pawelsz

Firth Of Fifth intro Cinema Show solo Apocalypse in 9/8 from Supper's Ready In the Cage solo The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway intro

I have to update my first-glance opinion about JUNO-DS. After several days of owning it, however, I decided to return it. This is funny because I considered buying one since about last two years or so. Instrument sounded great on YouTube, but not so great when I actually played one for myself. I realized that the board is too simple for what I was used to. Lack of SuperNatural sounds is quite significant on synth sounds. Also, seems that the other sounds I liked in FA were rather from classic XV-5080 sound set than from Fantom X era. Also I experienced quite high background noise floor level, so the board was constantly humming a bit, even more than SV-2. Maybe it's what it is, maybe this one was faulty. It has some nice features like compactness, the sliders, flexible effects routing I described before, independent octave shift for splits, vocoder, etc. but I finally came to the conclusion that it is not a board for me now.

I have played a bit CN29 last time. The RHIII action is lighter than NWX. I am sure now. Seems also Kawai has better pianissimo than Yamaha. And obviously different sound character. I must say that RHCII action found in KDP120 is also very nice, being light. ES520 has same action as KDP120. Defitinitely better than GHS from Yamaha. I also played Yamaha CLP-735 with GrandTouch-S (without wood) - lighter, more balanced than NWX (especially black keys with longer pivot length), more sensitive. I wonder if Yamaha will put GrandTouch-S with or without wood in P-515 successor. Anyway P-515 is great. When I played some acoustics (long time ago and rarely) I rather struggled with the weight of action, so practising on something heavier should help to be prepared to play on anything.

Seems this is just single headphone output with two sockets so if you bridge both channels in one socket, you have them bridged in the other one. Anyway the right channel, with TS adapter should rather be grounded rather than bridged with left channel.

No collapsing to mono if properly inserted adapter into one socket and headphones into second socket. I managed to get mono sound from headphones by slightly pulling out the adapter from one socket while still listening in headphones from the other socket. So check your adapter/try different one or the pins in your socket have incorrect location (too deep).

I have the binaural sound effect switched off in menu. You can do this too, so you shouldn't get sound on line-outs affected by binaural effect while still be able to mute speakers with adapter.

Standard octave span is 165 mm (around 6 and 1/2 inch) , present on my P-515, PC4-7 and SV-2. FA-07 also had this. FA-06/JUNO-DS61 has 163 mm (nearly 6 and 7/16 inch). Combine that with very rounded edges of keys and shallow key throw and you have lead-friendly synth action on those small Rolands.

Just got a 61-key version of Juno DS. I missed some Roland sounds. Didn't want to stretch for a Fantom-06, because it's over two times more expensive. Obviously 61 has in general inferior action to 76 Juno, but for some applications like synths, fast lead soloing, it can be even better, easier to play and reach octaves. I don't have to do any serious piano playing on Juno. At first, I found the FX section a bit strange, because I remember how straightforward it was on FA. MFX was hardwired to the patch, then you had chorus and reverb. Here in Juno seems like all 3 MFXes are independent from patches. Yes and no. You can decide in performance mode if set each MFX independently (according to performance) or if TAKE MFX from the patch (according to patch). In FA I didn't have to save custom sound if I only needed to adjust reverb send level - that was outside of the patch. Here, it is in MFX, so I find it a little bit inconvenient. The good thing about the effects of Juno-DS is the flexibility of effects routing. You have so many paths you can route your sound through. You can also arrange MFXes into structures. In FA you couldn't use more than one MFX on single sound/part. You could use IFX instead, one per studio set. I managed to use structure 08: MFXes 1 and 2 are then routed into MFX 3 in which I set reverb send level. In that solution I can leave original patch even with 0 reverb send level in its MFX, because I can add send level in next MFX after. In structure 08 MFX 3 becomes something like IFX was in FA. The good thing is I can set MFX 1 and 2 for some parts - then sound goes through MFX 1 and 3 or 2 and 3. I can also set only MFX 3 for another parts. The good thing is I can also bypass whole MFX section and route sound directly into reverb and/or chorus. Then, I need to set reverb/chorus send levels in output tab of performance edit or part edit. At the same time, I can route many parts through single MFX - that was not possible on FA, I had to use IFX or manually choose same MFX on each patch and save new user patches. Concluding, I think I like the idea of managing effects on Juno better, but it needs more work or just getting used to. Could have more then 3 MFX processors, but that will make enormous number of possible structures (combinations of MFX routing). Is there any list of factory patches with MFX info for them? I could see which patches use which effect by default in patch mode. It's important if it is something more sophisticated than equalizer or just thru. I find it strange when FA/Fantom and Juno series' do name differently the components of single sounds. In FA, single sound (but with MFX hardwired) is the Tone, PCMS tone has 4 partials. In Juno it is equivalent to single sound being a Patch having 4 tones (not partials) inside. Anyway I think I made good decision buying it now. It's on the market since late 2015 and can disappear soon, although there are no signs of it yet.

@bfields This is from PC3K manual, page 263. Anybody could confirm if it works same for Forte/PC4/K2700? It's not described that detailed in newer manuals. EDIT: or I can simulate this and check by myself EDIT 2: Seems PC4 doesn't ask me "Delete dependent objects?" and deletes added deps even if they are deps for another object. I created two programs using same fx chain and when I deleted first program with its dependent fx chain, that fx chain was deleted even when there is a 2nd program that uses same fx chain. So looks it is simple. But at the same time PC4 asks me sometimes if store dependent objects and if load dependent objects.

Because other programs could use same keymap or any other kind of object. Even in those packs you have multiple programs using same fx chain or same sample set. If everything will be packed in one object, every program should contain all its samples kemaps and fx chains. That would take much more memory.

Global, Objects page, mark the programs you want to delete, options, add deps (dependent objects like keymaps, FX chains). Then delete. For some reason samples won't automatically add to delete as deps. You need to delete samples manually. Or I don't know something. You can check page 9-27 (322) in manual.

Yeah, it's me . Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to play real Bosie. Maybe some day....

I find Stu's reviews among the worst on YouTube. Not because he said that action of my piano is very heavy. But from what I saw and heard he often missed some of the boards' features or just gave unprecise information, like he didn't carefully get to know before recording what the piece of gear he is presenting can do. So I saw several videos and stopped watching. I agree about escapement, it's hardly noticeable in Yamaha.

My favourite sound. How dare you! but yes, it's dark and adding some brightness makes it better. P-515 has overdrive deep in menus, but never was meant to simulate amps for EPs. Kawai has amp sims. Thank you Emaj7 for your detailed comparison. I am glad I've chosen Yamaha.

I can confirm about P-515, it's the piano I bought after trying CLP-645 which has same NWX action. That wood inside white keys really makes difference, compared to hollow plastic Yamaha GH3 or GH3X action. And they're not just slim wooden sides, they're solid wooden core inside the white keys, but the far back part of the key is plastic like it always was. You can find photos somewhere in the web. Kawai does not have wood but has metal counterweights which in fact play similar role, compared to having hollow keys. I have P-515 and I have very briefly played something with RHIII action (probably it was CN37 several years ago). IIRC they are really similar in terms of key weight. Maybe P-515 is slightly faster on key return and maybe a little more "stiffer" to make the key move down. But it's very comfortable action for me, and not tiring at all! It even helped me to improve my technique, to play with less force, with more arm weight. But obviously your experience can be totally different than mine. Also, I haven't read about many quality issues with Yamaha while we often read about problems with Kawai. Ironically I had a minor issue with headphone output with my Yamaha, but fixed under warranty in 2019 and nothing else bad happened since then. But Kawais are also extermely popular so maybe it's proportional. I strongly recommend you to find an instrument with RHIII action and try it to make your own opinion. I also had a sound preference to Yamaha, because to my ears it's more aggresive sounding than Kawai. It's worth noticing that you receive FC4A pedal with P-515 which is not a half-damper, so if you want half-damper you must buy additional FC3A or go with the whole stand+pedal unit package. With ES920 you receive proper F-10H half-damper pedal.

Seems this is just the L1.

After I got PC4-7, I decided to sell my XK-1c. Yes, Hammond is better, more faithful in being a clone both sound-wise and UI-wise. But I realized that Kurz is really good enough for me as occasional organ player. And interestingly I prefer single-Leslie FX chains! Double-Leslies have too much wobble/gurgle/bubbling sound particularly on highest harmonic bars for me. Kurzweil organs definitely don't suck, but they have its own character as well as e.g. Korg or Roland ones.

Official release

For Rolands FA and JUNO-DS, 76 key versions have significantly better key actions than 61s. In Fantom-0 keys are same for 61 and 76, I haven't played but they are reported to be better than old 61s. Kurzweil doesn't have 61s in newest boards, but wheels are above keybed so the board is more portable for the number of keys and I find the key action nice.

Thanks, Scott. That's good info. But does Fantom(-0) have also the basic soundset from JUNO-DS or only the old one from XV-5080 present in FA? Or none?

I am expecting Juno DS to be the last thing to use the legacy of Fantom S/X/G tones. I think Roland will use ZenCore in new products. All those SRX/ARX tone banks may be abandoned. If you already like Juno DS, I wouldn't wait. I sometimes miss my FA I sold two years ago. But I would rather buy DS now instead - for sounds. FA had some SN tones, but was very synth-focused, many presets, many similar sounding. Fantom-0 has more sounds, but I think DS has the nicest, and most useful in various scenarios overall sounds set. I often ended choosing the final sounds from PCMS bank, even having a lot of similar sounds in SNS bank. Multiple banks in FA also were a bit annoying for me, DS has two, Fantom-0 has even more but you can mark desired sounds as favourite ones, even rank them with stars, which is excellent idea. You don't always need to browse thousands of sounds, you can browse the marked ones. But the functionality of DS (particularly switching groups of split tones via single button) is quite limited compared to FA, not to mention Fantom-0. Maybe I will buy DS, even the 61key, but not now. Having FA-06 and FA-07 in the past, I strongly recommend 76 key versions if you plan to use it as main board, I think there will be minimal difference between DS76 unweighted and FA-07 semi-weighted. For sure, Fantom-0 can do much MUCH more than DS. DS has a nice simplicity. Or maybe Fantom-0 has already all SRX/ARX banks (EXP-01 to EXP-10, even 11) included???? and I don't know about it?

I always found Yamaha emulation of CP70/80 too sterile, too perfect, so the character of real instrument was lost. Dexibell has a great one. Kurzweil has nice old samples too. Yamaha really needs to update them.

I asked about S10L

I believe that DX7 had same action as Motif and Motif ES series, which are slightly narrower than "standard" ones. It is around one white key loss within 61 key range. Around half the millimeter per single white key. https://syntaur.com/keys.php?key=K27W In general everything not being a hammer action from Yamaha has this slightly narrower size.

So I understand that new ATST isn't going to replace VAST.