A trip to the music store

[marino]

Hi fellow Cornerers,today I went to the biggest music store in Rome (Cherubini) to get some cables and stuff, and since I had an unexpected couple of hours to spend, I got myself headphones and tried to familiarize with a few recent keyboards. In case there's someone interested in my *highly* subjective opinions, I decided to write a mini-review for you. And so I did - but when I was almost ready to click the Enter button, THIS F%*#ING SOFTWARE ATE IT ALL!!

So here's the condensed version - please end every sentence with a "In my opinion" as you read.

 

GENERALMUSIC PROMEGA:

 

What can I say... It's strange. It looks a bit like the very first Synclavier. Great appearance, but it feels a bit less "Pro" when you actually play it. I stripped away all effects, and played all the sounds.

PIANOS are very good, though pop-oriented. I couldn't find a good "classical" piano - but they're all very detailed and defined, without being strident. Great job.

EPs didn't impress me at all. Some have a full sound, but they all lack attack. I have no idea whether this can be fixed by programming.

ORGANS are even worse. "Generic" and with little balls. (Hey, I'm not easily satisfied, OK?)

CLAVIS are good. Only thing, I think they exaggerated a bit the counter-bounce noise at the release of the key.

There's also a very good cathedral organ, and a truly excellent harpsichord.

STRINGS are very good, in all their variations. Smooth but bright - very usable in pop recordings. Good job here.

PADS I found boring and generic - but then again, I was playing with no effect engaged.

BASSES, both acoustic and synthetic, are really good, with a strong presence.

Other synth and assorted sounds I found a bit bland and over-heard. But I don't know the level of programmability of this thing, so...

The KEYBOARD feels good enough, however I noticed a kind of unbalance in the velocity response. In short, there's a quite large part of the range where you have a "medium" response, then when you spank just a bit, it jumps to *very* bright overtones. I tried all three preset velocity curves without finding one I liked - but then I noticed you can have "user" curves.

OVERALL... I'm not going to buy this instrument, for its weight if not for anything else. But it has some clean and expressive sounds, and it's so easy to use that it can appeal for sure to some musician. Extra point for the onboard graphic EQ and motorized faders. What puzzles me the most: Since it has the feel of a "gig" instrument, why make it so heavy..?

 

YAMAHA P120

 

I love the action of the P80, but I find its piano sound a bit muffled, so I have been interested in playing a P120 for a while. Well, I found the P120 piano definitely brighter, but also more generic - and the action is NOT the same of the P80, as I heard. I still slightly prefer the action on the 80. But I'm picking nits here; both the sound and the keybed are classy, and very usable.

I didn't play the other sounds.

 

Kawai M9500

 

An instrument of many contradictions! The action is excellent - even stiffer than on a few real grand pianos, and with a great feel. The sound is equally excellent, but with a couple of quirks that I'll try to describe.

1) The bass register is very metallic - it seems there's no way to play a soft tone down there.

2) When you play dense chords in the middle register, you get a kind of wobbling sustain. Horrible! Maybe it's some kind of simulated cross-resonance beetween strings, but if so, it's really exaggerated. (Once again, I was playing with no effects)

The EPs and other sounds are very pleasant and playable, but not outstanding.

Again, too heavy an instrument for me, but really good in most areas.

 

I also played the last B3 emulation from Viscount, with waterfall keys and a "vintage" feel. I can't remember the name but it doesn't matter because it is a piece of crap, both in sound and rotary effect. The chorus and distortion are pathetic. I'm not much of an Hammond player but I recognize a shitty sound when I hear it! I'm ashamed that this is an Italian instrument - I'm inclined to suggest Viscount to go back to home organs. Please.

 

On my way out, I saw a Casio (...) digital piano, with just a few sounds and little onboard speakers, like the Yamaha P120 or Kawai ESX-1. I spent a few minutes with it, and folks, it wasn't bad at all! The name Casio on it really seemed out of place - it beats the Technics P30 hands down! And the action is nice too! The other sounds are mediocre, but the main piano sound, keyboard, and playability are great. I am told it's quite inexpensive, but it doesn't feel "cheap" at all. A big surprise.

 

As I said.... "In my opinion".

 

Carlo

[Botch.]

Carlo, thanks for taking the time to write down your thoughts; A/B comparisons are the most useful. Motorized faders on the Promega, eh? No wonder the thing was so heavy!

[Dave Pierce]

Originally posted by marino:

Hi fellow Cornerers,today I went to the biggest music store in Rome (Cherubini) to get some cables and stuff, and since I had an unexpected couple of hours to spend, I got myself headphones and tried to familiarize with a few recent keyboards. In case there's someone interested in my *highly* subjective opinions, I decided to write a mini-review for you. And so I did - but when I was almost ready to click the Enter button, THIS F%*#ING SOFTWARE ATE IT ALL!! :madCarlo

Carlo,

 

Thanks a lot for taking the time to write this up for us! I've had this BB software eat my posts a couple of times too. Now, whenever I'm planning to write a long post, more than a paragraph or two, I write it in a text editor window (I use Ultra-Edit32, but Notepad or Wordpad would work fine), then paste it into the Reply window of the board when I'm finished. This way if the "Add Reply" button decides to send my text to /dev/null, I still have it.

 

--Dave

[Dan O]

Originally posted by Botch:

Carlo, thanks for taking the time to write down your thoughts; A/B comparisons are the most useful. Motorized faders on the Promega, eh? No wonder the thing was so heavy!

Curios ...how does the motorized faders make it heavier ? What's inside ? dano