Vidal Boutique Controller Keyboards

[davinwv]

44 minutes ago, CrossRhodes said:

I wonder what's up with these guys? Seems like the IG has gone silent since August of last year and haven't seen a single review out in the wild. Seems kind of odd.

I imagine that they are heads down trying to deliver that first batch of preorder units to customers/backers.

[CrossRhodes]

19 hours ago, davinwv said:

I imagine that they are heads down trying to deliver that first batch of preorder units to customers/backers.

Hope so as I'd love to finally see some user reviews and they were supposed to start shipping end of last year. Seems more likely there's been a delay for some reason as no company would go completely silent on social media as they role out their debut product. 

[CrossRhodes]

Looks like I was right. Vidal posted an update today and they have been busy with a re-design:

https://playvidal.com/blogs/news/february-2024-update

"Today we're announcing a new name for the instrument: the Vidal Piano Controller.

Based on feedback, we’ve shifted our design focus to making the best-feeling piano action ever in a digital keyboard. We’ve rethought every facet of the design to create an instrument that fully captures the tactile experience of playing a concert grand piano. Our biggest design change was to remove the springs and switch to a fully inertial action. This new design has large steel weights at the front and back of the keys, creating the same feeling of inertia as in a grand piano."

 

[ElmerJFudd]

6 hours ago, CrossRhodes said:

Looks like I was right. Vidal posted an update today and they have been busy with a re-design:

https://playvidal.com/blogs/news/february-2024-update

"Today we're announcing a new name for the instrument: the Vidal Piano Controller.

Based on feedback, we’ve shifted our design focus to making the best-feeling piano action ever in a digital keyboard. We’ve rethought every facet of the design to create an instrument that fully captures the tactile experience of playing a concert grand piano. Our biggest design change was to remove the springs and switch to a fully inertial action. This new design has large steel weights at the front and back of the keys, creating the same feeling of inertia as in a grand piano."

 

I wish them great success.  There are so few manufacturers focused on building piano actions for controller keyboards.  Most just buy a Fatar action.   Roland, Kawai, Yamaha, Korg are not quick to sell their actions to others.  The Kawai action in the Nord Grand was like hell freezing over.  
 

19” long keys, a magnet scheme to simulate escapement.  Very curious to play this thing.  

[stoken6]

Shame they've dropped the smaller variant, and are offering an 88 exclusively.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[uhoh7]

"The keyboard landscape today is bleak. There have been no new innovations for the past 20 years, and today's MIDI controllers and digital pianos feel more like bloated tech peripherals than real instruments." If this was written after 1/1/23....it's either poorly composed or oblivious. Even if you restrict the statement to piano actions, choices have steadily increased. As a general statement, I can't really disagree, and it's great they are having a go. 

 

The actions look nice....but what are the midi specs? These boards should be sending MIDI 2.O MPE. Aftertouch? You could make the case pianos don't have aftertouch. On the other hand my old TP10 SL880 has channel aftertouch which is no detriment. Most AT is after a hard stop, with very short range. I don't really feel like using it, though I want it. 

 

Nektar T4 and T6 actually have a really nice Channel AT feel. Osmose has an unbelievable Poly AT which seduces a player into regular use. You would not use the Osmose in a piano recital....unless you were going seriously avant guard LOL. 

 

Which brings up a stale aspect of pianos today...and I love my upright....it's the highly standardized iron frame and string layout. The result is impressive volume, but great weight and and nightmare to change temperaments. When most "classical" piano pieces were written, the variety of instrument design was great. Iron frames only came into wide use after 1850 mass production in the USA. The largest building in the United States before the civil war was a piano factory.

 

In 2024 the I'd like to see some acoustic innovations, which would include actions. The Harpsichord revival in Europe...creeping into the USA might offer inspiration. A light, easily tunable clavichord with dynamic variation and aftertouch vibrato only lacks TLC to design and market. A harpsichord can be tuned by a player in 20 minutes to any one of a number of temperaments. Which did Bach hate worst? Equal temperment. He was not alone. Our major thirds made them puke. (In Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik, Bach explains that he doesn't like equal temperament because it reduces the diversity of scales).

 

I always thought "The Well Tempered Clavier" meant the "equal tempered clavier". The 20th century was full of pompous misconceptions in classical teaching and performance which are now really entrenched (EG AP Music Theory), but under heavy attack from some performers and a few schools. "HP" Not the printer. Historical practice. First the older instruments were researched and reproduced. More recently the training, which involved a particular type of improvisation from early age, and a background in the now dead hexachordal solfegge, is being revived. 

 

Beethoven became famous because given a surprise theme at a party, with an adversary usually more famous at the time, he could turn it into....something really impressive. No written music involved. 

 

Like alot of you guys, actually. 

 

Bla bla. Let's see how these turn out