CyberGene
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Posts posted by CyberGene
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I'm really torn between loving and hating this board but since I sold it last week, let me put it in this thread: the MODX6 😀
I will give you one single example. This was my first rehearsal with the MODX6. I found a great arpeggiated sound, the guys loved it and we even decided to base a composition on it. So far so good. Then I decided to create a split: the arp on the left and a synth lead on the right. I did it from the regular screen where there's a nice visual representation of the note limits on each part. But then the problems started: I would play notes in the right part of the keyboard (the lead) which would still trigger the arp (the left part) although it sounded weird and incomplete. I was sure that was a bug and went into reporting it, etc.
And it turned out that the note limits you set for each part are not exactly what you think. They do not determine which keys on the keyboard control which part, no, no, no! Each part receives every keystroke, regardless of the note limits you set. However the note limits determine which notes will be heard. Are you following? And since we have an arpeggio that goes downwards, you play something in the right part (the lead) which triggers the arp on the left and because it goes arpeggiated downwards, those downward arpeggiated notes go into the allowed left region and are heard 🤣🤦🏻♂️ You have to go to a special arp menu where you can set which note keyboard input region is allowed. And then go in the regular split settings (those nice visual representations) and allow the entire note range because it's arpeggiated and you may be pressing keys on the left but produce notes across multiple octaves and you don't want to cut the notes there. You end up having a screen where you see a lead on the right and an arp that takes the entire keyboard but not, it's actually split (because of the custom arp settings buried in some menu) and you can't easily see that.
But here's an even worse consequence. You have an Arp on/off button. If you turn the arpeggio off, so that you use the arpeggiated sound as a pad, then the settings above totally mess up everything. Remember, we allowed the entire note range and the part is always receiving all key input and so you play the right part and hear it layered with that left part sound. (And the keyboard input limits are only valid for arpeggio mode which we turned off). So it's not possible to have a split with an arpeggiated sound on the left and a lead on the right where you temporarily turn off the arpeggio on the left through the arp on/off button. You have to save two different settings as two separate scenes. And the second scene (arp off) is one where the split is as you expect it.
That particular WTF situation made me hate the MODX and most of its architecture is a variation on that theme. Don't get me wrong, most of the sounds are killer and for the price it's probably the best there is. But it's not made for humans. I'm glad I replaced it with a YC73.
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As I posted in the other thread, I have a YC73 on order at Thomann but it's backordered and will arrive at Thomann on May 31st, however a B-stock unit (that is €180 off the regular price) just appeared and I immediately swapped it with the other (already paid) order and so I will have an even cheaper YC73 next week, that's pretty lucky for me 🥳
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I thought the black key issue had been fixed in later batches of the CP73. It’s odd that it reappears in the YC73 which is a newer instrument. I’m waiting for my YC73 to arrive at Thomann on May 31 and hopefully it will be a new batch that has it fixed but that’s just wishful thinking.
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I decided to replace my YC61 with a YC73 instead. I like the YC61 and its keyboard, I can play pianos and Rhodes on it fairly decently but I'd still prefer a few more keys on each side of the 61 keys, and being a hardcore piano player I think a hammer action would still be better. The only problem is I will have to wait more than 2 months for the YC73 to become available at Thomann but let's hope it can arrive sooner.
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This is perfect for an 80-s sci-fi movie with a robot or something.
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Yamaha AvantGrand N1X, I’ve been loving it every single day since I bought it.
Honorable mention: ASM Hydrasynth keyboard (original).
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I'll drop the **** but I think the most useless and disappointing keyboards are all the analog synths that are being sold for insane prices because there's some nostalgia. And I mean both vintage analog and newly (re)created analog synths. Yeah, yeah, there's nothing like real analog and no VST or digital emulation can recreate those things 😉 Each to their own. My Hydrasynth trumps them all! 😛
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Why would you get a CP73 vs a YC73? I personally like there are more effects on the YC and together with the FM-organs I can do some weird stuff, almost like a synth, but now that I have the YC61 I’m not sure I’m an organ guy or would actually use the FM-organs for synth-like sound. But I’ve had it for just a few days, so can’t really decide. The problem is if I swap it for a YC73 I will have to wait 3 months and pay €500 more. If I swap it for a CP73 I’ll get it immediately and won’t pay anything. But then it’s just a rompler… Well, with great pianos and Rhodes though. Tough choice.
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3 minutes ago, funkyhammond said:
Harder on the fingers or harder to control dynamics smoothly?
The latter. I’m used to pianos where the inertia of the hammer keeps it moving with the actual velocity even if I release my fingers. I don’t remember what keyboard I played with semi-weighted keys (stiff springs) but I had missed notes or very soft dynamics that weren’t meant. Which is why I either want a hammer action, or a soft and shallow synth action. Things in between don’t work for me but it could be playing style.
7 minutes ago, funkyhammond said:There is also the cramped 5-octave range for pianos. I swore I was never going to do that again. Almost tempted by this deal but I'm kind of glad now that I don't like the action and that the YC73 is a hammer action.
Indeed. It’s the reason why I’m considering a swap for a YC73 or a CP73. It’s not the action of the YC61 that bothers me so much rather than the 5 octaves 😕 But then I’d want 88 🤣
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4 minutes ago, funkyhammond said:
finally got a chance to play a YC61 in the store. I was immediately disappointed with the feel of the action. I would call it a light synth action, not semi-weighted, and mediocre quality at best.
It's certainly a matter of taste. I find it very good and probably among the best synth actions there is. I'm not sure what semi-weighted usually implies but I've played some non-hammer actions with stiff springs and to me those are much harder to play than soft and shallow synth keys (as the one in YC61). And to put things in perspective, I consider myself a pianist mainly, I have a Yamaha N1X with a real grand piano action and I'm very picky about digital piano actions, so I come from a piano point of view. Of course it's not a piano action and I still consider returning mine and replacing it with a YC73 (I'll have to wait 2-3 months for YC73 to arrive at Thomann though) but I wouldn't describe it as a bad action for the piano sounds. Quite on the contrary, it feels better than most non-hammer actions I've tried. This all comes to show how different tastes and people are.
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6 minutes ago, agent4125 said:
The Go:Keys looks fun too, what's the keyboard like?
Well, nothing special but not bad either.
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While not exactly a pro-keyboard the Roland Go:Keys is a fun little keyboard that has wonderful sounds and is a joy to play. I only sold mine because at the time I had way too many synths and keyboards and I bought it mainly for my daughter who wasn't interested in it. But I guarantee you, all the sounds there are very good, especially taking in mind the low price. 61 synth-keys, very portable, can run on batteries, relatively good speakers for personal use.
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It's possible to have a sensor point at the very bottom, it's how Cybrid works. (For the unfamiliar, it's my own DIY MIDI controller made from a real grand piano action and optical sensors, and technically speaking it's the hammer top position at the stop-rail), however I'm using a 600 MHz Teensy board with a pretty quick scanning. I scan the entire keyboard in around 2 microseconds and even very quick hammer rebounds still keep the third activation point engaged (well, those are felt hammers and they experience a compression which would explain why they don't rebound immediately). But for a peace of mind, I regulate those points to be a very tiny bit off the actual stop-rail position. There are different considerations for different instruments. On an acoustic piano you can slowly lift the hammer until the escapement point and then throw it as much as you can (with another hand) and would be able to generate a faint sound. So, in order to be able to detect this, I "placed" my two measuring points for velocity after the escapement and that's just 1.5mm distance. The hammer can be pretty fast and having such a small distance to measure velocity means the scanning logic needs to be very fast in order to calculate accurate durations, otherwise the sampling would be too coarse to guarantee precision. I believe most digital pianos use the same algorithm of scanning but much slower controller which is why they can't place the two measurement point too close to the bottom. To guarantee precision, they need them wider apart. But then also, they need to be able to provide realistic key-release and on real piano that's at the middle. There are many variables and design choices, so I can imagine why there may be differences between the different brands and models of actions.
Ultimately it's how the keyboard feels and whether people like how it plays.
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3 minutes ago, AnotherScott said:
I do not see anything in that link to indicate a sensor is at the actual bottom of the key travel. If I understand it correctly, the total key travel is 11.4 mm, while the lowest sensor triggers, not at 11.4 mm, but rather at 10 mm.
It's a theory of mine but I think that's because the Kawai actions are particularly known to be very mushy because of thick dampening material in order to minimize the shock and so I believe the additional 1.4mm of key travel (on top of the standard 10mm of key travel on acoustic grands) is where the key burrows within the cushion. And of course the switch cannot be at dead-bottom since the logic needs to have some time for the hammer (or key notch) to have that contact pressed, otherwise it would be too short duration until the hammer rebounds and deactivates that contact. But that particular consideration aside, we can say the sensors are at the middle and at the bottom (± some small distance).
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1 minute ago, funkyhammond said:
Dedicated digital pianos may still be middle and bottom if that makes more sense for piano. I'm just guessing.
Yes, I think I can confirm that. I discovered a document that analyzed the Kawai VPC1 and it confirms that the sensors/contacts are placed at middle and bottom (and a third one in between), there's logic analyzer used. Since I also posted about that on another forum, won't repeat it, here's the link:
https://pianoclack.com/forum/d/380-sensor-switch-placement-in-digital-pianos
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I'm wondering how the triggering on the YC73 is. I've always had this assumption that sensors (actually switches) in digital pianos are placed in the middle and the bottom for two-sensor ones. And to allow for repetition without releasing above the middle point, they added another sensor between the two, at 3/4 the key travel. I'm wondering if I was wrong all that time and the two sensors in digital piano are also located slightly above and below the middle, as on the YC61. And if that's the case, where do they put the third sensor in the digital pianos, below the second one, towards the bottom?
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9 hours ago, AnotherScott said:
Both sensor switches are triggered "in the middle" of the key travel (by that I mean neither at the top nor at the bottom), but one is closer to the top and the other is closer to the bottom.
You are right!
So, I need to make a correction, I just made additional tests and it seems that the two switches are indeed placed like this: first one is slightly above middle line, second one slightly below, say at 1/3 and 2/3 of key travel.
I wrongly assumed that they were placed as on a digital piano: at middle and bottom. No, they are not. What I thought was the first switch turned out to be the second switch. Furthermore, anotherscott is right that if I layer a piano and organ, they both trigger at the second switch at 2/3 but then when I start releasing the key the organ is released at 2/3 while the piano keeps sounding and is finally released at 1/3.
With that in mind, it's theoretically possible to make high-trigger organ at the first switch activation, i.e. 1/3 of key travel, rather than 2/3, however whether Yamaha has designed the instrument to recognize the separate signals or there's a "hardcoded" keyboard controller logic, that is unknown. I think they can distinguish between the two switches since the organ is released at the second switch and the piano at first. If it was hardcoded, both would release at first switch.
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2 minutes ago, Coker said:
I doubt if Yamaha has a way to use the high switch as a trigger. The keyboard switch signals most likely go to some sort of hard-coded dedicated chip whose job it is to generate MIDI-like information (key-on, key-off, and velocity) and send it on to the main keyboard microprocessor.
If that was the case, the organ would trigger at the bottom of the key travel, not halfway. The standard placement of switches is one at the middle, one at bottom. Measure time between the two and generate a note on with velocity based on the duration. If you can hear sound at the first switch, then that already means the logic can send the high trigger. Of course it's not very "high" high trigger but it's better than bottom trigger. This is a fairly common switch placement unless I'm missing something.
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1 hour ago, AnotherScott said:
When I checked this on a YC61, Piano and Organ sounds triggered at exactly the same point in the key's travel.
Hmm, see the video I posted above, the organ triggers halfway, or let's say around 60% of the key travel. I can't test right now, will test tomorrow morning but do you mean that what we see in that video is in fact the second switch and it's located not at the bottom but above it, i.e. at 60% of the travel? And so if I test with a piano, it will also trigger at that relatively high point (before hitting bottom) and then on release the sound will stop sounding somewhere above that point? This sound odd to me, but I will have to test it. I will also test with a layered organ and piano to see if the two will get released at the same point or the organ is before the piano.
P.S. I am not very familiar with synth actions and switch placement in them but in digital pianos with two sensors, the first sensor is halfway through the key travel and the second one is at bottom. The controller logic measures the time between the two switch activations. Since the organ doesn't have velocity sensitivity, it can trigger at the first switch, i.e. halfway which is what Kawai do in their hammer-action MP7SE AFAIK. Intuitively that should be the case with the YC61 too, regardless of whether it has a hammer action or a spring-loaded action. Or maybe you mean the two sensors are located a bit above the bottom? The first one starting close to the key's top position and the second one close to halfway, ready to trigger a strike for a piano sound even though the key has not reached bottom? That doesn't sound right but maybe there are other considerations with spring-loaded actions.
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Yes, the audio interface has been a huge advantage on the Yamaha instruments in the last years. It also means you can record the instrument in a DAW through the USB with zero-noise digital audio instead of having to bother with audio cables, levels, etc.
BTW, I am a sucker for Minimoog sound and have various software Minimoog emulations (as well as a Behringer Model D) and I was wondering which one to add to my YC61 through the USB interface and just discovered a pretty cheap iPhone app called "mood" and it's fantastic! It's actually a Minimoog with some nice additions like more flexible modulations, effects, sample-splicing oscillator, etc. and I think it will be a good friend with my YC61. Of course I have the original Model D app by Moog on my iPhone and it's all very nice but the "mood" is a modern reinterpretation that adds some useful stuff.
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I sold my MODX6 because it was awfully difficult to use in live situations. I never warmed up to its architecture. It's made for robots, not for humans. If used as a rompler, it was excellent, most of the sounds are absolutely fantastic! But just doing some simple splits or layers in live situation made me scratch my head, it's the single most non-intuitive piece of gear (and not just a music instrument) I've ever seen or had.
I'm very glad that I replaced it with the YC61.
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Here’s a short video I made to demonstrate the high-trigger that is around halfway through the key travel (or maybe slightly further towards the bottom). And a very short demo of the slow/fast Leslie in the 1.20.
P.S. recorded on my iPhone through the USB cable for digital audio. There are some occasional pops though although I put the iPhone in flight mode… I have to check why that is. I’m having the same problems when recording my Yamaha N1X. It used to be glitch-free in the past. Maybe an iOS bug.-
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Just tested it. The organ is triggered exactly at halfway through the key travel. That is already high trigger, because that’s where the first switch is placed. The second is at the bottom. It’s a standard placement for all non-organ sounds since the key-off event should be generated halfway through the key travel on its way back when released. Long story short, nothing can be done, that’s the highest trigger possible with that keyboard.
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3 hours ago, funkyhammond said:
I see what you mean about the note release but I wasn't suggesting that they move the top sensor higher, but rather just to use it for note-on of the organ.
I think they use it already for high trigger but I have to check it again to be sure, I’m not in front of the YC. I mean the sound starts before bottom. It’s just the trigger isn’t high enough.
Your thoughts about the Studiologic SL73?
in The Keyboard Corner
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Owned a SL73. Wonderful functionality and price! It even has aftertouch. But the keys felt overly heavy and sluggish. It was so bad I preferred my synth-keyed MODX for pianos and Rhodes and was glad I sold it. I think the TP100/LR must be the worst hammer action I’ve ever tried and I’ve tried most of them.