Sound Quality Of Keyboards In The Future

[Brettymike]

You should be careful what you wish for.

 

Brett

[StanC]

Can't help but wonder, how much better can they get? What are we lacking? Maybe price, weight, or stuff not related to "sound quality". As far as sound quality and features goes, that is all far to subjective. For every 5 players who love the (fill in your favorite board here) there are 5 who think it sucks.

Just my 2 cents. . . .

[brenner13]

Me thinks we'll soon look back at today's cutting edge widgets and wonder how we could tolerate such lack-luster sound. I recall landing my brand new Roland S-550 rack mount sampler with sequencer software in the late 1980's and thinking it surely will be the best possible way to emulate any sound for decades to come. Then Roland dropped all support for it just a couple of years later when they launched the S-7xx series. I still utilized the heck out of my 550 to make very unusual and avant garde sounds.

Point is, today's stuff makes those once ultra powerful music tools seem quite toy-like now. So get what makes you happy and use it to its fullest. My S550 is still kicking with its own unique sound.

[jcazzy]

Since technology has gotten to a pretty good point of recreating 'sounds' like we want to hear them in the past 10 or 12 years (or maybe longer), I worry more about my playing than the way the instrument sounds. Sad, but true! Will it get better? I think it will but it will always be subjective to the ear of the one hearing it. Too many variables.

[Jazzmammal]

It's amazing how comic relief shows up at just the right time...

 

Bob

[ManInTheBox]

Me thinks we'll soon look back at today's cutting edge widgets and wonder how we could tolerate such lack-luster sound. I recall landing my brand new Roland S-550 rack mount sampler with sequencer software in the late 1980's and thinking it surely will be the best possible way to emulate any sound for decades to come. Then Roland dropped all support for it just a couple of years later when they launched the S-7xx series. I still utilized the heck out of my 550 to make very unusual and avant garde sounds.

Point is, today's stuff makes those once ultra powerful music tools seem quite toy-like now. So get what makes you happy and use it to its fullest. My S550 is still kicking with its own unique sound.

 

Great post & good point. VSTis are so "cheap" nowadays, it's just a matter of time before the portable PC is robust enough to take the place of live instruments. I don't play live, but my Fantom-S is just a controller for my software & has been for a while.

[NoahZark]

I, too, am in the "buy now" camp. I have a Yamaha S90ES that I bought in 2006 and still love. It does everything I need it to, especially for my primary application (playing live in a rock band). I do love the flexibility in my Nord Electro 3 to add new samples, and over time I've seen value in having a sampling workstation, but I've never regretted either my keyboard purchases. Perhaps more germane to the OP's core question, I've also never looked at the newer versions of the keyboards I bought (so, for example, the S90XS and Electro 4) and felt that they were mandatory upgrades to my boards given improved sounds, features, etc.

 

I guess ultimately I view purchases of modern keyboards like purchases of any other electronics: There's always something newer and shinier coming sometime down the road, but you just can't keep waiting for that next model. If you want/need something now, go get it. At least in the keyboard world, you can feel a bit more comfortable than, say, in the computer world, that the product evolutions will be a bit slower.

 

Noah

[Sam Mullins]

I'm also in the buy now camp. Overall, I think the rate of improvement in sound has slowed. For example, the difference between a Hammond imitation 20 years ago to 10 years ago, is far greater than the difference from 10 years ago to now. Similar story with digital piano, although we still have more room for improvement there. Most of my purchases over the last few years have been an attempt to get lighter weight keyboards (with moderately better sounds.)

[Outkaster]

Its going to only get so good. At no point will a DP or Clone ever really get the presence of the instrument they are emulating. They can get close but theres always that ten percent that makes a difference. Its real frustrating if you learned on the real thing because youre always going to have something to compare it to.

[bloodyMary]

I think that Extreme still stands up to today's hi end boards, esp if you use the sampler.

 

If I had the Extreme I probably wouldn't feel the need to upgrade yet.

[bloodyMary]

I'm also in the buy now camp. Overall, I think the rate of improvement in sound has slowed. For example, the difference between a Hammond imitation 20 years ago to 10 years ago, is far greater than the difference from 10 years ago to now. Similar story with digital piano, although we still have more room for improvement there. Most of my purchases over the last few years have been an attempt to get lighter weight keyboards (with moderately better sounds.)

 

I agree. My upgrades are just to get lighter weight and portability. My new KB sure sounds better than the old one, but not far. In live setting they're going to sound the same.

[brenner13]

...and in the wise words of a later King Crimson incarnation: "To be happy, you have to be happy with what you have to be happy with."

 

 

[ProfD]

If the itch is too strong not to scratch, upgrade to a currently available KB(s) that floats your boat.

 

Learn those KB(s) according to your needs, be creative and play the h8ll out of them for many years as you've done in the past.

 

Tomorrow isn't promised to any of us. Life is short.

[JeffLearman]

I thought I preferred 76-key boards too, until I found that several modern 88's fit in the same case as my 76, since the wheels are above the keyboard. (E.g., Nord Stage, Casio PX-5S, Yamaha MOX8/MOXF8) Lighter than my 76 too, by a good margin. My next board will be an 88, and I'll enjoy having that low C handy at all times! Possibly due to this, choices for 76-key boards are very limited these days.

 

Keyboards will continue to get more convenient, better sounding with more features, for lower prices, and in lighter packages. If you wait for the ultimate, it'll never come. Instead, wait until what you buy is worth what you're paying for it, and you can't go wrong.

 

It's now to the point where the best values are the not-quite-newest stuff, which is still amazing but at much lower costs (especially used). A couple years from now, the minor differences in the two latest models may not matter much.

 

When I was with Ensoniq, keyboard sales slowed down in the 1990s and I opined it was because sound quality and on-board sequencers had reached a robust threshold. My opinion was that many keyboard players had what they needed thereby reducing their GAS requirements. Just an opinion.

When I got my Ensoniq MR76, it cured my GAS for quite some time (except for Hammond emulation). It's still my main piano for gigging and home studio. It's a great bit of kit that I will never regret buying!

[Theo Verelst]

Sound quality could be taken apart in two major components: the ability to perform the way the player wants (i.e. render the keyboard being played into proper music), or simply what the (measurable and harder to measure subjective) audio quality at the analog or digital output connectors is.

 

Of course for playing, the player-to-instrument connections, as there are the timing and velocity sensitivity/accurateness, possible engine interpretations of certain playing-patterns, the curves of responsiveness or otherwise measured the proportionality of the energy being put in the keys and the sound power being produced, are very important. Some of this issue is like a mechanistic comparison with non-electrical instruments, or has to do with latency and the repeat-ability of the latency of an instrument, as not to "swim" in the key-sound delay (some small latency may not be always bad, as long as it is precisely the same latency the whole time).

 

The other quality that is at stake is either how well the instrument actually sounds, or how accurately it sounds as the instrument it imitates, or even how accurately it sounds like the idea it is to implement.

 

The latter could be taken as the continuation of the big progress that has been made in the past, like the invention of the piano, the organ, the Rhodes, the Moog, the polyphonical synths, the major effect equipment, and various attempts to build an interesting machine around a certain synthesis principle , or even several ones (FM, additive, sampling + filtering, phase distortion, and more).

 

If new instruments are going to be tested only for their ability to implement a number of basic feats, like a glorified GM player (something I don't abhor), there's the major sampling issue that is at stake, wether people want to know it or believe it, or not. Just like the CD player, many people will want a record player with analog recordings at times, because the sampling technology has the name of being absolutely perfect (low noise, clear sound, seems like a precise copy of sounds being played, etc.), but as EE I repeat what I've made clear a number of times: the DA converter in ANY synthesizer is far from perfect, and with very few exceptions distorts (I meant that's almost always a scientific fact, with solid theoretical foundation), and at times like hell.

 

I would like to have some attention for what sets a good essay apart from many others, as well as what makes the latest Prince record a success or failure, for either the reviewer of Rolling Stone or myself: is it interesting, and does it have an element of surprise or fantasy, or imaginativeness in it.

 

T