Disklavier

Good afternoon, everyone.

In a message dated 9/22/02 12:38:46 PM, DrSwiney writes:

<< The model is DGA1PE.  It was the "item number" in my invoice.

I have attached Bird in a Gilded Cage.  Whatever that sound is it is not a 
piano.

Thanks for offering to solve my problem. >>

I am sorry that it took me so long to look at the file that you sent. The 
problem is this: there are several tracks in the file and they are all set to 
a piano voice. I suspect that your Disklavier is set up so that it is playing 
one or two of these tracks and that the remaining tracks are being played by 
your tone generator.  The sound of the General MIDI piano voice, coming 
through speakers, is inferior to your instrument's native sound (i.e. hammers 
hitting strings) and is giving you the "twanging" sound to which you refer.

To see what I am talking about, pop the disk into your Disklavier and select 
the song in question. Then, press the Right Arrow button (not the Song Select 
button). This will take you to the next page of information about the current 
song. You will be able to see the 16 possible channels of MIDI data 
represented by little circles across the bottom. If you play the song, you 
will notice that many of these light up when there is activity on a 
particular channel.

You will also notice designations for L= and R=. These designation show your 
Disklaviers determination of which parts it should play on the piano itself. 
All other parts will be played on the tone generator. If you use the Arrow 
buttons to select L and R, you can use the +/- buttons to change these 
values. (The change is only temporary when made on this screen.) If you set 
R=## (i.e. no channel) and L=PRG(ALL) (i.e. all channels with a piano group 
voice) and then play the song file, you will hear all of the parts played by 
the piano.

In the case of this particular song, the performance is rather loud and 
mechanical, but the twang will go away.

To fix this situation so that most files play correctly automatically do this:

--press Function
--use the Right Arrow button to go to MIDI Setup
--press Enter to enter the MIDISetup area
--press Enter again to enter the PianoPart area
--press the Right Arrow button until you get to the screen that shows the 
default settings for L= and R=

At this point, you can either set L=PRG and R=PRG or set L=PRG(ALL) and R=##. 
There are subtle distinctions between the two choices and neither one will be 
the right one 100% of the time. I usually use the first option. For this 
particular file to have worked correctly by default, however, it would have 
been necessary to have chosen the second option.

Regards,
PianoBench