Piano Opinions

[Dave Bryce]

This is a subject on which quite a few keyboard players have an opinion (or two):

 

What are you using for a piano solution right now? Are you miking a real piano? Using a digital grand? Maybe you're using a big, maxed out sampler...or combining two or three different sound sources to get your own signature tone. Do you tend to use different solutions for different applications?

 

Live...studio...anything piano-related is fair game.

 

dB

[DBENNVAhotmail.com]

I try to practice, & do rough composing on a real piano. Mostly MIDI piano is what I've been using for recording. I like Kurzweil pianos but am looking a the piano expansion card for the XV-5080. I'm talking about acoustic piano. Can we input on electric pianos?

 

Quantum! C/O

DBENNVA@hotmail.com

 

[This message has been edited by DBENNVA@hotmail.com (edited 11-05-2000).]

[Dave Bryce]

Originally posted by DBENNVA@hotmail.com:

I'm talking about acoustic piano. Can we input on electric pianos?

 

Yeah, sure! They're pianos...

 

dB

[DBENNVAhotmail.com]

I like an original Fender Rhodes that's in good shape. If not I like the pianos in the

Roland A-90EX.

 

Quantum! C/O

DBENNVA@hotmail.com

[Oli P]

I use my Yamaha P300 mostly, but sometimes the Ultimate Piano library from East*West. The Yamaha is far more versatile, and lets you design your own programs, but for more mellow types, the Ultimate Piano's Fazioli and Steinway work pretty well, but not for very dynamic playing.

 

I always feel that it is quite unsatisfying to use these substitutes, but people that just hear the records often ask what piano it is...since they like it.

 

The sampled pianos never seem to give the chords the same emotions as a real grand IMO.

 

I have an old Wurlitzer in good condition, and would love to have a Rhodes mark I 88 again, but I get decent results with the P300 and the Trinity.

[cidnbnet.nb.ca]

I have an Alesis QS8. I know the pianos always get a bad rap on these boards, but I love the piano sounds. The patch "the piano" is extremely inspiring. Anyway that's my input.....

[Jeff Klopmeyer]

What I'd like to use: a kick-ass Bosendorfer, stereo miked under the lid with room miking for ambience.

 

What I do use: A QS8 and the internal piano sounds as well as both the classical and jazz piano expansion cards.

 

So much of my composing is piano-based that this is crucial for my creative inspiration. The QS8 isn't everything I want it to be, but it's good enough to give me some nice musical ideas.

 

- Jeff, TASCAM Guy

[marino]

Good thread. (another one!)

Well, I've played the piano for 30 years, and of course I prefer to play the real thing. I really struggled to own a decent grand piano. When it comes to lay piano tracks that are supposed to sound acoustic, I really push to play a good grand.

Mostly you find Yamahas in the studios (in my country at least) and they're good, and also the newer Kawais. Of course a good Steinway is something else, but a badly-regulated Steinway can be a nightmare. I played a Yamaha at the France Academy in Rome that was better than most Steinways I encountered in my life.

The best piano I've ever played was a Bosendorfer Imperial I found in a big theatre in Buenos Aires. It was one of those rare magical things: the instrument, the regulations, everything adapted so well to my playing that it seemed to read my mind. A big musical shock: You play it and think, "It IS possible, after all, to have an instrument that responds like this"! After the show, I kept playing it for three hours for the staff, and when I was forced to leave, I was seriously crying. Ehm, sorry...

BTW I have a Yamaha G2; I often record on a C3, the miking is really variable depending on the type of music.

Electric pianos:

I've owned quite a bit of them, including the Rhodes, and I can say this: Every one of them I bought for purely practical purposes (playing live, recording at home) and even though I accepted them for what they were, no one felt like a piano. The fact that I'm accustomed to the synth/organ keyboard helped me greatly in adapting my touch on the various RD-300, RD-250s, etc...

Presently I'm using a Kurzweil Micropiano for live use, and for casual work I even learned to play "pianistically" on a XP-80! For heavier piano things,I got a Fatar Studio 2001 master. For recordings I try to stick to the real thing, but I've used the Sonic Solution CD-ROM, with a quite good sampled Steinway. I also have the Fazioli from Ultimate, and that's fairly good too, but a little peculiar, and the dynamics are seriously limited. I can't wait to try the Gigasampler piano, they say it's good enough for solo work (it's got to be good to convince me BTW).

So, are the electric (sampled/modeled) pianos pianos? No, they are electric pianos. Are they worth playing? Yes, absolutely. Are they useful? Enormously! Often, the choice is to play a sampled piano or no piano at all. A die-hard pianist CAN adapt to it. Just think, he's forced to adapt to wildly different acoustic pianos anyway.

 

But I think this brings another question, a little deeper than the "what piano sounds do you use" that started the thread.

In the contest of pop music, we are used (abused?) to homogenized, compressed, buried-in-the-mix sounds. The part themselves are usually just bits in a rhythmic puzzle, not only sampled sounds, but not even idiomatic to the instruments. (I'm talking about acoustic instruments samples, of course).

I'm not saying this isn't a good thing: There are no rules on how to use samples. But it's sad to reduce the history of these instruments to this poor, very partial view, especially considering that few people will ever hear a real oboe, or a bass clarinet.

What I mean is, it doesn't take a *pianist* to play a lot of the piano parts that you often find on today's pop music. There are exceptions, of course; but it feels strange to me to hear a lot of today's "serious" music, and find that the piano is treated in the same semi-mechanical way than in a pop song! I think, is THIS the cross-pollination between genres? Reducing the expressive power of instruments instead than expanding them?

OK I've gone way off topic, but it's VERY late on this side of the Atlantic... BTW I'd like to know other pianists' opinion.

Sorry for the strain on your eyes...Hope my English was readable.

 

marino

 

[This message has been edited by marino (edited 11-07-2000).]

[Punchmo]

For recording, I'm using a Kawai MP9000 for acoustic piano sounds. For electric sounds, an old Kurweil Pro 1 module for the Fender Rhodes thang and, still using a MKS 20. Would like to find a nice clean Wurly!

[guestuserguestuser.com]

I'm using a Yamaha P80 a lot on gigs that require acoustic piano. Jazz-type gigs and like that, unless they have a decent acoustic piano. It feels and sound good, and it only weighs 37 lbs, so my back is happy when it comes time to haul it around.

 

Previous to that, I was using a Micropiano.

 

Since we're on the subject, I'd like to bring up my "pet peeve" - velocity cross-switching. After all this time, it's amazing to me that manufacturers still get away with pawning off really obvious velocity-switched patches on us, especially with electric piano. I can't understand why more people don't complain about it, I feel like I'm waging a one-man war. Take my P80 for example. The acoustic piano patches are all fine, I can't hear any velocity switching. But a couple of the electric piano patches have very obvious velocity switching. You know the type, they have a soft Rhodes sound switching to a Hard Rhodes sound, with a really obvious switch between them. It seems every instrument that includes electric piano sounds has some of these. I never use them.

 

Even acoustic piano sounds sometimes have this. Example, people seem to like the new Roland XV-88's 64-megabyte piano exansion card, or whatever it is. I tried that out, and I found that most of the piano patches had really obvious velocity switching going on. I can't imagine how anyone could live with that.

 

For Rhodes patches, at least, I think velocity cross-fading is a better option.

 

Ok, I'll stop ranting now.

[donclorehotmail.com]

(disclaimer - rank subjective personal opinion follows))

 

For synthetic pianos, I use an E4XT Ultra loaded with William Coakley's Perfect Piano, Vol. 1, 2, and 3. Volumn 3, the 'En' bank sounds the best to me, but it's amazing how good a Steinway he did in Vol. 1 in only 16 megs. I also have a Technics P500 piano that is a standalone unit which is nice to use for lounge gig.

 

I've been through a lot of piano samples, including EastWest, GigaPiano, going back to MicroPiano and ProFormance. No disrespect intended to anyone, but they don't work for me nearly as well as the Coakley pianos. I'd like to hear the new Yamaha (p300 I think?) stage piano.

 

For real pianos, I use my Steinway B whenever possible. I had a Bosendorfer for a year, but, I'm a diehard New York Steinway snob (despite the fact that they are very inconsistent on the showroom floor). The Bosendorfer is beautiful, lovely, sweet, but lacks depth and range of color. The Steinway does everything well; it's almost as good as the Bosendorfer at the stuff the Bosie does well, and the Bosie can't touch the Steinway for all the MANY things the Steinway can do. The same applies for most of the European pianos I've tried (I haven't played all of them, by any means). The few Hamburg Steinway's I've played seemed meticulously crafted (compared to the NY piano), but had an inferior musicality (in my very biased judgement); they seemed kind of thin like the Bosendorfer, Grotrian, Bechstein, Schimmel. It seems the European pianos definitely go for a different kind of sound than the NY Steinway does, and I prefer the Steinway. I also think the manufacturing quality/consistency/fit-and-finish on most of these Euro pianos is much superior, unfortunately. The Bosendorfer I had was unbelievably immaculately crafted in the finest details, no matter where you looked.

 

I think the Yamaha pianos are kind of interesting, as a special effect (or certainly they're great if nothing better is available), but the tone is kind of 'narrow' and dies out quickly (even if the note is still sustaining, it tonally goes kind of 'flat' after a few moments). Same for the Kawai, although it's slightly less brassy than the Yamaha. The Yamaha is actually kind of cool for a certain kind of sound; I'm sure it records great on a pop record or a smooth jazz or new age record(which is a very narrow application for a piano as an instrument, despite the preponderous of this sort of thing).

 

I don't care much for the Korean instruments - I rate it below the Yamaha. Although even a Samick or a Young Chang beats the best electronic version around (well...maybe not the Coakley 64 meg pianos. They're pretty amazing for a sample).

 

my .02

[donclorehotmail.com]

Oh yeah, one more thing. For Rhodes, I love the samples in the Wizoo 'Magnetica' disk - I have the Emu EOS version. Just amazingly good (Clavinets, also, although good Clavs are not as hard to do). I think the Wurlie's are good, but I have to say that, as I don't care for Wurlitzer electric piano, that my take on the sampled version is not as critical as it is for Rhodes and Clav.

 

don

[Guest]

Magnetica is really good. You can choose between several Rhodes sounds, all sampled all over the keyboard at four different dynamic levels. Each of the sounds is bigger than 10MByte.

 

If you own a Kurzweil sampler and Magnetica, you can download some patches at my homepage.

 

Greetings

 

------------------

Marc

[Erik Norlander]

Wow, hot topic, eh?

 

For maximum expression and developing technique, nothing beats a real piano. I can't fit a grand in my living room http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/frown.gif

but I do have a very adequate little Kawai upright rental piano that serves me very well for composing, arranging and most important ... practicing!

 

I have had the luxury of playing some beautiful grands, though. I have played three Hamburg Steinways, all of which were exquisite to play, sounded rich and full but still had adequate brightness for my rock n' roll slant. The one at Chick Corea's Mad Hatter studio in LA is probably the best, although there's a rental company called (I think) Pro Piano in LA that also has a really, really nice one.

 

The Bosendorfer Imperial Grand at Mad Hatter is also quite nice and certainly impressive. However, believe it or not, the Hamburg Steinway experience was far more satisfying. Although I will say that the Bosendorfer recorded better. Not that I'm really complaining about either!

 

But you know what is truly ironic? The best recording piano I ever used was a 7" K. Kawai. It wasn't so impressive in the room, and while the action was definitely good, it wasn't on the level of the Hamburg Steinway. But man, this thing recorded like a dream -- perfectly balanced top to bottom with both body and brightness. Better than the Yamaha C7, I have to say. So what was the model number of the Kawai? Hmmm. I think was an RX-7 (yes, I know that's also a car and a drum machine) but I'm not sure. I do know that it wasn't an expensive piano.

 

Sorry to blaspheme...

 

As far as electric pianos, the old Dyno-My-Piano mod to a Rhodes Mark I or Mark II is awesome. Wurlitzer 200 is nice as well for kitchy things, especially through a Roland JC-120 amp, but it is definitely a bit limited in its applications.

 

A product that I absolutely *adore* is my Rhodes MK-80. It was made by Roland in the late 80s or early 90s, and it is a digital machine with analog effects (the phasor ROCKS!). It is similar to the early RD series (RD-1000, RD300S, MKS-20, etc.) but somehow sounds quite superior than all of those for the electric piano sounds. As far as acoustic piano sounds ... what? Those are supposed to be acoustic piano sounds? Good pseudo-CP70, though, if you like that sort of thing. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/wink.gif It doesn't have the signature Roland RD/MKS harpsichord, though, so I managed to happily (read: cheaply) find an old MKS-20 for that sound.

 

Digital instruments that do good acoustic pianos? Gotta stick with Alesis QS series Bosendorfer. I heard one or two of the Coakley Perfect Pianos a long time ago, and they didn't impress me. But presumably they've come a long way since then, so I will certainly give them another shot in light of the praise they've received.

 

Kurzweil pianos? Can't get into them. Roland and Yamaha pianos, better, but not as good as the Alesis QS. To my ear, of course...

 

Cheers,

 

Erik

[donclorehotmail.com]

'The Bosendorfer Imperial Grand at Mad Hatter is also quite nice and certainly impressive. However, believe it or not, the Hamburg Steinway experience was far more satisfying. Although I will say that the Bosendorfer recorded better. Not that I'm really complaining about either!'

 

I have no trouble believing either point - the Steinway is (once again, in my very biased view) a much better instrument, but the Bose is probably easier to record. I (sadly) am still not very satisfied with the recordings I've done of my Steinway - it's an exquisite instrument, but I just can't get it to sound the same in Pro Tools like it does in the room. So far, anyway. I believe I'll get it, eventually, it's just a much tougher beast to capture, louder, more complex, and the sound seems to take distance to develop properly.

 

The Bosendorfer I used to have was pretty much point-and-shoot; just jack the mics down over the hammers and fire away, and the recording came out sounding pretty good. The Steinway just doesn't repond to that kind of micing approach at all. It seems to need more distance between mics and piano. Whatever. I'll get it figured out one of these days.

 

I understand why the Yamaha C7 is such a standard for recording studios (especially given that popular music, as opposed to classical or even jazz, is pretty much bread-and-butter for studios, I think).

[synthetic]

Erik, how did you mike the Kawai? I haven't been able to get any body out of my 7" K. Kawai grand, but I'm using really tiny mics. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/wink.gif

 

Another QS8 guy here. For a synth, it's a great piano sound, probably my favorite thing about the synth. I interned at Mad Hatter for a while, and it was impossible to get a bad piano sound on the Bosendorfer. They had a pair of C-12s, and an old Neve desk, and you could put the mics anywhere and push the fader up for the perfect piano sound. A grand piano is high on the list of "stuff to get someday". I'll probably have to settle for one of the piano sample CD-ROMs which have been mentioned.

 

-jl

[Jeff Klopmeyer]

Originally posted by synthetic:

Another QS8 guy here. For a synth, it's a great piano sound, probably my favorite thing about the synth.

 

I was starting to get picky and super critical of the preset piano programs in my QS8 (not that there's much better in the sample-playback realm), but I really like both the Classical and Jazz piano expansions. It's a nice variety now between the internal Bosendorfer samples and the card's Fazzioli and other stuff. I actually got a compliment recently from someone whose ears I respect on the quality of the piano recording...he was positive that I'd miked an acoustic grand.

 

- Jeff, TASCAM Guy

[Erik Norlander]

Originally posted by synthetic:

Erik, how did you mike the Kawai? I haven't been able to get any body out of my 7" K. Kawai grand, but I'm using really tiny mics. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/wink.gif

 

I interned at Mad Hatter for a while, and it was impossible to get a bad piano sound on the Bosendorfer. They had a pair of C-12s, and an old Neve desk, and you could put the mics anywhere and push the fader up for the perfect piano sound. A grand piano is high on the list of "stuff to get someday". I'll probably have to settle for one of the piano sample CD-ROMs which have been mentioned.

 

 

Jeff,

 

I think that you may have almost completely answered your own question! A Neve 8058, 8068 or 8078 combined with a pair of C-12 mics is, in my experience, about as good as it gets. I've also used Telefunken 251 mics with good success, and also Neumann U-67 mics (the 47 mics are too dark for piano, though, IMO).

 

I've never tried the AKG C-24 on piano, which is essentially a stereo C-12, although I would very much like to. I've used the C-24 as an overhead drum mic many times and love it to pieces.

 

As a piece of trivia, the Bosendorfer multisample in the Alesis QS-8 was recorded with a pair AKG 414 mics placed about 6 feet away from the soundboard in a big hall at the University of Santa Cruz. The 414 is certainly a good workhorse mic and can substitute for the more expensive older mics I listed above if necessary.

 

U-87 and a piano? Nope.

 

Mad Hatter has a couple of Schoeps mics which held up fairly well, although they did sound a lot like 414s to my ear. But if you can choose anything, the C-12s always win in my book.

 

From my experience, the key to excellent piano miking (Kawai, Bosendorfer or otherwise) is to keep the mics at least 3 feet away from the soundboard and usually farther. If your rooms sounds really great (like the one at Mad Hatter), then use a second pair of mics as much as 10 feet away. Close miking a piano sounds unnatural to me, and it also gives you lots of unwanted inconsistencies in the tonality.

 

When you place the mics, make sure the mids are not honking too much, and move the mics until they don't. That's what really screws up an otherwise good piano recording. You can boost top and bottom with EQ quite generously, but be careful with the mids. And of course phase is a HUGE issue!

 

If you don't have access to the Neve mic pres (1272, I believe they're called), I would recommend the API 312 pre next, followed by the GML pre, which can sometimes be too clean and polite (!), but is unarguably a world class recording device. Believe it or not, I don't like tube pres on piano. Great on vocals, guitars, bass and strings, though...

 

Tube limiters, YES. My faves on just about anything (including piano) are in order: (1) the Manley Variable MU, (2) the Tube Tech CL1B (they're mono so you'll need a pair, although there is this new product called a CL2A that I *think* is the same), (3) Teletronix LA2a (haven't heard the new ones yet but word is they're great) and then (4) the Fairchild 670, which is noisy, slow, extremely colored and absolutely wonderful.

 

Cheers,

 

Erik

[Guest]

For gigs I've been using the QS8. Like another responder, I get compliments from folks who aren't expecting decent sound out of the Alesis. (I never understood that.) The QS8 cuts through a pop mix beautifully in theatres and arenas. The other day I used it on a demo session. One of the producers came into the booth thinking he'd find the ubiquitous PC-88 and was stunned to find the QS8. There you go!

In a studio that I do most of my recording we use the E4 Ultra with the Coakley Perfect Piano. It's easily the most playable piano sample out there. Well worth the investment--and Coakley will chat with you on the phone to get you set up correctly. A great product.

Gotta admit, though--all this talk about the P80 has me wondering if it's time to shed a few pounds.

K.

[Dave Bryce]

Originally posted by soper2@mindspring.com:

For gigs I've been using the QS8. Like another responder, I get compliments from folks who aren't expecting decent sound out of the Alesis. (I never understood that.)

 

Me neither... http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

 

I have actually recently shifted from using the big Bosendorfer sample in my QS8 for piano over to using the one in my DG8 instead - while it is true that it is essentially the same sample data, there were a couple of things done to it and a few new programs written specifically for the DG8 that (to my ear) make the Bosie sample sit in a tune much more naturally,and provide a much better dynamic response as well.

 

The funny thing is - while we were making the DG8, we were so into the quality of the onboard sound system that we didn't really explore recording the instrument using the audio outputs. It turns out that the DG8 shines in this capacity!

 

I've been using the DG8 quite a bit on the project on which I am currently working. I also used the Kurzweil piano on a few songs.

 

I also have a K. Kawai grand, which I love to bits. I recorded it recently, and was totally thrilled with the results. I'd use it more, but it's not in my studio, it's in my living room, and I need someone else to be able to set levels and record it.

 

I think I'm developing a bizarre preference for recording acoustic piano in mono, believe it or not...

 

dB

[Guest]

OK, so yesterday I went to play the Yamaha P-80. While I found the action to be nice--better than the Fatar action--I was put off by the "cheese factor" of the board: the little sequencer, the extra sounds, the wall wart, the cable routing, the lack of serious midi controllers, et. al. I'm wondering who this board was designed for. Is this one of those dreaded "pro-sumer" pieces? Oy. Maybe this would be a good time for Yamaha to develop a midi controller using that key bed. I'd buy that puppy in a heart beat. As it stands, I'll probably keep the QS8. Any comments from the industry?

K.

[Uh Clem]

K2600 - always switching between various programs (fav of the moment)

 

Steinway Model L - pretty decent luck recording with a Beyer Stereo mic at about 3 ft out , 4 ft high, mid cabinet - but I need to do a lot more experimenting with this. Most used for piano practice and recreation and fun.

 

The Kurz I use mostly on recordings due to the various sounds and it is easy to fit in a mix.

 

Best action on digital was an old Roland RD300s I gave to my brother. I still think it is best fake bed I've played on. Better than the new Rolands.

[guestuserguestuser.com]

Originally posted by soper2@mindspring.com:

OK, so yesterday I went to play the Yamaha P-80. While I found the action to be nice--better than the Fatar action--I was put off by the "cheese factor" of the board: the little sequencer, the extra sounds, the wall wart, the cable routing, the lack of serious midi controllers, et. al. I'm wondering who this board was designed for. Is this one of those dreaded "pro-sumer" pieces? Oy. Maybe this would be a good time for Yamaha to develop a midi controller using that key bed. I'd buy that puppy in a heart beat. As it stands, I'll probably keep the QS8. Any comments from the industry?

K.

 

Yes, I know what you mean. I think that maybe Yamaha wasn't sure who they were marketing it to. They probably thought they were marketing it to the home user. But I think that a lot of gigging, professional musicians are buying them as well, because of the convenience factor, namely, its light carrying weight, combined with a very good-feeling keybed, and decent sound, particularly of the acoustic pianos.

[dansouth]

Sampled piano sounds are certainly serviceable, but I have yet to hear a digital piano that compares favorably to an acoustic piano - even a cheap one - in side by side comparisons. Has anyone tried the GigaSampler? Can huge samples make a difference?

[Jeff Klopmeyer]

Originally posted by dansouth@yahoo.com:

Has anyone tried the GigaSampler? Can huge samples make a difference?

 

Huge samples can make a huge difference. Gigapiano is astonishingly great. IMHO, I'll always use a real piano when it's available, but Gigapiano is super impressive.

 

- Jeff, TASCAM Guy

[The Soundsmith]

In the studio, I love the Yamahas, they're bright and crisp (I play jazz and pop, not rock or classical.)

 

But on my steady, bread-and-butter gig, I have to play a mangled Samick 'grand'. I stopped playing piano in 1965 because of pianos like this, and switched to Hammond (also, it was LOUD!) http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/wink.gif

Then followed the crowd to the Rhodes, then to synths, and finally got offered a house gig on a good-playing Kawai. That lasted a year, and now, here I am, back where I swore I'd never be, playing a piece of crap that hurts my hands, assaults my ears and injures my spirit.

So in retaliation, I've brought a Hammond on the gig, and play it every excuse I get!

 

A good piano is a wonderful thing, a great piano is magic, but most pianos are garbage. The worst Hammond I ever played was better than the average piano I had to suffer with.

 

 

In the electric and modular world, I've had the best results with the Dyno-My Rhodes, the Wurly 200, the Kurz micro-piano, the Roland MKS-20, and the Alesis Quadrasynth for electric pianos. I thought the XP-80 had a good acoustic piano, and the QuadraSynth, but then I started playing the real thing again. Nope...

 

------------------

The Soundsmith

 

[This message has been edited by The Soundsmith (edited 11-28-2000).]

[guestuserguestuser.com]

On the subject of electric pianos, I thought I'd like to mention the new Yamaha synths, the S80, S30, and CS6x all of which have basically the same synth engine (the S80 and S30 have an additional 8mb of piano samples over the CS6x).

 

Anyway, all of these synths have really great Rhodes samples, some of the best I've heard in a long time. I'm using a CS6x, with the PLG150PF piano board expansion (16mb of additional ac.piano and Rhodes samples), and boy, does it sound good. I think I'm going to get an S80 too, it's a really nice 88-key weighted action synth.

 

The only major drawback with these synths is the way the plug-in boards are integrated into the o.s. It's quite convoluted, they could have done better.

 

But with the S80, you don't really need to add boards if you don't want to, it has a very useable sound set in the built-in ROM.

[Guest]

I have a Steinway Model L, which I mike rarely.... only for extended piano stuff. For ease of use I tend to use a Kurz micro-piano. You just switch it on and it works. Sits in a pop/rock mix easily.

 

Cheers,

 

Jerry

[Dave Bryce]

For ease of use I tend to use a Kurz micro-piano. You just switch it on and it works. Sits in a pop/rock mix easily.[/b]

 

I agree - I like that piano as well...if I'm not mistaken, the whole instrument is less than a meg and a half - fabulous sound design to get the keymap so clean and even...the Kurzweil folks have always carved a pretty mean piano, though...

 

I believe that the larger stereo 4 meg piano that's found on the daughterboard for the K2500's expansion ROMs is from the same piano/sampling session...does anyone know if that's the same sample that's in the PC2? I think it is, but I'm not sure...

 

dB

[Marzzz]

Real piano: My High School (back in the late 70's) had a 9 foot Steinway (D?), kept in a special humidity and temperature controlled room. A lucky few of us were given permission to play on it. It was like driving a Ferrari, I can't even begin to describe it. One day I would love to get a 7 foot Steinway (B?) and have a place big enough to put it.....

 

As far as sampled pianos, I have done very well with the Korg SG-Rack driven by my Roland A-80. The samples came from a Steinway, and you could tell. The extreme octaves were very well done, and looping was not very obvious.

 

I have since traded it in for a Roland XV-3080 with the SRX-02 piano expansion card. Things I love about it: It has a great "feel," you can do that big "Day in the Life" piano chord and it has the right tone as it dies away slowly. It allows pianissimo playing, and dynamically you otherwise feel "more connected" to it as you play. The realism of the tone is exceptional, all the way out to the extreme octaves. Things I don't love: The sound is set up in such a way that it is as if the piano was close-miked- you can hear all the hammer and damper noises, yet the piano sound is in this "space," the tones aren't spread across the stereo field low-to-high like you were sitting in front of the piano. I imagine I will be able to fix this when I tweak the preset. Also, there is some rather abrupt velocity switching, but at least there is a wider dynamic range possible. Finally, the "space" the piano sits in is a large hall, there are too much effects- I prefer a more "intimate" piano setting. overall, though, i think this is one of the best piano sounds in a module that I have ever heard. I AM curious as to where it was sampled from, but at least there is a full 64 Megs devoted to it.

 

I have considered the GigaSampler, but I am loathe to introduce a Wintel computer into my studio....

 

-Marshall