Disklavier

In a message dated 2/28/00 12:33:10 PM Central Standard Time, Tony@... 
writes:

<< Hello All,
 I email Pianodisc to ask about attaching a CD-Player to my PDS128 plus and
 here is what they said:
 Has anyone tried this, and does it work?
  >>

While it is true that you may hook any CD player to your PDS-128+, I must 
tell you from vast experience that there are some CD players that just don't 
interface well with the PianoDisc system. Common glitches include symphony 
discs that will play only the symphony parts and playback that just quits now 
and then with a "read and seek error" message on the screen. From talk with 
other techs, my luck seems to be worse than most. Of the 6 or so 
installations I have done with CD players, all of them had problems that were 
not fixable unless a new CD player was substituted. You can imagine customers 
reaction to that. I am assuming the the new piggyback CD from PianoDisc will 
work better since it was designed to interface with the rest of the system. 
It is, however, much more expensive than a regular CD player.

And anyway, I just don't get what the big deal is with CDs. You can't record 
on them or download free music off the Internet, there are several playback 
features that won't work with them, there are the above mentioned glitches 
that you may encounter, the entire library of music is not available on CD. 
Other compatible formats are on floppy. And the one and only advantage of the 
CDs is a few discs that have "real" instrumentation and vocals. Sounds neat 
huh? I have heard a couple of these discs and to me it is the cheesiest most 
gawd-awful thing I have ever heard. Take for example the 50s rock disc. They 
take the original recording of "Rock Around the Clock" and someone puts a 
piano part with it. The piano part sounds completely disjointed and 
inappropriate. It just doesn't work. Now I would say that the format has 
possibilities if they would start from scratch and make new recordings that 
would integrate the piano with the arrangement. I think also that part of the 
problem is that the main part of an arrangement should be the part that is 
"live," like is the case with symphony discs. When the main part of the 
arrangement is vocal, which is recorded, and the backup part, the piano, is 
live, it just sounds strange.

Just my 3 cents worth

Dave Bunch
PianoDisc Tech and Retrofit Dealer