When Ray Kurzweil sampled the 1st acoustic instrument, what was his goal ? IMO opinion the answer has always been authenticity.

Wikipedia says this about Kurzweil " The company launched the K250 synthesizer/sampler in 1984: while limited by today's standards and quite expensive, it was considered to be the first really successful attempt to emulate the complex sound of a grand piano."

Emulate the sound of the acoustic piano was the objective.

Roland, Yamaha, Korg and all other manufacturers was after authenticity. Personally Ketron is the sound I wanted.

How well do you think the manufacturers have done with reproducing authentic sounds ?

Well, Ray cared about the sounds being as good (Athentic) as possible and the Kurzweils still have that going for them.
Not so much with others....
Even today, I can go play a TOTL arranger and fins many sounds not correctly done.
I had a PA2XPRO and that is one main reason I sold it. The sounds (many) had problems,

There are many different sound design issues you hear.....very complicated to cover here.

IF you play only fast, dance type music then it is not near as much of a big deal...BUT if you like symphonic, musical theatre, standards, movies music etc...then the sounds need to be great quality...as there is no singing, no loud drum tracks, no distortion guitars etc. to cover up the poor sound quality of the instrument.

One example I can remember on the Korg was the Sax's.....if you played up/down the keyboard you could hear the problems with the samples. Another example is on violins...the upper end of the instruments range often has a digital noise instead of the beautiful sound of a quality violin.

All that said...they do have a LOT of really good sounds too.

I think Kurzweil is still the best...and I wish they made an arranger keyboard using those sounds.

Kurzweil/MidJay could be a nice combo.....

The Kurzweil romplers of the mid 1980s were really light years ahead of the competition, their samples of 1985 sounded considerably better than those of a Yamaha SY99 in 1993.
By now, I think the difference in authenticity between the competitors has decreased strongly. IMO it really depends on the single instrument sampled which of the competitors is most authentic. Kurzweil doesn't seem to have changed much since the late 1990s, so they are in danger of losing their edge (some say their samples sound old already, I don't necessarily agree).
Korg is often criticized, but I have a very good impression of some of the Korg M3 XP expansion sounds. The Korg brass and woodwind expansions that came with the M3 Xpanded had some of the best solo trumpets, saxophones, French horns etc. I ever played, better than those from Integra and Motif. In contrast, a lot of the preset sounds of the Krome lack authenticity. I don't know exactly if any of the great expansion sounds are implemented in the Korg arrangers. So it depends!

I think when it comes to hardware and authentic sounding acoustic instruments my Yamaha Tyros 5 is as good as it gets... However, the Acoustic piano sounds are underperforming. I like most Tyros 5 SA2 accoustic sounds better then Rolands naturall acoustic sounds, which also are quite good...

Korg has some nice guitars and piano sounds, but very weak on brass wood and other accoustics
Ketron really misses the nuances that Yamaha allows to create authentic sounds, but still as plain sampled instruments they sound great
Kurzweil never got much deeper with their VAST architecture
Nord, doesnt do much accoustic sounds except for pianos
Etc etc etc...

If you want really authentic sounding acoustic instruments, then you are better of using Software VSTs.. Just try the string ensembles in LASS(kontakt library), or the pianos in Pianoteq and the many other virtuall instruments and you realise that some virtuall instruments currently sound better and more authentic then some of the less stellar cheaper orriginalls.

I absolutely disagree with respect to the M3 brass/woodwinds expansion.
https://soundcloud.com/korg/s008-f-horn-heroics-ex1?in=korg/sets/m3-xpanded-demos
https://soundcloud.com/korg/s012-trumpetations-ex1?in=korg/sets/m3-xpanded-demos
https://soundcloud.com/korg/s013-albondigas-ex1?in=korg/sets/m3-xpanded-demos
https://soundcloud.com/korg/s015-clarinet-moods-ex2-by?in=korg/sets/m3-xpanded-demos

I shouldn't have listened to these demos again, now I regret having sold the M3 again...

This is a demo, in which I used the wonderful tongue-attack solo trumpet from the M3 expansion:
https://soundcloud.com/rorosetree/h-ndel-wassermusik-suite-d-dur

I agree. I suggest it also depends very much on the player and how well he can emulate the nuances of each instrument.

No matter how good the sample (including VST's), a good part of the perceived realism still depends on the player's skill, and, although great strides have been made in achieving authentic articulation (SA/SA2, DNC, SuperNatural etc.), a trumpet sound, for example, will not be realistic if the performer doesn't allow for breathing and doesn't play in the proper range.

My biggest disappointment with the latest Yamaha Tyros instruments (and CVP as well) are the SA pianos...I'm still using Live!Grand Piano as my basic, "go to", piano sound...the SA pianos are very weak (lifeless)in the mid-range.

However, Yamaha does redeem itself with the other SA/SA2 instruments, especially the Saxophones and Trumpets (my favs are SA2 Jazz Trumpet and SA2 Jazz Saxophone) and the SA guitars (electric and acoustic), for the most part, are also very well done.

In the non-natural instrument category, the Tyros4's Synth Pads are pretty cool too, especially when stacked in two or even three layers.

Overall, I'm pretty content with my Tyros4.

Ian

Very nice insight Ian.

My first keyboard (PSR4600) had DASS and the roll bar.

So the piano was always the sound every one stressed, but here we are 15 years after the Tyros 1 and the piano sample is still very much the same. What do you think ?



Kurzweil has a very very nice piano sample that sustains without the piano sample getting "thin" after 5 seconds.

To me the Tyros 5 piano still sounds like the older CF3 sample of the main Motif XS piano - it is a bit too bright and sounds like a pop piano. Obviously the more wooden S6 piano sample of the Motif XF (and MoXF) are not implemented in the Tyros.
I especially cannot understand why piano packages such as the free CP1 piano for the Motif + MoXF flash are obviously not offered as a Tyros expansion. And it seems very complicated to get third-party pianos into the Tyros flash (only via PC and voice editor - is it finally available for the T5 at all?)
It seems Yamaha thinks that the average arranger player is satisfied with a rather bright piano that doesn't have a lot of depth.

I think many companies keep "zigging" when we expect them to "zag" and Yamaha is no exception.

Thankfully, the Live!GrandPiano responds well to editing...even something as simple as rolling down the filter Brightness to -12 mellows it out quite nicely for Jazz Ballads (sounds almost Steinway-esque)...it actually sounds better (to my ears) than the Live!WarmGrand panel voice.

A friend of mine bought a brand new CVP-609 last year and was very disappointed in the SA Pianos...in fact, he phoned me wondering if he had to reset the piano in case the EQ was out of whack.

He eventually calmed down and settled for the Live!GrandPiano, although he was still very disenchanted in such a high priced "piano" instrument having literally no advancement in the piano sound since his previous CVP-109!

When I was working for the company, I complained vigorously about the SA Pianos, and I was not alone...however, it obviously had no effect.

In fact, the relatively inexpensive Yamaha P-85 we used in the studio as an 88-note weighted action controller had a better piano sound than the CVP's featured pianos.

In my case, "piano" is only one of the many sounds I use (although it is used a lot), so having a full range sound isn't that critical...on a piano-based arranger instrument, a lame sounding piano is unforgivable.

Ian