CyberGene

No source. The guitarist I mentioned was really into studio effects and had a real Rhodes and he said after a lot of experimenting he could recreate that sound through a harmonizer effect on a Yamaha rack. He even showed me different settings with either chorus or harmonizer and I agreed. That was many years ago, we are all amateurs, so it’s quite possible that we were wrong 😀 I have a recording from back then (crappy audio from a phone) where we jam over a few chords I came up at the moment, me playing the Rhodes and his brother on bass, forgive our lame playing abilities. Fast forward to 1:35 where I start playing some solo lines on the Rhodes: https://on.soundcloud.com/PTJqL7z4urh39yDo8

@The Real MC thanks, that’s very interesting 👍🏻 Anyway, what I wanted to say is, the Rhodes in that Herbie record uses a “harmonizer” effect which is a non-moving effect, it’s just a few pitch-shifted copies of the signal at the same time. Whereas chorus/flanger/phaser are all moving effects that use an LFO.

https://studiologic-music.com/blog/2023-12-18_numaxpiano23/ Christmas present: firmware 2.3 🎄

You are describing the studio technique to achieve chorus by overdubbing. That's probably the best and most natural way 🙂 But I meant an external effect box that provides chorusing. Those use LFO that modulates phase-shifting and more rarely pitch-shifting but as I said pitch-shifting is a DSP effect. I just read that the first one was the Eventide H910 (it's digital) and it's called "harmonizer" as was called the effect in that Yamaha rack. I'm not sure if that was very common effect. BTW it was patented by Eventide so maybe other effect manufacturers couldn't easily use it at the time, I'm really not very familiar with vintage DSP effects, so someone with more experience can share more info.

Well, OK, so to still split hair, chorus is usually an LFO that modulates the phase (the most common design) or the pitch (less common) of the separate signals. So, there's the perception of constant movement. And the effect that I mentioned and I believe is used by Herbie on that record doesn't use an LFO, there's no movement, it's just a few separate signals that have a constant degree of detuning up/down. It creates a slightly different feeling than chorus which is easily audible. And achieving it is not straightforward because it's different than pitch LFO on an audio signal which is an easy process with a slight lookahead buffer/window where you can replay the signal faster to achieve the pitch up and then slow it down to make up. You can't do this if you want to have a signal that is pitched up without being faster, it requires heavier DSP processing.

For something more unorthodox, I used to be crazy about the Rhodes sound Herbie used in the following track after 2:46 Although it sounds like a chorus, it's not actually a chorus effect. A guitarist I used to play with at the time this record was released, owned a real Rhodes and a digital effect rack by Yamaha (not sure if it was the FX-700 guitar effect rack or some studio effects) and he had managed to recreate that sound through one of the effects there. I am not sure about the effect name but it might have been named "harmonizer" although in effect (no pun intended) it didn't sound like a harmonizer. As far as I remember, the effect would create one copy of the incoming signal that was slightly pitch raised and one that was pitch lowered and replay all of them together. In contrast to chorus which would layer phase-shifted copies of the same signal.

Most popular piano plugin that still doesn't have native Apple Silicon support: Garritan CFX

I see this in the manual: You may want to try switching from one to the other. I think that's configurable in the menu. I'm not sure about the exact differences but to me it seems it can also be put this way: the "common channel" is when the Numa will act like a dumb keyboard sending all MIDI data on a single channel and it's your DAW or external device(s) that should do the MIDI zoning, note regions, etc. And the "multi-channel" is where the Numa acts like a 4-zone master controller where each of the 4 zones can either be internal or external. I believe it's the latter that you should use but you should make sure the external devices are listening on the corresponding MIDI channel. And you should also make sure that you configure whether internal and external zones on your Numa send/receive pedals and other CC-s.

^ Those are called harmoniums. We've had one such at our church and I played it as a kid. It was used in an auxiliary rehearsal room and my grandmother said it used to be the main church instrument in her youth when there was no electric organ. You have to constantly pump the bellows with the two pedals while playing. It had some registrations. But basically sounded more like an accordion and I remember everybody hated it 😀

Is there any love for the DynoMyPiano sound? I can’t stand it.

There’s Herbie’s Rhodes as on Chameleon and Butterfly. And then there’s the rest which I really don’t care about 😀

Hey, thanks for the very detailed information. I actually know they are a band and I have listened to them a few times, it’s a pretty good music 👍🏻 I was rather wondering where their name Vulfpeck come from. As a non-native English speaker, to me it sounds like a quasi-Germanic way of saying wolf pack but I may be missing some American context that explains the name. Not sure if @jazzpiano88 was asking about the band or the name though.

So, what is it? I didn’t have patience to watch more than half a minute to hear if he explains it. Probably a fancy way to say “wolf pack”?

Stop watching YouTube. The SNR is so low I always feel wasted after one hour of almost completely meaningless content. Could’ve practiced instead, or read a book, or listened to music. Even watching Netflix is more satisfying.

Not sure if the Minimoog first introduced the hinged control panel above the keyboard but to me it’s the most beautiful/iconic looking synth. And an honorable mention. I really love the military design of the Soviet Polivoks:

The grey Triton is IMO the ugliest and cheapest looking keyboard one can see on stages.

Yes, listened to them today. I'm still not convinced by the Atmos stuff, to me it's not even a gimmick because it just doesn't work for me. I've been trying it on my AirPods Pro and HomePod but there's not a lot of surround effect audible, more like a very short delay/echo. I even tried creating a custom ear profile for my AirPods Pro by making pictures of my head, etc., it's something Apple introduced in a recent update but I think it even made it worse than the generic profile. As to this album, I've been trying to like it but I just can't... I already started feeling a certain aversion to it. And the very first chords of the first track Panopticum are so cheesy, I just can't be quick enough to change it. I believe in a week I won't even remember this album... 🤨

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I listened a few times through both mixes in my car this week. Frankly, I am a bit disappointed with the album, despite all the raving reviews, so can hardly speak which mix I prefer but I caught myself checking which mix was one track that I thought sounded better and it was the dark mix.

That’s a possibility too. We can only rely on algorithms (AI?) to hear new releases nowadays but it works by suggesting similar music to what you already have, so it’s kind of siloed…

Well, that’s an interesting phenomenon that I’ve observed too. There’s a huge interest in (vintage) analog synths and you can hear how YouTube reviews and audio demos are all about patches that sound “old”, or should we say nostalgic, yet you would basically hear no such sounds in any music production nowadays. It’s only the so called synthwave that got traction but first, it’s a niche genre for the same synth nerds, and second, it’s an imitation/revival genre, so not exactly a new application of vintage synth sounds. Which leaves us with people buying those modern analog synths out of nostalgia, because they lusted for them in the past but couldn’t afford them. And they can buy them now.

I have the Take 5. Sounds creamy. I’m in the minority that loves how portable and compact it is. But it gives me nothing that the Hydrasynth couldn’t give me. And then I hate all these synths (UB-XA included) where you load a patch and the pots are not reflecting the actual value. Which is why I tried to sell it but nobody seems interested and I won’t give it away. So for now it stays mine.

Nice but €300 for an upgrade from my current v8 is a bit steep. Will pass for now. But at €100 would have purchased it.

Sure but some pianos more than the others 😉 I guess it’s hard to generalize but from my occasional reading of PW technician forums I’ve seen a lot of bashing for Steinway and how their quality can be all over the place whereas Yamaha seem to have consistent quality and better durability, preferred for servicing, regulation and restoration.

Very valuable info, thanks. I’m wondering if such a thorough reconditioning would have been necessary if it was a Yamaha. Not meaning to start any Steinway VS Yamaha war 😉