. So I've tried @msmcleod's answer - used Cakewalk with this flag - it has produced a wrong result. Here are step-by-step instructions that reproduces the issue For example I took a file called BigRoom.T551.prs (attached). This is a Yamaha Factory Style from their last Arranger Genos - I've copied it from the arranger itself "as is" and didn't make any changes in that file . I've opened it in mixmaster tool (a specialized software that works with Yamaha Styles) and checked where the first Markers (SFF2 and SInt) are: So they're supposed to be at the first tick of the first bar (Yamaha arrangers have a resolution of 1920 ticks per quarter note). Basically Markers are used to differentiate between the variations, but in this example they're just anchors which are "simple to track"/ Now From MixMaster I call Go To Function and it opens the file in the Cakewalk. Why Go To function? Because (in my understanding) Yamaha Style contains also a CASM section (Operational commands that the Keyboard can read and operate during the style playback - stuff like How to treat chord changes, etc). Since Cakewalk (as like as any other DAW) doesn't have any support for this kind of data, it automatically "strips" this CASM section and kind of splits the data into two different complemetary: the midi file and a CASM Data that doesn't get even loaded. It creates a temporary file called MMaster.sty and asks Cakewalk to load it instead of the original file. Then we can make changes in Cakewalk and save (again to the MMaster.sty), when we close Cakewalk, the MixMaster will merge back the edited data back with the CASM data. While the Cakewalk is opened, MixMaster "waits" in the background. Ok, So I open Cakewalk with a GoTo Function and load the Markers View (Alt +Shift +4) - these markers have the correct time stamps: Now I open a piano roll of 16th channel and move the first note I see one tone Up (this change is done just for the sake of illustration): I save the file and close the cakewalk. At this point I get back to the Mix Master. And here the issue arises! When I open again the List View in the Mix Master - I see that the markers have been shifted (just like the other notes, again - the markers are easy to see because there is a relatively small amount of them) as you see it has been shifted 58 ticks right! Given the fact that the only change I've done is changing 1 single note pitch, I don't understand why do we even have these kind of shifts in time. A Link to MixMaster Program: https://psrtutorial.com/MB/EV_Files/mixmaster.html Thanks a lot for your time BigRoom.T551.prs

Hi, I'm a newbie in a Cakewalk world, coming from Yamaha Home Arrangers. Recently I've started to learn how to create styles for these keyboards using a PC and thought about using Cakewalk for plain midi editing. I open a style in a specialized software and "strip" all the non-relevant things which are in use by Yamaha Keyboards (so called CASM section) - I end up with a plain midi file that I can open in Cakewalk. And here comes my issue: Depending on a file content Cakewalk seems to "shift" notes by some arbitrary number of ticks, depending on the file. This happens when a file has a lot of controller/ system exclusive events. I literally see all notes shown with different ticks. I've asked on Yamaha arrangers forum and got a confirmation that this seems to be a bug in a Cakewalk itself. Now, this never happens for "simple" midi files, only those "busy" with the aforementioned data and the "gap" is always different from file to file. Usually I'm talking about 60-100 ticks difference (at least thats what I've observed). I've tried to open these midi files in a "specialized" software (Style Magic, Mix Master) as well as in another DAW (Cubase, Ableton) and I haven't seen this issue. So my question is whether this indeed is a known issue and if there is a way to submit an issue via a bug tracking system about that? Thanks a lot in advance, Mark