There are several requirements for styles to work and generate events correctly.

Most of these are obvious and will rarely cause problems, but they are worth reviewing if your styles do not seem to be working as expected in your song.

The easiest way to begin working with styles is to create an Autostyle Song with the New Song process.  This automatically configures the new song correctly to produce style generated output.

Styles Folder

Styles are only available for use when their (ChordWizard Style) file is located in the designated Styles folder.

Installations of Songtrix on each computer may have a different collection of styles available, although most should at least have the standard styles.

If Songtrix cannot find any style files, then no styles will be available.

Likewise, if you open a song which depends on a style that you don't have, then no events will appear in the affected area.  A missing style is indicated with a double question mark, as shown below on the transport bar.

Style Tracks

Only certain tracks can contain autostyle segments, and therefore style events.  These are the Melody, Riff, Rhythm, Bass and Drums tracks.

Even these cannot be filled with style events unless there are events defined in the same tracks in the style file.

Many styles do not include a Melody track, for example, because they assume that you will be wanting to provide the melody that sits over the top of the accompaniment they generate in the other tracks.

Autostyle Segments

The main trigger for style generation is the presence of autostyle segments in the tracks of your song.

With no autostyle segments, there is no demand for style events, and the mechanism does not come into play.

When you create an Autostyle Song with the New Song process, all included tracks which exist in the style are automatically configured as a single autostyle segment.

Style Selection

Autostyle segments can only be filled with events if there is a selected style for their track (or the whole song, depending on what you have set the styles to Apply To).

You can select or change track styles using the Tracks page or the drop-down list on the transport bar, which opens the Change Style window.

Chords or Scales

Most track types require the presence of chords or scales in both the style and the destination song in order to correctly translate the events from one harmonic context to the other.

This particularly includes the Melody, Riff and Bass tracks, which cannot generate events in areas where chords or scales are not defined.

The Rhythm track can still generate events, but they are not heard during playback without chord inversion tones to act upon.

The Drums track alone is unaffected by the presence or absence of chords or scales, since it contains no harmonic information.

Substyles

Styles can have up to four variations on a musical theme, known as substyles (A, B, C and D).  You can change substyles at different locations in the song using the Section Marker window.

Not all styles contain all of these substyles.  For example, the standard styles supplied with Songtrix only have substyles A and B defined.

If you try to use a substyle which is not defined in the style you are using, it will be shown in gray (instead of the usual red) and will result in events not being generated in the affected region.