Besides founding this web site, I began programming software and creating styles in 1999. And this is what it has developed to. Enjoy!

You can mail me from the link in the top right corner of the page.

In 1991 I got a pc with a MIDI connection. But I had a lot of work (and trouble) with this as the keyboard was *not* General MIDI. At that time I learned the MIDI specification.  

EMT-1 (Sound Expander)

EME-1 (Digital Reverb)

EMQ-1 (Disc Recorder)

FB 01 (Sound Module)

During the spring of 1999 I was thinking about buying a new keyboard. This thinking activity was forced by the fact that I was going to be 50 years later that year. My family and my friends kept asking me for what I wished for my birthday present. I told them that I really, really wanted a new keyboard. And what happened at my birthday: I got a tiny little children's keyboard - and some money to buy a real one. Great.

In the meantime I began searching the internet for information. And I found out that Yamaha was going to market new models later that year. After my research I decided to wait until I had seen and heard the new Yamaha before deciding what to buy. There were not many information sources at that time; the internet has really grown rapidly since then.

It was definitely the first available in Aarhus (the second biggest city in Denmark) and as far as know one of the first sold worldwide too. And now the interest exploded. How were the voices? Better or similar to PSR 8000? (top model that year). What about the new 4 variation styles? (PSR 740 was the first Yamaha model having this). Can the new styles be played at older models? Can 740 play the "old" 2 variation styles? etc.

At that time the only place for discussions was Chris Hansen's now closed board. But this was going to change soon. (Read the "Story of this site" section below).

The site was just a tiny little one in the beginning. Just a picture, specifications and features from the promotion material, style and voice list, a few articles and links to the very few PSR sites available at that time.

Mostly it was the information I had collected in my research phase before buying the PSR 740. I had filed all of it, and why not make it public?

"Rome was not built in one day" (Danish saying). And this site was not build in one day either. Since the beginning this site has continuously been updated with Yamaha keyboard related stuff. And now a lot of people tell me that this site is *the* keyboard resource site worldwide. Thanks.

Bob had founded the two very successful discussion groups: "yamaha-psr-songs" and "yamaha-psr-styles" at eGroups (now Yahoo groups) at the very same day as this site was founded.

Bob was right when saying: "We'll have lots of fun in the future". This has been and still is fun.

NOTE: The PSR 740 stuff has now been moved to the PSR 740 Corner.

I soon found out that style files were MIDI files with some extra non-MIDI data added in an extra data chunk. The identifier of this extra data chunk was "CASM".

Soon I realized that setting the "Ctabs" (= the CASM data chunk in the style file) at the keyboard was very time consuming.

The only style software at that time was Style Works from EMC and Julijan Zavernik's MSC designed for PSR 7000 (and therefore not able to handle the "new" styles).

I knew almost nothing about programming; but I knew I had to get the CASM data format. Yamaha never answered my questions about this. Nor did Klaus at EMC or Julijan.

Then byte by byte I reverse engineered the CASM format.

At last I could create the CASM data into a text area at an html page using a lot of select boxes and a huge JavaScript. Then copy this and add it to a MIDI file using a hex editor. The first version was ready at December 23rd 1999.

In the meantime Jim McGoldrick wrote an ActiveX "save-to-file" control for me. Now I could create the CASM data and append it directly to the MIDI file. At January 3rd 2000 I published the first version.

Later on I created an installation program which handles some security problems. In September 2002 the program was replaced by better programs (read section "Other Software" below).

In mid April the first conversion was made with a very simple user interface. But the important thing was: The methods in the program worked fine.

Then I added the user interface, a player and some other features and involved my beta testers in the project in the beginning of May 2002. They helped me a lot by pointing out features and documentation to improve.

I have tried to fulfil the wishes from the users. And after each new version I have thought: "Now the program is finished"; but nevertheless new wishes keep coming up... Maybe a version 5 will come...

The midi2style page.