Disklavier

Good morning, everyone.

In a message dated 1/31/04 4:33:55 PM, Bob writes:

> It would be helpful, for comparison, if one could simultaneously record
> a performance both internally and to SONAR3. You have surely found that
> the DKV will not support that.
> 
Actually, on a Mark IIXG or later Disklavier that has record and MIDI Out 
capabilities, you can do this.

What you will find is that there are small timing discrepancies between the 
events that are recorded internally and those that are recorded externally. I 
presume that this discrepancy is a result of the fact that there is no 
time-stamping in a live MIDI data stream. In other words, when you send MIDI data down 
a MIDI cable, you can only send one event at a time, and each event has to 
wait for its turn to be sent. The more dense the MIDI data stream, the more 
discrepancies there will be.

When you record to the interal disk drive or memory of the Disklavier, I 
presume that the instrument has an opportunity to record the actual timing of each 
event to disk as it occurs. During playback from disk, the Disklavier 
similarly has the advantage that it can read the timing of each event in the file as 
opposed to respond to each event as it is received from an external source.

So, I must conclude that the most accurate recordings are made when you 
record internally and that the most accurate playback occurs when you play back 
from an internal source. Having said that, I don' think   that most people will 
notice the timing discrepancies that you get when you record or playback using 
an external sequencer. In fact, it has been Yamaha's practice in the US to 
create its solo piano recordings by recording into the computer.

Regards,
PianoBench