Imagine sitting in a live concert with pianist Art Tatum! “He was the greatest soloist in jazz history, regardless of instrument,” wrote jazz critic Leonard Feather.
Sony BMG is recording our re-performance of Art Tatum’s album “Piano Start Here” before a live audience in Los Angeles on Sunday, September 23. We’re in the same venue, the Shrine Auditorium, where Tatum was originally recorded in 1949.
Two Yamaha Disklavier Pro concert grands in superb condition will represent Tatum on stage. Come hear their magic in person.
Join us – you’ll be on the new album, part of recording history.
Here are the details: http://www.zenph.com/PianoStartsHere.html
P.S. Sony’s new recording of our Zenph re-performance of Glenn Gould’s 1955 Goldberg Variations is the “Recording of the Month” in the September issue of Stereophile magazine.
John Q. Walker, Ph.D.
President
Zenph Studios, Inc.
9660 Falls of Neuse Rd.
Suite 138-145
Raleigh, NC 27615-2473e-mail: johnq@...
Zenph on National Public Radio
Message
Re: Art Tatum Live at the Shrine, Sept. 23
2007-09-12 by George F. Litterst
John, your upcoming Tatum recording session sounds great!
Please note: The web page that you mentioned (http://www.zenph.com/PianoStartsHere.html) has a link to another page that describes the difference between regular MIDI and high resolution MIDI. You place non-Pro Disklaviers into the Regular MIDI category and the Pro into the High-Res MIDI category.
By placing all non-pro Disklaviers into the category of "Regular MIDI," a number of technical inaccuracies result.
In particular:
--The Regular MIDI category says that pedaling is On/Of. In fact, many non-Pro Disklaviers have incremental pedaling.
--The Regular MIDI category says that timing is limited to the 31 kbps data stream that comes down a MIDI cable whereas High-Res MIDI has "Microsecond timing, 500ms buffer, and no MIDI cables." In fact, the latter is true of many if not all record-capable Disklaviers.
You might reconsider how you describe another point of comparison: "no touch gradation" vs. "1024 levels of touch." The concept of touch (in the minds of most musicians) is based on a jumble of factors, many of which are purely intuitive and not scientific. From a scientific point of view, what many people consider to be "touch" is the combined result of hammer velocity, key down velocity, and key up velocity.
All Disklaviers have incremental note-on velocity, which, is interpreted by some Disklaviers as actual hammer velocity and by other Disklaviers as key-down velocity. What is unique about the Pro is that (1) it records data for both hammer and key-down velocity as well as key-release velocity and (2) all three factors are recorded on a scale from 0-1023.
Although the Mark IV non-Pro does not record with the level of sophistication that I have described, it is no slouch--far from it! And previous generation Disklaviers far outpace the rest of the "regular" MIDI devices on the market as far as "touch" is concerned. In other words, the non-Pro Disklavier does not belong in the the "Regular MIDI" category.
Here is a quote from the Yamaha website about the touch sensitivity of the Mark IV non-Pro system:
"The world's first continual-detection optical hammer sensor continuously traces the hammer position from the time a key is pressed until it's released. This outperforms the previous two-point detection sensors of earlier Disklaviers and the simpler "Key ON/OFF" sensors used on many other systems. With the grayscale key sensor, the Mark IV monitors every motion of the key and hammer – even rapidly repeated notes – with meticulous precision and the softest touch...Under the command of specially developed LSI microprocessors, the servo control system continuously monitors the movement of each key, precisely recreating every detail of the original performance. This allows for a slow return of the keys and delicate pianissimo, things that were previously unattainable."
Surely this is not the description of a "regular MIDI" device!!
I understand your preference for the Pro, and why your recording projects demand it. My appreciation of the Pro runs so deep that I actually purchased one.
However, I think that your web page that describes the differences between the Pro, other Disklaviers, and other MIDI keyboards deserves an extensive rewrite.
Regards,
PianoBench
On Sep 11, 2007, at 11:04 PM, John Q. Walker wrote: