Rhythm files

Rhythms are made available by rhythm engines. Some rhythms can be based on rhythm files.

For example the YamJJazz rhythm engine provides rhythms built from Yamaha style files such as poprock.sty or TripHop.S510.prs.

Rhythm files location

JJazzLab expects rhythm files to be in the User directory for rhythm Files. The location of this directory can be changed in the Options/Rhythms.

You can use up to 2 levels of sub-directories to organize the rhythms. Sub-directories whose name starts with an underscore '_' are not scanned.

Rhythm files scanning

Your rhythm files are scanned at startup only upon a fresh install, and the rhythm list is saved into a cache file.

This cache file is then used to get the rhythm list upon next startups, which is much faster than the initial scanning -especially if you have many rhythm files.

If you add or remove rhythm files in the user directory for rhythm files (or a subdirectory) you need to manually force a re-scan in order to update the cache file. This can be done in Option/Rhythms (see image above).

Adding new rhythm files

In order to avoid having too many files cluttering the User directory for rhythm files, the recommended way is:

1. Test the rhythm files In the rhythm selection dialog, use the Add Rhythms button to load additional rhythm files for the current session only. These files can be anywhere on your hard drive.

   Standard Yamaha styles (.sty, .prs, .sst or .bcs) should appear in the YamJJazz standard styles, and extended Yamaha styles (.yjz) should appear in the YamJJazz extended styles.

2. Copy the validated rhythm files Once you have selected the “best” rhythm files, copy them somewhere in the User Directory for Rhythm Files (see above).

3. Force a Rescan from Options/Rhythms

Quality of Yamaha style files found on the web vary a lot. Furthermore some styles are sometimes “broken” (invalid file format). If there is an error the corresponding rhythm won’t show up in the rhythm selection dialog.