Mike Martin - question re the P250

[Dave Horne]

Mike, I have something I'd like you to pass on to the guys at Yamaha. I have now had my P250 for two days and I've noticed something in the Grand Piano 1 voice that bothers me.

 

Starting at the Ab (a major 10th below the top note), the notes sustain a bit too much when struck hard. I realize there are no dampers at the top end of the keyboard, but the notes ring a bit too long and actually call too much attention to themselves; I personally find this annoying.

 

It would be great if the user could edit that somehow, but I don't think this is possible. I have a pretty good idea how you will respond - a real piano has no dampers at the top end of the piano and the piano is supposed to respond that way. (By the way, when I compare that ringing to my GT1, the GT1 is not that prominent at all. I have also listened to this with a good pair of headphones and my job system which uses two Bose 802s - I hear the same ringing.)

 

Any thoughts?

[Mike Martin]

David,

I don't have a P250 at home, so I'll have to look into this tomorrow. Unfortunately, I don't think the P250 offers this level of editing.

[Jazz+]

The high notes work for me.

[Dave Horne]

Just so there's no misunderstanding - my comment refers to striking a high note (Ab5 and above) without using the sustain pedal and releasing the key as soon as it is struck. The remaining sustaining sound is what I have a problem with.

 

In normal playing it is not all that noticeable, but it captures my attention nonetheless.

[p120dUdE]

How long does it resonate?

 

Regards,

p120dUdE

[Dave Horne]

Originally posted by p120dUdE:

How long does it resonate?

 

Regards,

p120dUdE

four seconds

[p120dUdE]

Originally posted by Dave Horne:

Originally posted by p120dUdE:

How long does it resonate?

 

Regards,

p120dUdE

four seconds

Thats all?

 

My p120 rings for 5 seconds. My p120 rings exactly the same as my teachers C5 grand rings. It is normal, it is another nuance of a piano.

 

Regards,

p120dUdE

[Dave Horne]

P120dude, why do I have the feeling whatver my P250 does, your P120 will do it better and longer ... and louder ... and ........

[p120dUdE]

Originally posted by Dave Horne:

P120dude, why do I have the feeling whatver my P250 does, your P120 will do it better and longer ... and louder ... and ........

Im just saying that it is normal for a piano's highest octaves to ring long.

 

And yes, it is my opinion that the p120 beats the p250, but thats my opinion.

 

Regards,

p120dUdE

[Dave Horne]

I am familiar with how an acoustic piano sounds. I traded in my six foot Yamaha for my GT1 about six years ago and played about 20 years on the same seven foot Steinway. If my six footer rang that long when I owned it, I don't remember.

 

I am probably in the minority here, but I don't necessarily believe that everything acoustic is necessarily good. When I would play a nine footer in concert the sound guy would sometimes pick up the sound of the pedal or the dampers. I personally would not want the added sound of the pedal or the dampers added to the sample of the string. It might be natural but that doesn't necessarily make it better or desirable.

 

At any rate, I'll go to the Yamaha (acoustic) store just down the street from me Tuesday and play his best grand and take note. I am aware that the top notes on an acoustic piano do not have dampers and are free to ring, I just don't remember being bothered by it on a 'real' piano before.

[lvercaut]

Dave Horne,

 

i noticed the ringing on my P-250 too but starting at the G note for about 1 or 2 seconds and further at the Ab note for about 4 seconds.

Can you check the G note please when you have time for it ? Many thanks in advance and greetings from your "zuiderbuur".

[Dave Horne]

Originally posted by lvercaut:

Dave Horne,

 

i noticed the ringing on my P-250 too but starting at the G note for about 1 or 2 seconds and further at the Ab note for about 4 seconds.

Can you check the G note please when you have time for it ? Many thanks in advance and greetings from your "zuiderbuur".

What you wrote seems to be exactly what I have. The really long notes start at the Ab5 and the G is less.

 

I've been to Antwerp many times and would love to live there ... a great city. The bike tunnel under the Schelde is fantastic!

[lvercaut]

Notice me whenever you have a public gig in my neighbourhood.Or when you are biking in Antwerp and want to play the piano in the middle of the trip (that's what happens many times in my case)You are always welcome !

[Dave Horne]

bumped ... Mike Martin, I also have another post re the Song Mode and an anomaly. I hope you passed this on and perhaps you might have a comment. Thanks, Dave

[Mike Martin]

Dave,

I was correct in my initial post that this can't be edited on the P250. The P250's samples do come from a different sampling session than the GT1.

 

Knowing the engineers at Yamaha, I suspect the amount of decay time that top section P250 is likely accurate to what this particular piano was doing at the time it was sampled.

[orangefunk]

Dave,

 

I had the same concerns with the ringing top notes on my P120. I guess its something you just gotta get used to...

 

I haven't played that much acoustic piano in all honesty (only a Steinway, Kawai or Bechstein when there was one available at a gig or a friends house) but I didn't notice the ringing so much then..

 

The ringing did seem shorter on the previous P80 model

[MurMan]

I think we're on a slippery slope. (Pun intended!)

 

Dave and others have quoted various ringing times in this thread. It's an interesting topic, but I'm wondering about how you've measured it.

 

After the initial attack, the amplitude of acoustical string instruments decays on a first-order exponential curve. Because this curve is smooth and slows down as it approaches zero, there isn't a clearly defined 'event' that we can listen to to stop the clock when timing. (The slippery slope ...)

 

Engineering measurements of exponential curves are based on the time to reach the 3 dB point if we measure power or 6 dB if we measure amplitude. I don't think most people can do this with their ears.

 

Keyboards use an envelope that approximates the exponential decay, but I think it's close enough to make it difficult to pick out when the ringing stops. I've heard some keyboards that have a noticeable point where the voice suddenly drops out. It's disturbing with headphones, but not of much consequence in a live mix.

 

Is voice dropout what you're measuring? If so, you can't compare it to a grand piano which decays smoothly to zero over a long time. If you're not measuring voice dropout, I believe that you're measuring you hearing rather than the keyboard.

[Dave Horne]

MurMan, either I'm tired or you write too fast ... my eyes glazed over.

 

I just came back from my local piano store which is only a few doors away. I played a few top notes on one of his most expensive pianos. The musical 'noise' I heard (after a hard attack and immediate release) was a collection of frequencies ... top end noise of a piano - a bunch of undamped strings vibrating at the same time. I wouldn't mind having that 'noise' on my P250.

 

On my P250, the musical information that rings after an attack on those top end notes is pitch specific. I hear just one frequency ringing for about four or five seconds depending on which key I strike. That's my complaint - it doesn't sound natural when compared to an acoustic piano. Now I realize it wasn't the length of the ringing, it was the 'sound' of the ringing that bothered me.

 

I'm sure I won't notice this 'pitch specific ringing' on jobs very much or at all, but this could be improved upon on future P series.

[MurMan]

Dave, now I understand. You're talking about sympathetic vibrations/resonance. Seems to be a big problem for keyboards to get it right. And it's one of the things that keeps me still in the acoustic camp.

 

I'm waiting to demo the new Ivory and Giga3 pianos to hear how well they modelled it. As I understand it, it requires a lot of CPU because each note affects every undamped string. It might take another generation or two before we get this in the high-end digital keyboards.

 

( Oh no, now I've opened myself up to a post from youknowwhodude that the P120 already has string resonance ...)

[Dave Horne]

Originally posted by MurMan:

Dave, now I understand. You're talking about sympathetic vibrations/resonance. Seems to be a big problem for keyboards to get it right. And it's one of the things that keeps me still in the acoustic camp.

The sample in my GT1 (which is at least 6 years old) is excellent - the top notes sound pretty much as they would on a grand piano. My guess is the sample in the P250 is smaller than the 30 meg sample in the GranTouch. Since the P250 is a stage piano, I wouldn't expect it to be on the same level as a piano that purports to be an acoustic replacement. At any rate, I think Yamaha will improve on this in future models.

[guestuserguestuser.com]

Originally posted by Dave Horne:

The sample in my GT1 (which is at least 6 years old) is excellent - the top notes sound pretty much as they would on a grand piano. My guess is the sample in the P250 is smaller than the 30 meg sample in the GranTouch. Since the P250 is a stage piano, I wouldn't expect it to be on the same level as a piano that purports to be an acoustic replacement. At any rate, I think Yamaha will improve on this in future models.

In the era of Gigasampler, and multi-gigabyte sample sets, isn't it amazing that manufacturers are still using sample sets on the order of 32 or even 64 megabytes?

 

Not to be overly critical, because I do think it's pretty amazing what they are able to do with 32 MB.

 

But, how much more would it really cost to have a GB of ROM in there? That would allow for better sounding instruments all around, and also would permit them to have piano and Rhodes voices with, say, 8 or 16 layers instead of 2 or 3. Voiced properly, that would go a long way towards eliminating the velocity-switch problem.

[Dave Horne]

But, how much more would it really cost to have a GB of ROM in there? That would allow for better sounding instruments all around, and also would permit them to have piano and Rhodes voices with, say, 8 or 16 layers instead of 2 or 3. Voiced properly, that would go a long way towards eliminating the velocity-switch problem.

I know it would not cost very much to use a hard drive based memory. What exactly would one gig of chip (flash?) cost? The sounds would have to be already in the chips, correct? Is that an expensive proposition?

[orangefunk]

I asked Mike this some time ago and was informed that RAM is a lot cheaper than ROM.

 

I think some kind of battery backed RAM would work though... it does on the Electro :-)

 

I mean the Electro is just a kinda of rampler (rompler with RAM ? ;-) ) and a virtual organ simulation isn't it? I think the RAM in the Electro is in the region of 64MB or so.. perhaps its compressed though..