2015-02-22 by kassey22000@...
I have to agree that the synth sounds coming out of the DKs are not on par with even modern entry-level synth keyboards so I typically don't play the Pianosoft titles with ensemble often. What I think makes the DK sound fantastic are either the Smart Pianosoft paired with the matching commercial audio CD (Adele -21, Art Blakey, Brasil 66, Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Genesis, John Meyer, Frozen, just to name a few) AND Pianosoft Plus Audio on CD (David Garfield and the Monster Trio, Tracks of my Tears, Shades of Blue, I Love Being Here with You, Latin Jazz, Porgy and Bess, Terry Trotter Trio for some favorite titles). These can be had for a reasonable price on eBay or eastcoastmusic (while their sale is on). These have full REAL instrumentation done in a studio and as long as your DK has a CD player the Plus Audio titles are all pretty darn good.
For those of you who are lucky enough to have a collection of "out of print" SPS diskettes (or the midi file versions), I'd be interested in comparing lists.
One tough lesion I learned last week when trying to sync the Yam SPS songs for Count Basie - April in Paris with the correct CD is that there are 15 different versions of that exact title by 4 different record companies and many with tracks missing or added so it pays to carefully compare what the SPS package states is the correct compatible commercial CD by catalog number. Good used CDs are $1-4 each so building a library isn't too expensive.
---In disklavier@yahoogroups.com, <phil.blah@...> wrote :
I agree, Sue Downs is a great performer, but the synth for drums, base etc on the DVK is pretty much up there with basic default midi sound these days..ie BAD. It's pretty strange that Yamaha can have great keyboards but failed with the Disklaviers synth.
For the fun of it, a few times I just loaded her (Sues) midi into my PC with Sonar and use the cool softsynth dumkits etc and for the piano part just map it via midi, If I had the time it would be pretty easy to find some great commercial soft synths for drums, base etc.
I suppose the MK4 is pretty old now with it's whole crappy 300mhz CPU and 128meg ram and its tiny little 80gig HDD, it won't handle much more than the sound 'fonts' it already has.. it's a pity as I agree the fake synths are awful and they only 'just' pass with a base and drums for trios..I can't stand when songs have trumpets and strings.
Also, it would be good if Yamaha actually released some nicer piano solo's, most are so ridged and feelingless. Also pretty much most of their library is from 2004. I recently stoppped my radio subscription because of the lack of 'anything modern at all' aspect. The movie music consists of stuff no later than 1995 lol.
On that note, if anyone out there is willing to record some nice midi's (non classical) from their Disklavier it would be nice to hear!
Later,
Phil
From: "thirdharmonic@... [disklavier]" <disklavier@yahoogroups.com>
To: disklavier@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, 18 February 2015, 7:11
Subject: Re: [disklavier] Favorite Pianosoft Albums
I have a few selections, not PianoSmart, that are my favorites, like a few of the Sue Downs pieces, but for me they wear out pretty quickly because of the limitations of the synthesizer. Wish there was a product that would take advantage of the plethora of Virtual Instruments that have been produced.
Most of the PianoSoft products would "last" longer to me if the accomp parts were believable. There is a lack of grit when needed. Vibratos are too too... They are nice for parties, when I don't listen as closely.
On another note, I have a good friend that has been producing transcripts of choice Bill Evans Albums. He then takes the transcription and produces the performance on a DisKlavier. It's amazingly accurate. Not sure what he plans on doing with the files as he has concerns regarding the copyrights, etc.