ys2mma works for conversion of which all Yamaha keyboard style files

[falcon74]

Was pleasantly surprised to find out about ys2mma CLI tool to convert Yamaha keyboard (I suppose the PSR range?) .sty style files into .mma format (Grooves, I suppose?).
I have a PSR550 but my cousin who is a professional musician has a Tyros. I was wondering if I could convert the .sty files to .mma format ?

I realized that there have been some evolutions of the style files as noted here (SSF1, SSF2 and variants): http://www.jososoft.dk/yamaha/articles/style2_5.htm
What version should I expect to work with ys2mma ?

[falcon74]

Looks like there are tools (unfortunately Windows only, but perhaps I can run them in WINE) that can convert between the various style file formats: http://www.jososoft.dk/yamaha/software/sofc/index.htm
Still, question remains, is it SFF1 (that too with specific limitations) that the ys2mma tool can help convert ?

[bvdp]

I wrote this quite awhile ago But, If I recall it is pretty specific to SFF1 type files. I have made a minor change to the web page to indicate the format for ys2mma.

Please let me know how the conversion from other formats back to SFF1 works.

[falcon74]

Thanks. Will play around and try out with few styles.

I am struggling a bit because I am new to not only MMA but MIDI in general. One of my key aims is to convert some of the Indian styles into MMA compatible grooves with right instrument mappings (especially Indian instruments like table & dholak for percussion, sarangi for strings, shehnai for wind instrument, for which I need to figure out how the midi instrument/bank mapping works). It was one of the key reasons why I didn't go with BIAB, as they have no Indian styles. This is such a vibrant community, and I am glad I found MMA.

[bvdp]

One the big gotchas with Indian (and other non-European) music are quarter tones which our western notation really isn't up to handling (yes, I'm aware of 1/2 tone notation symbols). I did a plugin for MMA which does handle it. It's a bit painful ... but

It works by taking the midi channel and splitting it 3, tuned 1/4 step higher, lower and the same. See the plugin qriff for more details.

[falcon74]

Thanks again @bvdp. I am not a trained musician -- just an enthusiast. My knowledge (unfortunately) of Indian classical (Hindustani or Carnatic) music is limited, but I thought that for most instruments there isn't much use of microtones, unless the instrument or the style of music is of Persian or Arabic origin. But then, I could be completely wrong. Bollywood music draws a lot of influence from Western music. For untrained ears (like mine) the key differences would be in the instruments used, the  rhythms (and their mix). My ambitions is quite limited in that sense !

[falcon74]

Does ys2mma and mma in general expect all filenames and path-names in all CAPS ?
The case difference seems to throw ys2mma off a bit.

[bvdp]

Thanks again @bvdp. I am not a trained musician -- just an enthusiast. My knowledge (unfortunately) of Indian classical (Hindustani or Carnatic) music is limited, but I thought that for most instruments there isn't much use of microtones, unless the instrument or the style of music is of Persian or Arabic origin. But then, I could be completely wrong. Bollywood music draws a lot of influence from Western music. For untrained ears (like mine) the key differences would be in the instruments used, the  rhythms (and their mix). My ambitions is quite limited in that sense !

It is probably (and I am not at all an expert or even a novice with this kind of music) mostly dependent on the MIDI instruments, the voicing and the rhythms I would start by looking at ONE instrument at a time and trying to replicate that in a MMA track, then, later, you can start to combine them into a GROOVE. Have fun!