Disklavier

That explains a lot. As a relatively new owner of a DKC850 with my Yamaha grand, I’ve purchased multiple CD’s where the end result was almost a regret of having made that CD purchase, and I always thought it was the DKC that was the culprit.  Now what I think I am hearing is that not all “DKC compatible” CD’s are created equally and this is to be expected, where finding a “good” one is almost hit & miss.

 

I love jazz and big band as well as Broadway and show tunes, and one of the things that makes my DKC a joy to listen to is the wide variety of instruments that come out – not just the piano which is almost always well done, but just as much hearing well-integrated voices totally in sync with the piano, like drums, bass, violin, sax, etc.

 

Is there a particular place or website to go to, and/or a particular TYPE to seach for (ie, “pianosoft plus”?) to search for to avoid disappointment in the resulting quality?

 

Jon

 

From: disklavier@yahoogroups.com [mailto:disklavier@yahoogroups.com] 
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2015 1:52 AM
To: disklavier@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [disklavier] Favorite Pianosoft Albums

 

  

Oh I totally forgot about those! You right, with real instruments and the piano.  I only have a few of those Pianosoft Plus Audio CD's. The proper Yamaha ones. (can't remember exactly as I am away from the piano) A few years ago there was not much of a choice, I should re look at this, seems like there are much much more now. The 'webonly piano' titles were pretty good but kinda limited range.

 

I think if it's properly done and the piano part was recorded live on a Disklavier or so then it's great, because you won't hear another piano 'ontop' or any crap like that. From memory the Bette Middler from Yamaha was kinda sloppy played over the original songs. It was ok, but not really impressive.

 

 

  _____  

From: "kassey22000@... [disklavier] <mailto:kassey22000@...%20[disklavier]> " <disklavier@yahoogroups.com <mailto:disklavier@yahoogroups.com> >
To: disklavier@yahoogroups.com <mailto:disklavier@yahoogroups.com>  
Sent: Monday, 23 February 2015, 6:54
Subject: Re: [disklavier] Favorite Pianosoft Albums

 

  

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 <mailto:disklavier@yahoogroups.com> , <phil.blah@... <mailto: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] <mailto:thirdharmonic@...%20[disklavier]> " <disklavier@yahoogroups.com <mailto:disklavier@yahoogroups.com> >
To: disklavier@yahoogroups.com <mailto: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.