Understood completely, as I have had quite a few different keyboards in my lifetime it is very much a personal preference thing.
So I will stick to the ideas of the subject at hand.
Last night I had a power glitch and it wiped out about an hours worth of detailed descriptions of my recent diyesl project.
So,please, let's continue. jer
So I will stick to the ideas of the subject at hand.
Last night I had a power glitch and it wiped out about an hours worth of detailed descriptions of my recent diyesl project.
So,please, let's continue. jer
I have a Yamaha PF85 and it was build with a couple of 20W, 6" (16cm) speakers in some internal enclosures, driven by integrated STK amplifiers, all powered by a huge transformer (100W). The whole thing weights 68.4lb (31kg).
I had to replace some keys and springs and Yamaha still has them. But word of advice on used ones - if the black keys are sticking (even just a bit) - don't bother to buy it. It will need a whole new keyboard bed. That is not cheap and is time consuming to replace.
For my ears, the internal speakers sounds OK. But I am not a pro in the matter... It has line out too.
An UPS could save your work and protect from voltage spikes. A relay/switch based one would not affect the timber during normal power and it is cheap.
I had to replace some keys and springs and Yamaha still has them. But word of advice on used ones - if the black keys are sticking (even just a bit) - don't bother to buy it. It will need a whole new keyboard bed. That is not cheap and is time consuming to replace.
For my ears, the internal speakers sounds OK. But I am not a pro in the matter... It has line out too.
An UPS could save your work and protect from voltage spikes. A relay/switch based one would not affect the timber during normal power and it is cheap.
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I also have The PF70 and I am quite amazed how well the in board speakers sound and are quite loud and punchy.
However they to me the only sound good if you are right on top of them and seem to lose ther resileance when I am leaning away from the keyboard.
I have been tempted to take the cover off to see what the are using as a driver.
I could have a better idea if I could have fed them with some thing other than the intrenal sounds.
jer
P.S. the sounds are much better when hooked to my bigger speaker system aswell.
However they to me the only sound good if you are right on top of them and seem to lose ther resileance when I am leaning away from the keyboard.
I have been tempted to take the cover off to see what the are using as a driver.
I could have a better idea if I could have fed them with some thing other than the intrenal sounds.
jer
P.S. the sounds are much better when hooked to my bigger speaker system aswell.
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You know, I see reviews all the time from disappointed users of expensive keyboards (Yamaha and others as well) describing all kinds of construction issues and early failures. I don;t know what to make of it. Maybe it's just that there are so many of them that there are bound to be some problems, plus the most angry owners are the ones most likely to issue reviews anyway, but still it makes you wonder. It's enough for me to not want to spend too much on a board. In my view, it's another reason to go modular because a mechanical device like the keyboard is going to be source of most problems and I'd hate to lose a very expensive device because of some sticky keys or something that can't be fixed.
I just looked this and the 70 up to see what they are. It reminded me of another thing I like about digital pianos: Transposing. For an unschooled player, that adds a new dimension of playability.. I'm not a trained musician and not having to really transpose to play in different keys is very nice (even if it seems utterly lazy).
As for the speakers, even my Sony 3-way bookshelf speakers sound pretty good actually, especially near field. I'm just after the fullest, most accurate sound I can afford to get, especially with excellent sample plugins.
The weighted keys on Yamaha are sure nice, but they are prone to wear. My pf85 thou lasted 20 years... And I bought it used from a guy that was playing bars and it had cigar burns on the keys and sticky stuff between them (dried beer?). Took me couple of days to clean it, replace the burned and broken keys.
Maybe the new ones are less resistant... Don't know.
The possibilities of a good electronic piano are way over what a real one can offer. MIDI boxes can be added.
And.. the "real" ones have too mechanical and wear issues, need to be maintained and tuned...
Maybe the new ones are less resistant... Don't know.
The possibilities of a good electronic piano are way over what a real one can offer. MIDI boxes can be added.
And.. the "real" ones have too mechanical and wear issues, need to be maintained and tuned...
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Yea,I know what you mean.
I am not crazy about the action on my pf70 but was givin to me.
It doesn't have after touch and a miss that.
My kawii KII was great for after touch and had some awesome and now famous sounds but some scum bag stole it along with my marshall 8100 valvestate amplifier.
I have to commend roland on the D-70 though, As they offered replacement springs and rubber key switch kits and I have had to replace those many times on our two units.
I almost bought the yamaha 88 key controller when they first came out and it was a toss up between that one and the roland, But we had just got the d-70 and emu proteus 1&2 and piano modules.
And I had lots of fun with those.
The piano module is another one that turned up missing one day aswell and sure liked that one alot. jer
I am not crazy about the action on my pf70 but was givin to me.
It doesn't have after touch and a miss that.
My kawii KII was great for after touch and had some awesome and now famous sounds but some scum bag stole it along with my marshall 8100 valvestate amplifier.
I have to commend roland on the D-70 though, As they offered replacement springs and rubber key switch kits and I have had to replace those many times on our two units.
I almost bought the yamaha 88 key controller when they first came out and it was a toss up between that one and the roland, But we had just got the d-70 and emu proteus 1&2 and piano modules.
And I had lots of fun with those.
The piano module is another one that turned up missing one day aswell and sure liked that one alot. jer
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I remeber the thing that mark stressed more about the clavinova was its action more so than the sound as he had a duesendorf at his home but he gigged alot.
And that yamaha was one heavy mother!
I just loved that machine but I am not a player although I sarted when I was just five years old then I switched to guitar at 10 years old and that is where I put most of my effort through the years .jer
And that yamaha was one heavy mother!
I just loved that machine but I am not a player although I sarted when I was just five years old then I switched to guitar at 10 years old and that is where I put most of my effort through the years .jer
What grand piano sound fonts have you found to be the best?
Back when I was setting up the practice system for our children about 5 - 10 years ago the GP1 Grand Piano Soundfont by Alan Cheung was very highly rated and not very expensive. I have it around here somewhere but I'm not sure if it will work with a modern soundcard anyone know? Is the format standardized and are most modern cards backward compatible. This is a recording that was made entirely with the GP1:
An Acoustic Christmas | KevinSelby.com
We did not have much in the way of musical instrument amps back then and I also set up our synth drums with one of the Proton amps that has 6 dB of headroom for something like 500 mS. So it would do something like 200 W/ch for half a second into 6 ohms. I used Advent/1 speakers because they are rugged with excellent dynamics and the sound was quite impressive for practice anyway. An E-waved stacked pair per side might do well even at near realistic levels. I'd expect these to be an excellent budget solution for piano also especially if you add BSC. The Advent/1s held up just fine - no failures.
Sorry, this got overlooked. Lets make it $500 range (for the speakers). Obviously this lets out Gedlee, etc! I've always been able to find surprisingly good values at my modest budgets for stuff and I'm willing to search for this one.
I've given a bit more thought to what I'd like to end up with and ideally, I'd like to have a weighted piano controller-type board (no onboard sound or sequencer), a separate synth module which can be updated with new plugins, and a sound system to do justice to high quality plugins like Ivory for example. I haven't decided on stereo vs mono, but I lean toward stereo because that allows me to use the amp/speaker part to play recorded music that demands instrument accuracy. I'm learning that some of the good piano plugins are stereo. Ideally, it would be suitable for general hifi, but that may be too much to expect although Indianajo here likes his Peavey horns for everything.
So that's where I'm at. My original post was for speakers, but of course I'm open to any suggestion that may lead me to my overall goal. I suspect I'm also going to have a hard time finding a separate synth module that allows third party plugins and upgrades. So far I've found nothing. I guess most people buy turn key synthesizers with built in electronics, but I'm after a modular approach.
For recording/sequencer work I'll stick with my little 49 key controller and PC setup for now.
Pete, we overlapped posts there. Thanks for the speaker tips. I'm not the best MIDI information source here, I'm sure. Synth sounds have changed a lot in the past 5 or10 years or so. The newest defacto standard is VST, which is a modular software system for sound processing and synth. These plugin software modules can include effects as well as instrument synth. Just "VST" is supposed to be for effects and VSTi is for instrument synth. They can be mimicing old vintage synth sounds like Moog or FM synth, or sampled instrument sounds which is my thing. Sound quality is all over the map, and you don't necessarily get what you pay for. I've heard that some freeware VST's are as good as some expensive commercial ones. People share them like others share mp3's. I'm sure commercial ones are protected somehow.
I hope this is what you meant by your question about standards. Apologies if you already know all this.
I don't have enough experience to suggest anything. All I've heard are some VST's that came free with my sequencer software. Frankly, most sounds are pretty lame and you have to paw through a lot to find some good ones. I'm still playing around. But the Grand Piano sound that I have sounds pretty darn nice and I know there are better ones, so my appetite is just whetted.
I just stumbled on this. Sound Card for Alesis QS Synths: Yamaha Clavinova | eBay
Scroll down a bit and you can sample two piano pieces; one pretty darned nice and one damned nice. Of course, they are selling the damned nice one, so FWIW. Gives an idea of what's out there though.
Almost forgot. Thanks for the music link. That piano sound truly is nice as is the playing.
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I too have just recently redicoverd the world of VST's and I have over 700 vst that I have downloaded for free and only a handfull are worth keeping.
The thought that I just had is to keep an eye out for a good sample player/keyboard system then I remembered that there are vst ones that I had downloaded.
Although I haven't had the time to figure them all out but they work by using .wav files and I have down loaded over 3000 sound samples but unfortunately no piano samples.
Calkwalks creator 5 might have some and I have that program and I find that some of the drum sounds are the best I have heard in years, but thats drums.
If you don't have the program I can check them out and extract the sample files as they are just a bunch .wav files in one of the directories.
Also in the world of VST's I have found a couple of very good stand alone VST hosts and one is called LIVE PROFFESOR I don't remeber the name of the other one right now and these work great as I now have an awesome guitar rig setup on my computer and I don't need a full stack anymore to get that sound.
Just a few thoughts. jer
The thought that I just had is to keep an eye out for a good sample player/keyboard system then I remembered that there are vst ones that I had downloaded.
Although I haven't had the time to figure them all out but they work by using .wav files and I have down loaded over 3000 sound samples but unfortunately no piano samples.
Calkwalks creator 5 might have some and I have that program and I find that some of the drum sounds are the best I have heard in years, but thats drums.
If you don't have the program I can check them out and extract the sample files as they are just a bunch .wav files in one of the directories.
Also in the world of VST's I have found a couple of very good stand alone VST hosts and one is called LIVE PROFFESOR I don't remeber the name of the other one right now and these work great as I now have an awesome guitar rig setup on my computer and I don't need a full stack anymore to get that sound.
Just a few thoughts. jer
Jer, is there a place on this forum where midi guys hang out?
I've just been playing through a freebee DAW - Studio One Artist. It's a full blown DAW, but restricted to only the vst's that they supply, no third party plugins. So, I need something else in the long run. I'm going to try what used to be a shareware DAW "Reaper" that is getting great reviews and cost $40. I think any sequencer type program can be used as a player host and some are freeware. I'll look into Live Professor.
PB2 mentioned the term "sound font". Frankly, I'd never heard the term before. Do you know what it is and how people use it? What I can gather it's a proprietary system for enhancing the sound of general midi files but then it also sounds a lot like vst sample files, but they have a .sf2 file extension. You have to have either Sound Blaster cards or a bridge program. I don't get it and I can't find a good explanation of it even from Wiki.
You're right. If you are into real sounding instruments, the field is still very small and a bit pricey if you end up with a bunch of them. Programs like mine advertise hundreds of sounds, but most are old synthy sounding stuff which is useless to me. I want to compose with good sounding instruments. I did hear an outstanding trombone last week and I know they are out there but you have to read a lot of reviews to narrow it down. Since piano is such a popular instrument, there are quite a few decent ones including different kinds of pianos, but I mostly am interested in nice grands. Take a listen to the samples on this site if you didn't already. Sound Card for Alesis QS Synths: Yamaha Clavinova | eBay
It gives you an idea of good and better. I'm sure there are other comparison sites out there. If you run across one, let me know.
Here's a forum I just bumped into for anyone interested. Regarding piano plugins.
Best Piano VST Instrument - Home Recording forums
FWIW
EDIT: Bart Simpson moment. This thread is 5 years old - ancient history now. Sorry But it is pretty interesting that the guy is resurrecting a broken Clavinova that way.
I found out I'm not going to get the Ivory package or the Steinway package. Both MSRP for nearly $400. Yikes. No wonder they get good reviews.
Best Piano VST Instrument - Home Recording forums
FWIW
EDIT: Bart Simpson moment. This thread is 5 years old - ancient history now. Sorry But it is pretty interesting that the guy is resurrecting a broken Clavinova that way.
I found out I'm not going to get the Ivory package or the Steinway package. Both MSRP for nearly $400. Yikes. No wonder they get good reviews.
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I will help and do some searching and check out the sample players I do have one of the reasons I had a hard time is because I didn't have my midi stuff set up yet.
Sound fonts are just a fancy name for a sample, like the fonts of the alphabet the are asigned to a number and can be changed. jer
Sound fonts are just a fancy name for a sample, like the fonts of the alphabet the are asigned to a number and can be changed. jer
I think the term sound font is a creative/roland term it has been along time since my days of midi but it is something I do need to under stand again since I have gotten all the stuff back from when I had the studio in naples. jer
Well the Creative connection would explain the Soundblaster requirement. But I still don't get it. It doesn't seem to be quite the same as vst files. Maybe it's just one of those standards that have seen their day.
They used to have a card that would plug into the SB card and it was nothing but some roms full of sample sounds and I'm not sure but I think there was a version that had ram on it so that a bank of sounds could be programed into it .
I never got one because they wanted to much for the thing and we already had the emu modules and the roland D70.
And I still have a bunch of sound cards for the D70 but the last time I tried one it didn't work as alot of them had a battery in them to keep the data alive.
I haven't set the D70 up in 10 years since a moved back here because another idiot broke the damn keyboard because he was a jerk.
It still works but the springs and posibly some of the keys are broke and flying around inside of it so I refuse to power it up until I take the time to repair it.
I was hoping to just use it for the sounds but my pf70 doesn't have after touch so alot of the sounds would not be able to be used. jer
I never got one because they wanted to much for the thing and we already had the emu modules and the roland D70.
And I still have a bunch of sound cards for the D70 but the last time I tried one it didn't work as alot of them had a battery in them to keep the data alive.
I haven't set the D70 up in 10 years since a moved back here because another idiot broke the damn keyboard because he was a jerk.
It still works but the springs and posibly some of the keys are broke and flying around inside of it so I refuse to power it up until I take the time to repair it.
I was hoping to just use it for the sounds but my pf70 doesn't have after touch so alot of the sounds would not be able to be used. jer
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