Having fun with electric grand patches and piano layers …

[Sundown]

It’s true. I hate to admit it, but lately I’ve had an affinity for playing electric grand samples and those “LA” piano patches from the 90’s. My Kurzweil PC361 has one or two good ones and my Roland XV-3080 has a few I like. My Kawai MP11 has one but it’s modeled off an old Kawai grand and it doesn’t have the same iconic sound as the brand that rhymes with “Omaha”. It’s not a bad sound, just different.

 

They have this great, bouncy quality in the midrange and with a subtle percussive layer (like a bell transient activated at higher velocities) you can come up with some fun sounds to play. I don’t know that I would use one in a composition. It can sound too much like a Titanic documentary on PBS. But they are great for just playing. I don’t like the high registers as much, but anything in the low and mid range sounds good.

 

I’ll have to find my Ultimate Support Systems Apex stand and a t-shirt and blazer with rolled-up sleeves. The CP-esque sounds don’t evoke that vibe, but Boy some of those “MIDI Piano” and “LA Piano” sounds are straight out of 1992.

 

Todd 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Stokely]

I think I currently only use an electric grand on one song, the Motel's Only the Lonely (mainly for the end).  I've starting exploring more sounds that perhaps once I kind of disregarded...like pianos with pads or other layers.   Sometimes that just works live especially in a relatively small band, even if I might not ever use those sounds in my own music.

Not sure exactly what this is being used here.  First tune from one of my favorite concert vids.   Whole show is one camera take, awesome!
 

 

[Mighty Motif Max]

I do rather like the Midi Grand patch on my Roland JV-1000, even if it is super '90s.  But then again, I also am one of those people who really likes the classic DX/FM electric piano. Plus a lot of those "outdated" acoustic piano patches (think M1) never really left, and are definitely back in full force in the electronic music world.

[Anderton]

Don't tell anyone, but I've been using some DXish bell piano sounds lately. They're so old they sound new

 

11 minutes ago, Stokely said:

I think I currently only use an electric grand on one song, the Motel's Only the Lonely (mainly for the end).

 

What a great song!

 

It was Martha's birthday a few days ago, we talked and she confirmed she'll be doing some gigs in February. Her voice is actually in better shape than it was in the 80s, because she stopped smoking several years ago. 

[Stokely]

  

That's one of the few I start alone, and depending on where it is in the set list--and what's around it-- it can be an "uh oh" moment.  I'll be jamming (or worse, singing) the end of something, then look down and realize I have to completely switch gears and find my Modx patch   This is the type of thing I hope Set list maker (see my thread about ios device apps that can send patch changes) can help with.

I have the Purgatory Creed soundset with a CP70 (I think, it's a CP something) and I really should use it more, along with the wurli.

[Bobbo Fett]

In my mind, I have the electric grand sound in the same folder as the Dx7 Bell Piano and Phil Collins' voice.....been along time since I opened it, but I think it's titled, "Things I thought were kind of cool when I first heard them, but after a bit never EVER wanted to hear again".....

[Anderton]

45 minutes ago, Bobbo Fett said:

"Things I thought were kind of cool when I first heard them, but after a bit never EVER wanted to hear again".....

 

But we're talking 80s cliche sound overload! Anyone born in the 90s was born too late to get burned out on it, and they're 30 years old now   Like the old NBC-TV promo said, "If you haven't seen it before, it's new to you."

[David Emm]

Aside from the anemic sounds of wannabe 'electronic pianos,' I've loved all of it, as piano was my first instrument. I was selling Roland gear when the RD-1000 appeared and I moved a few of those out the door because it was astounding. I don't hear a CP-70 as dated, I hear its fitness for the song. I find it much stronger as accompaniment than as a soloing instrument, but it makes its niche powerful.

 

Now being 99% ITB, I often tend to layer two or three different pianos because one alone doesn't seem to have the bang I want. I know that sounds 'impure,' as a stew of phase cancellations, etc. can crop up, but I seem to get some CP-70 grit underpinned by Roland roundness and it suddenly strikes the right balance. Pianoteq has me well-covered as my main acoustic, but otherwise, its one of my beautiful mutants. When I'm just playing to relax, I come up with more ideas using the concocted instruments. 

[Sundown]

11 hours ago, Mighty Motif Max said:

I do rather like the Midi Grand patch on my Roland JV-1000, even if it is super '90s.  But then again, I also am one of those people who really likes the classic DX/FM electric piano. 

 

I think that’s the same patch on the XV-3080 … It’s a great sound in the mid/low registers. 

 

Those DX sounds can really snap and crunch under velocity control. They’re really fun to play. The ones I like best go light on the bell tone and light on the detuning. The only time a DX sound really turns me off is when it’s heavily chorused. If you listen to “One More Night” (Phil Collins), that’s a prime example of overloading on chorus/detune. It just sounds wobbly, not warm.

 

Todd

 

 

[Stokely]

The DX7 electric piano is one I never liked then or now.  But I do like FM in general.  The FM pads on my Modx are amazing.

[Mighty Motif Max]

12 hours ago, Sundown said:

On 1/23/2023 at 11:12 AM, Mighty Motif Max said:

I do rather like the Midi Grand patch on my Roland JV-1000, even if it is super '90s.  But then again, I also am one of those people who really likes the classic DX/FM electric piano. Plus a lot of those "outdated" acoustic piano patches (think M1) never really left, and are definitely back in full force in the electronic music world.

 

I think that’s the same patch on the XV-3080 … It’s a great sound in the mid/low registers. 

 

Those DX sounds can really snap and crunch under velocity control. They’re really fun to play. The ones I like best go light on the bell tone and light on the detuning. The only time a DX sound really turns me off is when it’s heavily chorused. If you listen to “One More Night” (Phil Collins), that’s a prime example of overloading on chorus/detune. It just sounds wobbly, not warm.

 

Todd

 

 

That XV-3080 patch is probably almost identical. IMO the original JV80/90/1000 had a bit more of a low-end warmth going on that I miss on the later JV/XV+ models. I think there's even a version of that patch in my Fantom 7 - which reminds me that the actual name is "MIDIed Grand". Yeah, it's a fun patch.

[Sundown]

On 1/24/2023 at 12:23 PM, Mighty Motif Max said:

That XV-3080 patch is probably almost identical. IMO the original JV80/90/1000 had a bit more of a low-end warmth going on that I miss on the later JV/XV+ models. I think there's even a version of that patch in my Fantom 7 - which reminds me that the actual name is "MIDIed Grand". Yeah, it's a fun patch.

 

I think the original, original patch was in the D-70. That’s the first Roland synth I can think of that could do (even remotely) a convincing piano or electric grand.

 

Todd

[Stokely]

My 80s-era JX-10 had a surprisingly good piano/electric piano....for an analog synth at least.   I don't think I'd go so far as to call it "convincing" though... I remember adding an Emu Proteus to my rig in the very late 80s and that was a step up.  What a groundbreaker that thing was IMO.

[AROIOS]

On 1/24/2023 at 9:23 AM, Mighty Motif Max said:

That XV-3080 patch is probably almost identical. IMO the original JV80/90/1000 had a bit more of a low-end warmth going on that I miss on the later JV/XV+ models. I think there's even a version of that patch in my Fantom 7 - which reminds me that the actual name is "MIDIed Grand". Yeah, it's a fun patch.

"MIDIed Grand" was the "money patch" that got me hooked on the JV/XP synths. It sounds the same on all Super-JV and XV synths.

On the original JV synths, "MIDIed Grand" sounded slightly different due to differences in synth structure and programming. This is the OG that started it all, and was one of those patches whose individual parts were boring, but sounded brilliant together.

On subsequent Fantom/Juno/Integra synths, "MIDIed Grand" was often available either directly in the factory soundset, or through a "XV Soundbank" sysex import. But they don't sound as good as the previous two generations, because the acoustic piano part is wrongly drenched in Chorus, due to the lack of EFX routing flexibility you and I discussed earlier in another thread.

[AROIOS]

Btw, another one of my favorite 90's layered grand sound is "LA Session" (demo attached below) from Roland's "Session" expansion board. It's perfect for 90's Pop-Jazz ballads.