How many hammer strikes is the Motif Rhodes?

[Jazz+]

I am talking about the multisamples that switch on velocity (soft strike, medium strike and hard strike) like on the S90 S700 Triple Strike piano.

Was there more than one hammer strike sample used for the "Vintage 74"?

[eric]

Originally posted by petros

 

They are both two layers, aren't they?

And how do you compare the sound and expression of the Electro Rhodes with the Motif Rhodes?

I HAVE NO IDEA how many layers and don't think that really matters. All I know is that it sounds great! How many different threads can be started on this topic????? Why not check it out and enjoy it?

 

Regards,

Eric

[konaboy]

well if you want to talk tech then I'm happy to oblige.

 

I once chatted with the a guy at Clavia and he claimed it had 7 sample layers.

 

However when listening closely to the Electro I can only hear 3 layers, there might even be a 4th one in their somewhere.

 

I'm not sure about the Yamaha, but you could be right about 2 layers, soft or bark is the usual tactic for their rhodes sounds.

[Mike Martin]

Its 4 on most voices in the Motif and ES.

[jazzyprof]

Originally posted by eric:

I HAVE NO IDEA how many layers and don't think that really matters. All I know is that it sounds great! How many different threads can be started on this topic????? Why not check it out and enjoy it?

 

Regards,

Eric

Why are you yelling at the man? He asked a simple question.

[eric]

Originally posted by jazzyprof

 

Why are you yelling at the man? He asked a simple question.

He has cross-posted redundant questions across multiple forums. I answered his questions and he deleted the thread for some reason. So it gets old typing answers to the same questions after awhile.

 

Not to worry too much...after all the fun that this guy has evoked on multiple forums, I'll try to avoid threads in which he posts, so as not to waste time answering redundant questions that may get deleted before the day is over.

 

Regards,

Eric

[orangefunk]

Originally posted by Mike Martin:

Its 4 on most voices in the Motif and ES.

I don't think the rhodes has 4 layers... has it ?

[Mike Martin]

Actually take a look at the Vintage 74 voice. It is using 4 layers, using a different sample on each layer.

[Jazz+]

thanks

[ksounds]

The "Vintage 74" voice on the Motif ES uses a triple strike electric piano sample. Most folks know what is meant by a "Triple Strike Grand Piano," so think of this electric piano the same way. It was sampled at hard, medium, and soft dynamic levels.

 

The cool thing about these electric piano samples is that you can get more than one timbre out of a single sampled velocity. By shifting the formants to make the sound brighter, the hard velocity sample actually sounds "harder." (You don't have to shift the formants yourself; just choose a waveform that has a "+" at the end.)

 

"Vintage 74" uses all three sampled velocities plus a formant-shifted hard velocity, so the voice itself becomes a four-velocity electric piano. Pretty cool.

[BOPBEEPER]

Ok, as we are on thhis subject... Thed Motif/S90 has a global velocity setting (hard/ med/ soft/fixed,etc)

Also in voice mode you can set the velocity limit ao each of the elements wlich make up the voice.

For example,For Vintage 74, Soft ;1-63

med ;64-105

Hard ;106-122

Hard+ ;122-127

Youcan also adjust the Vellocity Crossfade (Ie. the volume that each next layer will come in at) In theory making for smoother transissions between layers?

So can someone explain why do nearly all factory preset sounds have the crossfade set to ZERO?

 

Imfo for Jazz+ ; If you put a voice into a performance, in this mode you can then adjust the velocity Depth and it's Offset value. I find putting (after first geting rid of that cheezy Sterio Pan )the Vintage 74 though the Amp-Sin effect with minimal distortion, can make the sound come more 'alive'.

[Tedly Nightshade]

I think for a decent job to be done, there would need to be at least 7, probably 15, different samples at different strike ferocities for a rhodes. My MP9000 has at least 5 and it's really pretty crude. All the honks sound alike! That's ridiculous. And you either honk or not, nothing in between. That's appallingly crude. Amazing what we're willing to settle for these days.

[MikeT156]

I have to agree with Eric. Why not just enjoy it? One of the most pleasant surprises I got when I first got my ES8 is the vast number of GREAT Rhodes sounds it has "stock". If you can't find at least several Rhodes sounds that you don't love on the MOTIF ES, then use a "real" Rhodes and you'll get all of ONE.

 

Mike T.

[guestuserguestuser.com]

Originally posted by Ted Nightshade:

I think for a decent job to be done, there would need to be at least 7, probably 15, different samples at different strike ferocities for a rhodes. My MP9000 has at least 5 and it's really pretty crude. All the honks sound alike! That's ridiculous. And you either honk or not, nothing in between. That's appallingly crude. Amazing what we're willing to settle for these days.

You said it, brother! I totally agree, crude velo-switching is all too commonplace, and it seems people are becoming accustomed to it, not a good sign.

[MikeT156]

Question: How recent an instrument is the MP9000? Mr. Anonomous, you have a P120 if memory serves me. I don't know about the MP9000, but the P120 only has a few Rhodes sounds and not much adjustment available for the stock sounds. I can't voice an opinion on the velocity switching of the above instruments. I can't perceive any velocity switching on my ES8 in VOICE mode. Someone mentioned there is a perceivable difference in the velocity switching on the ES8 in the PERFORMANCE mode. I haven't tried that yet. It's my understanding that can be changed. One of the reasons I bought an ES8 instead of a P120 or a P250 is how powerful the editing capability is compared to the P120/P250. There is less sustain and no sympathetic string resonance, as well as a lack of half pedaling capability on the ES8. But it's not made to be a pure piano, its a synthesizer workstation. I knew that when I bought it. If my needs were only that of a digital piano, I would have bought a P250, or more recently, possibly a Promega. That's as good as it gets these days for digital pianos. I'm not overlooking the other offerings out there, Kawai, Roland, etc. But the above mentioned digital pianos would have been my choice if piano was all I needed.

 

I really like the piano and Rhodes sounds on the ES8; I needed something over and above just a good piano and Rhodes sound on my main instrument, I needed the workstation features on it too. You guys may have a more discerning ear than I do from what I've read on your previous posts, or it could be I'm more easily pleased than you folks are, or it could be more nit picking on your part . I think what we term as "acceptable" for the music we play is going to constitute a wide difference of opinion. This forum demonstrates that, tough crowd.

 

Mike T.

[Dave Horne]

I have to add something not entirely unrelated. I played a job last night on a very old (but reasonably maintained) Steinway. Even when I played softly, the sound was hard. I suspect the hammers, though there were not deep ridges, were very compressed from many years of playing. They might have been filed down at some point as they didn't have very deep ridges, but they were hard nonetheless. Now here's an acoustic piano where I could have used a softer layer.

[burningbusch]

If you look at the wave list (multisamples) for the current Yamaha synths they list three Rhodes pianos each with three velocity levels. So while you can create a four level Rhodes patch, you only have three distinct velocity multisamples to pull from. There are the + and - variations, but those provide tonal/mapping variations of the level.

 

So in my book, the Yamahas' have three level multisamples.

 

As a side note, I'm surprised no one has come up with real-time interpolation of samples, where the samples would be generated on the fly creating flawless transitions between the timbres.

 

Busch.

[mate stubb]

Originally posted by burningbusch:

As a side note, I'm surprised no one has come up with real-time interpolation of samples, where the samples would be generated on the fly creating flawless transitions between the timbres.

 

Busch.

They have - it's called Roland SA Synthesis!

[Tedly Nightshade]

The MP9000 is several years old. They came out with a MP9500 a couple years back and it's very similar, keyboard feel is different.

 

The rhodes sounds on the MP9000 don't sound much like a rhodes, but they are cool electric piano sounds nonetheless. A real rhodes is almost like a vibraphone, it can be very bell-like in a really warm way- I miss that sound, and the way the keyboard interfaces with it to get so many different tones. Sigh. But we get other cool sounds out of the MP9000, and since they are vivid, colorful, jumpin' out at ya sounds in their own right, and especially since we can layer them with other sounds and the FX are spectacular (things actually get BIGGER through the FX! Everything else I've heard they get smaller when FX kick in), we do OK.

 

I spent some time last night creating some new sounds by using the MP9000's laudable attack/decay/cutoff/release controls to isolate some bellish sounds from the vibes sound, into more like a xlyo sound without the ring, and mixing those with the rhodes sound, transposed an octave up. I had different velocity sensitivity curves for both, and as the result is much more expressive- the combinations of honk and bell sound come out many different ways at different velocity levels, and best of all it's hard to predict, which leads to a touch of magic. Overall, it's a pretty satisfying work-around.

 

The Kawai only has one rhodes tone and one wurli tone. Nonetheless by manipulating and blending rhodes, wurli, and vibes sounds and twiddling the FX, I have several very different sounding and very colorful presets that leap out of the speakers.

 

I took the MP9000 when I went to demo the Promega 3 and left having fallen in love with the MP9000 all over again. I can't believe we actually found something that suits our aesthetic so well- it's a full-on classic in my opinion. We don't use the piano sound, but it can sound pretty cool backwards (attack really slow).

 

It's sort-of an alternative to a real rhodes, more like a cool different instrument. I'm thinking more and more about putting some midi sensors into the Rhodes 88 although it's too damn heavy to want to take it anywhere. MP9000 is coffin enough in it's case.

[Suppport Guy]

Mike Martin was right. EP2 and EP3 both have soft 1, soft 2, hard 1 and hard 2 layers making them 4 layer voices.

[MikeT156]

Ted, from the little I know about the MP9000, my understanding is that its a very expensive piece. The reasons I asked about the relative age of it is that the samples on the Motif ES are substantial better than the Motif Classic. So I thought maybe a newer board would give you better clarity than a model that is 3 or 4 years old.

 

I take it you weren't very impressed with the Progmega 3 if you left in love with your MP9000 all over again? What are your thoughts on the Progmega?

 

Cheers,

 

Mike T.

[Tedly Nightshade]

Originally posted by MikeT156:

Ted, from the little I know about the MP9000, my understanding is that its a very expensive piece. The reasons I asked about the relative age of it is that the samples on the Motif ES are substantial better than the Motif Classic. So I thought maybe a newer board would give you better clarity than a model that is 3 or 4 years old.

 

I take it you weren't very impressed with the Progmega 3 if you left in love with your MP9000 all over again? What are your thoughts on the Progmega?

 

Cheers,

 

Mike T.

The MP9000 cost me about $1800 three or four years ago- I think it was out for a couple years already back then. So it's not particularly expensive compared to many of it's competitors- it is rather heavy though, with it's wooden keyboard- feels "right" though!

 

I have been very impressed to see how well it holds it's own with competitors who put out a new board every year. The sounds and the overall sound are still the best I've heard, at least the ones I really like and use, jazz organ, vibes, rhodes, wurli. They really managed something well ahead of it's time, and it's simple interface and brushed aluminum look have been adapted by various other makers since.

 

It's rather simple and limited in what it can do- you can make set-ups with any 2 internal voices tweaked any which way but they must have the same FX and reverb, although the FX/verb don't have to be on for either or both voices, and you can set up two channels for midi out, tweak various parameters, etc. Basically theres Internal Zone upper and lower, External Zone upper and lower, and that's it. We've been doing alright working within the limitations, bass module on External Zone lower, Hammond module on External Zone upper, but I can see where it would be too limited for many applications.

 

The progmega 3 basically seemed like "just another keyboard"- the kind of thing I would play in the GC and think, hmm, that's kind of cool, too bad that's only that way. The rhodes tones were my favorite part. If you applied the FX they would sink into digital mushland. The piano was immediately unconvincing and digital-sounding- just no use for my partner's percussive oldtimey american stylings, which do not call for charmingly beat-up old upright sounds either- think more Monk or Ellington. I took my Manley mixer and Meyer powered speaker, which are more revealing than flattering, and listened through them- all the sounds lurked within the speaker somewhere, you couldn't really get them out into the room much. A quick turn on the Kawai revealed a much more 3D and lively sound. I don't know what they were smoking in Kawai-land but those tones are so big and fat and jumpin' out... at some point it's just got to be the design aesthetic.This one would do OK on a Jimi Hendrix record- there's something betty boopish and cartoony about the size of the tones. For what we do, that's essential. I'm always impressed that it can hold it's own with the acoustic vibraphone, through the right system anyhow.

 

Basically I find it hard to pay too much attention to the Progmega 3- you can see I keep drifting back to the MP9000. The piano tone is more useful on the Progmega 3 but still nothing we can substitute for our style of piano, even for one song- too bad. Just seems cheesy and digital to me. Oh well!

 

I keep coming back to sonic aesthetics- a lot of these keyboards can sound pretty good once you get your mind and ears into that zone, but when juxtaposed with acoustic instruments they come off sounding all flat.

 

I played a P80 and P120 the other day, and the ep sounds are pretty cool, you could make music with those. That was my favorite part for sure. The piano sounds are dismal- the Progmega sounds are a lot more complex and involving, but they never leave their little sound zone, and ultimately I see that the overall picture is being taken for granted, and various details are being obsessed over... It pains me to think of how many folks are spending thousands of dollars on these things. We deserve more in terms of results, even inside the digital electronic paradigm- it is 2004 after all! I would think the future would be here.

 

The MP9000 is a very nice classy piece but there ought to be a whole marketplace full of things that sound every bit as good, certainly 6 years later there should be! Different things that offer more flavors and functions to suit different players. I don't really do synths, mayber there are some great synths out there. It would be nice to see some bold new designs that created new tones that weren't supposed to be like old tones... we need some visionaries here!

[MikeT156]

Ted:

 

That's an interesting take on the Promega 3. I was waiting to hear what you had to say about it compared to your MP9000 when I first heard you were going to try one. That's odd that the KAWII sample sounded so good and the other piano sounds didn't. I would think that the sample frequency might have something to do with the audio but not if the Kawii sample sounded good and the others didn't. I'm assuming they used all the same equipment and same frequencies to do all their samples. I wonder what's up with that? Did you contact Dave at GEM and give him your thoughts on the Promega? He's open minded and I'm sure he'd want feedback from you. You know what you want and expect to hear. I would think that a digital piano six years newer than your MP9000 would be a marked improvement.

 

Mike T.

[burningbusch]

Originally posted by Suppport Guy:

Mike Martin was right. EP2 and EP3 both have soft 1, soft 2, hard 1 and hard 2 layers making them 4 layer voices.

Yes that's correct, I mis-read the list. Only EP1 has soft, med, loud.

 

Busch.

[burningbusch]

Originally posted by MikeT156:

Ted, from the little I know about the MP9000, my understanding is that its a very expensive piece. The reasons I asked about the relative age of it is that the samples on the Motif ES are substantial better than the Motif Classic. So I thought maybe a newer board would give you better clarity than a model that is 3 or 4 years old.

 

I take it you weren't very impressed with the Progmega 3 if you left in love with your MP9000 all over again? What are your thoughts on the Progmega?

 

Cheers,

 

Mike T.

I haven't done an extensive note-by-note comparison but I believe the Rhodes samples are identical on the Motif classic, S90, Rack and ES. I own the S90, Rack and ES8 and find only very minor differences in the Rhodes patches.

 

Busch.

[Tedly Nightshade]

Originally posted by MikeT156:

Ted:

 

That's an interesting take on the Promega 3. I was waiting to hear what you had to say about it compared to your MP9000 when I first heard you were going to try one. That's odd that the KAWII sample sounded so good and the other piano sounds didn't. I would think that the sample frequency might have something to do with the audio but not if the Kawii sample sounded good and the others didn't. I'm assuming they used all the same equipment and same frequencies to do all their samples. I wonder what's up with that? Did you contact Dave at GEM and give him your thoughts on the Promega? He's open minded and I'm sure he'd want feedback from you. You know what you want and expect to hear. I would think that a digital piano six years newer than your MP9000 would be a marked improvement.

 

Mike T.

I'm sorry, I must have written confusingly- I'm using Kawai and MP9000 interchangeably, and the piano sound on the MP9000 is less than useful. Promega 3 piano sounds, primarily the Steinway, Fazioli, and the one called "Funky", are a big advance over the Kawai MP9000 piano sounds, in that they have a lot more playable nuances, but the overall sound is murky and flat compared to the MP9000 sounds. The Kawai sounds I was so enthused about are off the MP9000: Rhodes, Wurli, Clavi, Vibes and Organ sounds. We had the two keyboards, Promega 3 and MP9000, hooked up through the same mixer and powered speaker for easy comparison.

 

Despite the various nuances of the piano emulated in the Promega 3 and other DRAKE-system GEM's, I'm not finding the subtleties to be real meaningful when the overall sound and vibe is so synthetic and kinda puny. Probably given a choice I would go with the MP9000 piano sound, as a whole, but we continue to choose "none of the above", and use a real piano in the studio and not attempt pianos live unless there's one on the gig in decent condition.

 

Either the MP9000 or Promega 3 piano sounds could be used effectively as long as the player doesn't attempt what he might play on a real piano, but avoids the things that reveal limitations, and plays up the parts that sound good.

 

Dave McM was kind enough to show us the Promega 3 in person at the Piano Liquidators in Eugene OR- he was in OR for various promotional purposes already. He was a very friendly and gracious host, and answered all our questions. I felt bad about not liking it more, and feel bad about posting such faint praise about the Promega 3 here, but as for Dave McM himself, he deserves a lot of praise!

If you're reading this Dave, thanks again for your kindness and hospitality!

[MikeT156]

Oh that explains it. I'm not familiar with the MP9000, I thought it was a Yamaha product. I thought you were referring to different piano samples on the Promega for Kawai, DUH!

 

That is unfortunate that you don't care for the Progmega. I think the Piano samples I heard on line were excellent! In particular on the Piano Shootout Website. They had a demo of the Fazioli and it sounded excellent to me. Usually the media clips are pretty fair demos of the actual instrument. I don't know how much trickery they use in demos or how much good it would do them if the tried to embellish an instrument on line only to have it fall flat on its face live. That would be worse.

 

The music you play probably has a lot to do with what you want to hear and what you expect. Other musicians that are play rock, classic rock, country, along with other musicians aren't as concerned with all the nuances that an acoustic piano produces, even if you have an acoustic piano on stage, no one can hear them when everyone starts to play. Classical and jazz music demands the acoustic nuances of a real piano for the right sound. Ted, it might be that what you want to hear out of a digital piano is not available. I've read in passing that manf. are going to be using higher sample frequencies in the future, but ultimately, it will always be a clone of a real piano. It may be that you won't settle for anything but the real thing.

 

I think Dave is a good guy too. GEM has a good rep there. He's trying to do his job and I'm sure he knows he can't please everybody.

 

Thanks for your take on the Promega. Even though you don't care for it, I don't have a house large enough for an acoustic piano, so if I ever do have $$$ and room for a digital piano, I'll still take a look at the Promega, as well as Yamaha.

 

Cheers,

 

Mike T.

[konaboy]

I'm really hoping to see more keyboards use physical modelling for Rhodes and eventually piano sounds. Think of the electric piano plugins such as emagic and lounge lizard. Although they may not sound exactly like a real rhodes it doesn't really bother me at all, they are beautiful to play, with no velocity switches (well I guess there are 127 of them due to the midi velocity limitation) and very smooth transitions betweens notes as there are no groups of notes that share the same sample. All in all, very rewarding and satisfying to play.

 

In other words, I'm happy to dump some realism, in order to get patches that respond perfectly.

[Tedly Nightshade]

Originally posted by konaboy:

I'm really hoping to see more keyboards use physical modelling for Rhodes and eventually piano sounds. Think of the electric piano plugins such as emagic and lounge lizard. Although they may not sound exactly like a real rhodes it doesn't really bother me at all, they are beautiful to play, with no velocity switches (well I guess there are 127 of them due to the midi velocity limitation) and very smooth transitions betweens notes as there are no groups of notes that share the same sample. All in all, very rewarding and satisfying to play.

 

In other words, I'm happy to dump some realism, in order to get patches that respond perfectly.

Depends what you call "realism", I guess. My Promega 3 experience did indicate to me that modeling has real potential- the rhodes sounds on that thing are quite nice and they did all kinds of things that sampled rhodes don't do, so far- having 10 or 20 samples at different velocity levels would help narrow that gap I'm sure, but modeling has potential- with designers with bold visionary aesthetics, we could be in for some great things.

 

MikeT, as far as "nuances" and rock & country piano, etc., it seems funny to talk about the way a real piano responds to banging on it as a nuance, but I found rock&roll and country and ragtime piano to reveal shortcomings that the jazzy and classical pieces on that impressive Promega 3 demo didn't reveal. If you kind of murmur around, it can work, and that's what you hear on the demo. If you bang on it, it just is all wrong. So not a good "piano" for banging. Lots of banging in rock piano!

 

I was shocked how it sounded in person after studying the demo CD very closely through excellent converters and monitoring. They really made it shine on the demo CD- by avoiding doing anything the thing can't do well.

[MikeT156]

Ted, that was my point. Banging on a piano Jerry Lee Louis style is not what a good quality acoustic piano does best. Put a Yamaha C7 or a Steinway B in the corner of a living room with nice acoustics and play a classical piece, sounds wonderful. You can hear the nuances clearly, there's no artifical amplification, and the acoustic purity of the instrument shines. Very satisfying.

 

Mike T.