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#409953 - 10/22/15 02:45 AM Re: Better Piano Sound for Tyros 5? [Re: travlin'easy]
Bachus Offline
Senior Member

Registered: 03/02/06
Posts: 7143
Originally Posted By: rosetree
Gary, you certainly made the best achievable out of that piano sample, but it is impossible to "edit" a piano with a limited sample into a totally realistic piano. The sample is the raw material of the tone, and the editing functions of keyboards, even synthesizers cannot change anything about the sample itself. Again, as DNJ has said several times, this is about nuances of the piano sound that are probably pointless if the piano is used in a mix with styles, it becomes important for solo piano if you listen closely. If the original sample sounds like a bright Steinway and instead you want to hear a Boesendorfer, you need a different sample and can't just edit it.


AS DNJ says, the Yamaha Tyros 5 piano sounds work well, in the mix...

However, i like to play piano over a minimall accompaniment
of just Drums, or Drums and Bass and a single guitar.. but in that case its obvious that the piano samples fall short..


Originally Posted By: travlin'easy
Yes, I understand that, however, we, as performers and entertainers, primarily use our piano along with styles - not as a solo pianist. If I were a solo pianist I would have purchased an electric piano - not an arranger keyboard. Then, after about 30 minutes, my audiences would be sound asleep. Of course, there are some on this forum that are great piano players - I'm, obviously, not among them.

What I did with that piano voice is make it much fuller, more realistic sounding, and as close to a real, Yamaha, Grand Piano as I could. I added depth and fullness to the voice, which just was not there in the default grand piano voice.

I did this by listening carefully to a recently deceased and Synthzone member's and good friend's Yamaha Grand Piano and adding the needed effects to make the piano voices I posted sound as much like the real thing as possible. I have access to a Steinway as well, however, I never really liked the Steinway as much as I liked the Yamaha Grand. Just my personal preference, though. I'm sure others will feel the opposite way.

As an entertainer, and an arranger keyboard player, I sincerely believe that we can tune our instruments to sound very, very close to the real thing. And, with the use of things such as the sustain pedal, pitch bend, and modulation, we can do wonderful things that provides our audiences with the kind of quality music they want and pay us so generously to hear. Of course, there is one additional caveat - we must also be top notch players as well. Unfortunately, I'm not in that category, but there are members that fit that bill.

I once performed for the Saint Andrews Society at a huge ballroom in Towson, Maryland. I only had to do a couple numbers, both of which were my own compositions consisting of mix of several upland songs. It was just the intro to their featured entertainer, who was an incredible vocalist, a beautiful redhead (sorry Dave wasn't there) who was flown in from Scotland for the occasion. Her pianist was a beautiful, young Russian lady who played piano for the Baltimore Symphony. Back then, I was using the PSR-2000, which was used to create both of those posted voices. I set the keyboard to full fingered mode, no style - just the piano. I added a light layer of strings for voice2, which she said really sounded great. For the next hour and a half this lady brought that PSR-2000 to life. Her fingers danced over the keys with incredible accuracy, the sounds coming from the speakers were beyond my wildest dreams and that good looking redhead nailed every song with perfection.

The bottom line is if you put me in front of the best grand piano on the planet, I couldn't make it sound good at all. In fact, it would likely not sound as good as the voices I posted - I'm NOT a piano player, and most of the forum members, I strongly suspect, are not as well. So, those voices I posted were my creations to make my keyboard sound better - nothing else. In that respect, I sincerely believe I have accomplished that goal.

All the best,

Gary cool


I think arranger workstations are the most versatile instrumentss out there, and they should allow their owners to fill in every role they want and can think of as a solo performer..

Not just weddings and elderhomes, but also playing piano with minimall backings at a cocktailparty or dinner, organ and orchestrall parts at your local church.. and all those kind of things..

Solo piano is my perfect solo thing i can allways fall back to ...

But then, i am turning more into a piano player and less in the organ player i once was with every day passing. But from my background, i recognise that a(stage)piano mixed with the current TOTL arrangers would be a perfect mix for many home players to, as espescially the younger ones are moving from arrangers towards piano. And the few solo performing pianists i know wouldnt mind to have styles on their stage piano because they recognise how much that could add to their solo performance..

PA4x now has a top of the line (a single one) piano sound build in, and i am pretty sure that the piano room features of the Clavinova CVP's will make it to Tyros6.. which might be the moment to start selling an 88 key Tyros6 and pull in a whole new crowd of players to the lovely world of Tyros..
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#409954 - 10/22/15 05:56 AM Re: Better Piano Sound for Tyros 5? [Re: Robbo]
rosetree
Unregistered


Yes, I just wanted to formulate a compromise here quoting DNJ, but I totally agree that only in a "busy" style mix the piano sample is insignificant. In a light jazz combo where piano is in the focus the Tyros piano would already be non-satisfying for me. So maybe Yamaha will react and provide flash piano expansions in the future (of a reasonable size, not 1 GB).
But if you look at how few members in this forum care about a high-grade piano, it will,be up to arranger market research whether Yamaha is going to address it or not.

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#409957 - 10/22/15 06:48 AM Re: Better Piano Sound for Tyros 5? [Re: ]
Bachus Offline
Senior Member

Registered: 03/02/06
Posts: 7143
Originally Posted By: rosetree
Yes, I just wanted to formulate a compromise here quoting DNJ, but I totally agree that only in a "busy" style mix the piano sample is insignificant. In a light jazz combo where piano is in the focus the Tyros piano would already be non-satisfying for me. So maybe Yamaha will react and provide flash piano expansions in the future (of a reasonable size, not 1 GB).
But if you look at how few members in this forum care about a high-grade piano, it will,be up to arranger market research whether Yamaha is going to address it or not.


Its not just samples, its also things as damper resonance and string resonance, which can be archieved with samples, but peferably with virtuall technollogy like yamaha does with its vcm technollogy... I would love to see that...

However Nord has great piano's that are totally sampled..

The Nord Italian grand which is seen as the best sampled piano by many is only 182MB in its largest form... Th e Kronos piano's are up to 4 GB in size its not looped at all, but compared to the Nord piano's i can not really hear the difference..

Keep in mind tough, that most current day piano players want several differnt piano sounds Steinway, Yamaha, Kawai, Boesendorfer, Fazioli and Bechstein all have a very different character... Ideally you would want to have one of each..

Only Nord and Korg Kronos offer piano's over this broad range...Yamaha sticks to Boesendorfer(which they own) and their own grands. Same goes for Kawai.


Tough with a bit of luck someone could convert the Nord sample format to Yamaha's Seems someone allready offers the Nord samples for kontakt..
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#409959 - 10/22/15 07:29 AM Re: Better Piano Sound for Tyros 5? [Re: Robbo]
rosetree
Unregistered


I also like to have different types of grand piano. At the moment I am quite happy with the choice of Yamaha CFIII piano sample from CP1 on my MoXF flash, S700 piano on my MoXF flash, Roland SRX 02 (which is a very warm German piano, probably an old Bösendorfer), Roland SRX 11 (a Steinway) and Integra SN-A piano (probably somehow derived from SRX 11, I suspect). And there are several others available as Motif/MoXF flash libraries.
I thought about a Nord, especially an Electro 5, but I rather like to have only one main instrument, and all the Nords lack workstation features.

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#409961 - 10/22/15 07:34 AM Re: Better Piano Sound for Tyros 5? [Re: ]
Bachus Offline
Senior Member

Registered: 03/02/06
Posts: 7143
Originally Posted By: rosetree
I also like to have different types of grand piano. At the moment I am quite happy with the choice of Yamaha CFIII piano sample from CP1 on my MoXF flash, S700 piano on my MoXF flash, Roland SRX 02 (which is a very warm German piano, probably an old Bösendorfer), Roland SRX 11 (a Steinway) and Integra SN-A piano (probably somehow derived from SRX 11, I suspect). And there are several others available as Motif/MoXF flash libraries.
I thought about a Nord, especially an Electro 5, but I rather like to have only one main instrument, and all the Nords lack workstation features.


Bosendorfer would be an Australian Grand.. Steinway or Bechstein would be German Grands

Tough Steinway often is also referred to as an American Grand..


Edited by Bachus (10/22/15 07:37 AM)
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#409964 - 10/22/15 07:40 AM Re: Better Piano Sound for Tyros 5? [Re: Bachus]
rosetree
Unregistered


Originally Posted By: Bachus

Bosendorfer would be an Australian Grand.. Steinway or Bechstein would be German Grands


Austrian Grand, you mean. Steinway is not a German Grand, but an American Grand[written before you edited your post]. Steinweg emmigrated to the US many decades ago, and the present brilliant Steinway sound is not associated with a German Grand. German and more generally European Grands are rather known for the warm, wooden, non-brilliant character, like, as you say, Bechstein or Bösendorfer.


Edited by rosetree (10/22/15 07:41 AM)

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#409969 - 10/22/15 09:25 AM Re: Better Piano Sound for Tyros 5? [Re: travlin'easy]
Gunnar Jonny Offline
Senior Member

Registered: 04/01/01
Posts: 4333
Loc: Norway
Originally Posted By: travlin'easy
.....


Hi Gary.

Just forwarding for you to see this message:
http://www.psrtutorial.com/forum/index.php/topic,31630.msg235303/topicseen.html#msg235303


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#409970 - 10/22/15 09:38 AM Re: Better Piano Sound for Tyros 5? [Re: Robbo]
travlin'easy Offline
Senior Member

Registered: 12/08/02
Posts: 15560
Loc: Forest Hill, MD USA
Thanks GJ, I'll take care of it right away.

Gary cool
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#409977 - 10/22/15 11:08 AM Re: Better Piano Sound for Tyros 5? [Re: travlin'easy]
Marcus Offline
Member

Registered: 11/17/12
Posts: 210
Loc: Canada
There has always been controversy over the Tyros series piano voices. They are of average quality, but most of us tweak them in Voice Set to bring out the qualities we want. As pointed out they sound fine in the mix and great within the piano style parts. The key is in the programming to get proper velocity expressions and damper effects, as the Yamaha Premium styles demonstrate.

It is the middle octave ranges with the Concert Grand voice that are a bit thin. I am sure there are fewer complaints from the Tyros 5-76 owners as the piano strengths are within the ranges of the extra keys. When I had my Tyros 4, I made up a Custom Piano Voice adding subtle overlapping piano samples in the middle ranges of the piano voice to strengthen these octaves.

There was little differences between the Tyros 3 Concert Grand (Live!), the Tyros 4 Concert Grand (Natural!), and the Tyros 5 (S.Art!) Concert Grand. You cannot modify a S.Art voice in Voice Creator, but I did notice a little improvement in the Tyros 5 piano voices. I like the Concert Grand (S.Art!), Grand Piano (Live!), and the Warm Grand (Live!) acoustic pianos on the Tyros 5, but are only just okay unless you tweak or play solo piano with perhaps a weighed key controller.

I didn't realize until recently, viewing Michel Voncken's comments from one of his latest videos, that the damper (sustain pedal) has a second set of dedicated samples. I usually run my modified Yamaha FC7 pedal with expression, S.Art1 and S.Art2 controls, but recently swapped out a different registration substituting one of S.Art controls for damper (see FC7(mod) photo). Certainly adds more realism to the piano voices. Coming more from an organist background, I never used or previously found it necessary to use the Damper (pedal sustain) before.

Michel Voncken Tyros 5 Demo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5en3RtMEZA

Another forum member kindly translated a section of the video where Michel said that the Tyros 5 has two sample sets for the Grand Piano. One without the damper (sustain pedal) pressed, and one with it pressed. You can hear this: play one note, for example c and hold the key. Listen to the sound. Let the note go. Now press the sustain pedal and play the same note. Now you hear the resonance of other strings.

If a ever purchased the 2 GB version of the Flash Memory Module, I might consider a nice expansion piano voice, but for now I am quite satisfied with the Tyros 5 piano voices. I can see the need for improvement in this area in perhaps the next model, but maybe Yamaha wants to make a distinction between their arrangers and pianos. There is a nice Premium Vintage Sound Pack, but mostly electric piano and DX7 type piano voices.

Marcus


Attachments
Tyros 4 data list.jpg

Tyros 5 data list.jpg

FC7(mod).jpg


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#409992 - 10/22/15 03:09 PM Re: Better Piano Sound for Tyros 5? [Re: Robbo]
rosetree
Unregistered


I really must say that in this Michael Voncken video the grand piano sounds much better than I thought. It has more depth and a more wooden sound than what I think I heard in other demos, especially Tyros 4 ones. I suspect it is the CFIII waveform of the CP1 piano, but obviously in a bigger version (longer samples) compared to the version available for the Motif/MoXF, at least that's my spontaneous impression from the video.

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