jverghese
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Posts posted by jverghese
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Don't know if they met in the good old days, but a few years back Banks was interviewed by Wakeman for his radio series Key to Keys on BBC. I have an mp3 of the episode somewhere, I'll try to upload it if I find it.
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Among hardware instruments, the Waldorf Zarenbourg has a very nice CP70 emulation. Not just the sound, but the playing response is good too. I know availability of this instrument isn't great, and the price is high.
The Viscount Legend '70s seems to have a good emulation too, although I haven't played it. Looking forward to trying it out at some point.
Didn't like the CP80 emulation in the Korg SV-1 I used to have.
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Excellent demos by Jim A, Bonners, and others.
I really like the sonic signature of this instrument -- it does sound like four separate instruments, not some generic layered rompler.
However, I'm a bit worried about the Leslie sim. To me it sounds too chorusy (which is a fault of many sims, IMO), and it doesn't seem to have much stereo width, although that may be adjustable. You can hear the internal sim with all drawbars out at the end of this video.
That's a rather different sound from the one in one of the teasers, where they probably used a real rotary speaker, as many have pointed out. CLONK
It will be interesting to see to what extent the Leslie sim can be tweaked.
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Couldn't agree more, it's is a very exciting concept. Everything sounds really good in these demos, you'd think Viscount had been making instruments like these for years. The stage keyboard market is getting really crowded (I'm currently gassing on the Ham Sk Pro as well...).
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New video, new VA synth module coming (mentioned at 4:12).
[video:youtube]
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Yeah, I guess the Motion Sound units could be called mini Leslies. I still have one of those rack units (R3-147) lying around somewhere, maybe I need to bring it out.
The Vent is still a good all around rotary unit, but having used the IK Multimedia plugin for some time now, I've kind of left the Vent behind too.
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Very cool, Jones. The same reply is now in the youtube comments section as well. He says:
"I used a handmade mini leslie, just the head, to open the top a bit .. not a 145/147 or other tube or solid state leslie. The sound is all of course from the YC. This is because I received the instrument the same day as the video and I did not have time to go and adjust the internal parameters and modify the sound according to my tastes. Maybe I'll make more videos using internal simulation only. It is really a great machine to have on stage!!"
Handmade mini Leslie -- sounds like a mechanical device of some sort.
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There's something odd about that video -- as many have noted, there are moments when the front panel settings on the YC61 do not correspond to the sound you hear. Not sure if this was mentioned, but at around 0:54 he seems to push in some of the upper drawbars, yet a second later the sound gets BRIGHTER. Perhaps they just recorded MIDI, and later replaced the part with the YC61 through a real Leslie? Also, there's a clav/e-piano part running throughout the track too, which no one seems to be playing, so quite a lot of editing there. Great performance though.
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It's just an observation made based on one of the promotional videos. You can see the bare
at one point, and it looks very much like a TP100. Also, at the end of the video there is the "" logo.Yes, I think the feel will be quite different compared to the standard TP100, as there is a real vibrating sound source behind. For what it's worth, I've never had anything against the TP100 anyway. It feels really good in the Crumar Seven, as well as the Waldorf Zarenbourg. For some reason, the Nords that feature the TP100 aren't that great.
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Interestingly, the Valente uses a Fatar action, probably the omnipresent TP100. I wonder if this is this the first electro-mechanical keyboard to do so.
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Kawai had an electric grand too, let's not forget.
[video:youtube]
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I would say that music often sounds best when played on the instrument that it was written on. There are lots of good CP70-driven songs around, many of which have been mentioned here. My personal favourites are those by Genesis, Gabriel, Collins, Vangelis ... honourable mention goes to Keane.
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That's true -- holding down the sustain pedal potentially consumes voices. But Tom nicely summed up what I was trying to say -- the max number of simultaneously sounding keys is usually much lower than the number of oscillators/voices. For instance, a digital piano may use two voices for playing back stereo samples, and a further two to provide seamless velocity crossfades. Thus a 128-voice piano can really only play back 32 keys at a time, which of course isn't bad, but you get the picture.
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I do use sustain, but I have no idea how that affects polyphony on my DP, therefore the 256-voice (or whatever) spec is not very useful.
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Polyphony -- "Digital Piano featuring 256-note polyphony" ... but only 88 keys? This has probably been said before, but the polyphony spec obviously means nothing unless you also convey how polyphony is used by the synth/playback engine. Did I just say "engine"? I guess that is a misused word as well, as if there's some kind of mechanical device inside these completely electronic instruments. It's a nice word, though.
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Things go in circles. A recording engineer friend of mine recently reflected upon the way young vocalists subconsciously tend to incorporate autotune-like slurs in their singing technique. Apparently we have also gotten to the point where live drummers more and more emulate the sound of programmed drums. Anyhow, DOMi and JD sound very fresh, love it.
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Very good, the intro especially. I love the sound of the Hammond (+Leslie), but am not a huge fan of the musical genres it is often associated with, so this is a breath of fresh air.
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Excellent indeed. While I knew that Jeremy Hill was largely responsible for the design of the Pro Soloist, I didn't know he is British.
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I have seen Hackett a few times during the past years, and he's very good -- there's something special about hearing music played by the artist that originated it, even if they don't play exactly like they did back in the day. However, it must be said that Hackett has a tendency to surround himself with rather mediocre drummers, which is a shame, as the drumming in Genesis was always top notch.
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I believe he played a Yamaha CP1 Stage Piano that was seated in a grand-like shell. The shell was probably made by Yamaha, at least it has the logo. Actually it looks very much like the CVP-309, but if you look at footage from 2013 you can see that it's a CP1.
The current pianist still uses a CP1, but the shell was made by a company called DutchGrand.
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I believe the original list came from this German site:
https://www.musiker-board.de/threads/verbaute-tastaturen-und-hersteller-sammelthread.435157/
The list has also appeared on several other sites, such as gearslutz.com ("Ultimate Keybed Thread"), yamahamusicians.com, etc.
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That's a nice shootout, thanks. Couldn't resist looking at the right answers though ... the CaM Rotor is definitely an improvement over the old one, kind of brings it up to Ventilator level.
Not surprisingly the standout is the IK one. I've been using IK's Amplitube Leslie for a couple of weeks and really like it. By far the most realistic model so far.
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Yes, HX-3 Version 5 sounds very good, suits the Yes track well. The Vent sounds dull by comparison.
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As far as I can tell there's nothing terribly complex technologically about the Ventilator, quite the contrary, it's a rather simple model. However, the designer has made just the right design choices and compromises (some by chance?), capturing the essence and characteristic detail of the Leslie sound.What is in the secret to the Vent"s design that makes it sound so good?I think what makes the Ventilator so popular is that it's essentially the sound of the Leslie as we are accustomed to hearing it in a mix -- a very balanced and neutral sound, without any disturbing artifacts. In contrast, the raw sound of a real close-miked Leslie is much more complex, featuring rather heavy timbral modulation in addition to FM and AM. In fact, the moving horn has a tendency to really twist and turn the phase of the harmonics, resulting in a 'spicier' sound than what most simulators produce, Vent included. This is especially true when capturing the sound using directional microphones with the rear of the cabinet open.
The Ventilator gets many things right -- the volume throb follows real physical laws (sound pressure decreases by the inverse of the square of the distance), the overall frequency response of the cabinet is about right, and the front panel control tapers are well chosen. The overdrive effect is equally 'universal', and sounds good on most anything.
There's room for improvement, though. For instance, on a real Leslie, FM depth tends to decrease at fast rotor speeds, while AM and timbral modulation increase somewhat. Too much FM makes the sound a bit too chorusy at fast speeds. Then there's the complex timbral modulation mentioned above that isn't really addressed at all, but would add significantly to the versatility of the model.
I've been waiting for manufacturers to develop more elaborate models of the Leslie, but things seem to be moving slowly. The recently introduced Amplitube/IK Leslie is a step up, I think, but it would be nice to see some new hardware as well.
Tony, Keith, Rick?
in The Keyboard Corner
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Here's the interview I was talking about.
Rick Wakeman's Key to Keys with Tony Banks
There are some hilarious moments, well worth a listen.