Well thanks to all you great guys on Synthzone, the tyros piano shootout has grown even bigger! Just uploaded we now have the Genesys grand piano, Roland G1000, Ketron SD1, Solton X4, General Music WK8, Kurzweils K2600 together with Yamaha 9000 pro Live! Grand voice, the PLG150-PF piano expansion board fitted to the 9000 pro (standard grand piano voice), PSR2000 grand piano, and the Yamaha Tyros's Live! Grand.

Now that's a grand shootout! :-)
http://svpworld.com/tyrospiano.htm

Let me know if there are any problems.

Regards
Simon

Simon



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________________________
Simon G.K. Williams
simon@svpworld.com
Creative Music & Multimedia
http://www.svpworld.com
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Simon,
Wow quite an array to choose from. Thanks for providing the space. And thanks to all the participants.
jam on,
Terry

Great work indeed Simon
Sounds do say a lot more then words

Fred

Well here's my take on the new ones:
Did not like the Roland G 1000 at all. It had a very annoying "shimmering" sort of sound to it. Way too muddy on the bottom end flat in the middle and thin on top.

Ketron SD 1 I thought was excellent across the entire range of the board.

Solton x4 grand nice but a bit light sounding.

Solton x4 optional, better but still a bit on the weak side I think.

Hated the WK8 sounded extremely cheap to me, almost like a pretend piano.

The kurzweil was pretty good but seemed to lack much depth to me.

Tyros is still my favorite, 9K second then I would probably put the SD1 in third and the 2K fourth.

Hope I didn't offend any of the board owners just my opinion.
jam on,
Terry

My E-500 can do better than that G1000! is it OK to show the piano of the E-500?

Vic,
I think Simon is looking for whatever you've got. So I would imagine it's ok to send yours too.
Terry

I think the dynamics recorded from the Yamaha, has less dynamic range than other manufacturers.. I am sure the player recorded the sequence with the dynamics optomized while listening and playing the Yamaha. This would have a different dynamic performance than if the same manner was recorded with a Roland , Kurz or Ketron...Others have also mentioned artifacts in certain models;chorus,vibrato,shimmering.. this may be due to recorded controls or aftertouch from the Yamaha that is more sensitive when played on other instruments...So it may be unfair to be critical to models that differ from the Yamaha...I thought the SD1 sounded great other than the dynamics in certain spots. If it was recorded on the SD1, the player would have a different feel while recording..Likewise the Kurz2600..One last comment, don't forget the 4 year old G1000's competion was the Korg i30, the Solton MS100,and the Yamaha 8000...The best Roland arranger pianos are in the VA7/76 and the E600, and if you want to include the FP3, it may be the overall winner....I like to add that all the "new" keyboards have great pianos and a matter of taste for the"best" title..Fran

Here's another piano shootout
http://www.purgatorycreek.com/pianocompare.html

Gigastudio currenlty holds the best sampled piano's available. Of these I prefer the PMI Grandioso Bosendorfer 290:
http://www.postaudiomedia.com/basishtml/demos.html

yes the more the merrier, if anyone has a keyboard not on the list for which they would like to compare the piano sounds - download the midis from the website and send me the mp3 recordings. 128kbs and 44KHz stereo only please!

Incidentally scott, how about providing us with a comparison done on your REAL steinway grand! Of course depends how you mike it up, and I realise you cant play the midi's on it but another rendition of moon river and maybe some short "walks" would make an interesting listen?

Regards
Simon


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Simon G.K. Williams
simon@svpworld.com
Creative Music & Multimedia http://www.svpworld.com
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[This message has been edited by svpworld (edited 11-29-2002).]

Simon:
Thanks for such a valuable information. The "piano" sound is by far the most important element in deciding which keyboard to own. It's for me. In my humble opinion, the piano sample of the 9K has every other Kb beaten by a mile in brilliance, resonance and all around "harmonics"; I felt as if I was seating in front of the real thing.
By the way, is the Grand Piano sample of the 9K the same as the PSR9000's?.

Regards,
Mario
ps. still waiting for the waver.

Yamaha DGX300 now added to the line-up, and I have to say, ITS VERY IMPRESSIVE!!!!
http://svpworld.com/tyrospiano.htm


Simon



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________________________
Simon G.K. Williams
simon@svpworld.com
Creative Music & Multimedia
http://www.svpworld.com
________________________

RE: Fran's Comments - I am the performer of the piano shootout sequences. They were played on a Yamaha 9000 Pro keyboard. I often play Kurzweils and I agree that the dynamics of the Yamaha keyboard are not as subtle as my Kurzs. I thought about recording the "Moon River" sequence with the Kurz as the controller but decided it wouldn't be fair since originally this project started out as a Tyros vs 9000 Pro shootout. To compensate for the differences in dynamics (real and perceived-while-playing), the C-scale walk-up has all the velocities set at 120 and at 90, which eliminates any differences in sound caused by the player or the dynamic range of the keyboard. Some of the audio atrifacts I have heard so far can be attributed to the wide variety of recording setups used to produce the final MP3 files and to the effects that are natively assigned to the piano sound in each keyboard. None the less, this shootout was a fair as we could make it and it continues to be an interesting experiment.

I just sent Simon an email message with the location of the Ketron X4 MP3 piano demos. He will make these demos available in his site. Following his remarks, I rerecorded the midis with a stronger signal, and a constant 128 Kbps.

I also added the Walk midis, thanks to the work of Andrea (Dreamer), that removed all the aftertouch midi messages from the files (the Ketrons apparently don't like them!).

The MP3s are here: http://vega.estig.ipb.pt/piano_comparison/

-- José.

Mario,
The 9kpro has a different (better) piano sample than the psr line. It's one of my favorites, still.