Many people here questioned the quality of the Grand Piano sound on PA800/2X. This sound is the first to be played when the keyboard is turned on and in a way it is the most important sound from a marketing viewpoint.
I tried to compare the Pa588 piano sound with the Pa800 piano sound. The following two demos are available on korgpa.com site:
http://www.korgpa.com/pa_root/mp3/pa588 ... %20eXp.mp3
http://www.korgpa.com/pa_root/mp3/pa800 ... ano_Xp.mp3
On the download pages both demos are labeled Grand Piano eXp (1.6MB), but this is totally misleading. The actual files are named differently and have different sizes. The sound is also VERY different. Actually Pa800 and PA2X are not expected to have an eXp piano sound - or are they?
The tweaking of Grand Piano RX sound that is described in this forum does not improve the sound very much. I did my own tweaking and experimenting. I've had enough experience working with samples at low level with all those envelopes, filters, layers, and other parameters. Still, I was unable to accomplish anything that would please my ear.
I've owned a Pa800 for over a year and all that time avoided playing this Grand Piano sound because of its plainness and lack of expression.
As long as Pa800 has this awful Grand Piano, it will never compete on par with Yamaha arrangers. The present Pa800 Grand Piano sound is the same as on Casio home keyboards. Single velocity multisample LP-filtered to make several layers. This is so cheap that even that "tailpiece" thing with resonance emulation does not help.
Please, if anybody knows where I can find some decent piano samples compatible with Korg PA format, please share a link to them. By decent piano samples I mean something like Pa588 or Yamaha PSR series (I do not even mention Motif or Tyros).
Please also share your own opinion of the quality of Grand Piano sound on Pa800/2X by casting a vote in this post.
Best regards to all forum members!
Need good piano user samples
Moderators: Sharp, X-Trade, Pepperpotty, karmathanever
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LightGreen
- Junior Member
- Posts: 51
- Joined: Sat May 24, 2008 2:06 pm
- Location: Eastern Europe
What do you think of these two.
Yamaha CP80.
http://www.irishacts.com/oasys-assault/ ... er-seq.mp3
Yamaha Concert Grand.
http://www.irishacts.com/oasys-assault/ ... no-seq.mp3
The problem with a piano sound is that there are so many, and it's very hard to find one sound that is universally liked. Personally I don't like the bright sound of a Steinway as much as say a Yamaha which is sort of in the middle. Kaiwa being at the dark end.
Also, what size is acceptable to you ?. How many Megs is too much.
Regards.
Sharp.
Yamaha CP80.
http://www.irishacts.com/oasys-assault/ ... er-seq.mp3
Yamaha Concert Grand.
http://www.irishacts.com/oasys-assault/ ... no-seq.mp3
I believe they are Steinway Pianos which is why they sound very bright.By decent piano samples I mean something like Pa588 or Yamaha PSR series
The problem with a piano sound is that there are so many, and it's very hard to find one sound that is universally liked. Personally I don't like the bright sound of a Steinway as much as say a Yamaha which is sort of in the middle. Kaiwa being at the dark end.
Also, what size is acceptable to you ?. How many Megs is too much.
Regards.
Sharp.
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LightGreen
- Junior Member
- Posts: 51
- Joined: Sat May 24, 2008 2:06 pm
- Location: Eastern Europe
Thanks Sharp, I really like the second one. It sounds very very nice.Sharp wrote:What do you think of these two.
Yamaha CP80.
http://www.irishacts.com/oasys-assault/ ... er-seq.mp3
Yamaha Concert Grand.
http://www.irishacts.com/oasys-assault/ ... no-seq.mp3
What I am talking about is a relatively small (25-30 MB) PCM set that can substitute (or complement) the Grand Piano RX sound on PA800/2X.
I've seen an youtube video of a guy playing chords on PA800 with his left hand and a piano part on Yamaha MM6 with his right hand. At first this seemed odd to me, because one can buy four MM6 keyboards for the price of a PA800... But these two sounded very good together
I am pretty sure that it is possible to create a small extra grand piano sound for PA800/2X and perhaps it can be done with a free piano soundfont. The only one that I've found so far is this one:
http://www.pianosounds.com/freesoundfont.htm
And yes, it is a Steinway, but it sounds very different from MM6/Motif/PSR grand pianos.
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chelsea9075
- Junior Member
- Posts: 99
- Joined: Sat Jun 04, 2005 9:56 pm
- Location: London,England
Hi all,
For a long time now I have been terribly disappointed with the piano sound on my PA800, but listening to all the other members on this forum praising it's sound, I just thought that it was me being overly fussy. I am glad that I am not the only one. Up until recently, I had a Tyros 2 which in my opinion had a perfectly acceptable grand piano sound. Guess what, most Tyros 2 owners on their forum ( P.K.Owners club ) slated it. And if that's not enough, they are all up in arms over the poor piano sound on the new Tyros 3. They are claiming that on the demo d.v.d by Martin Harris he has actually doctored the piano sound, and not used the standard one on the keyboard ( Oh what fun ) !!!!!!!!!
Chris
For a long time now I have been terribly disappointed with the piano sound on my PA800, but listening to all the other members on this forum praising it's sound, I just thought that it was me being overly fussy. I am glad that I am not the only one. Up until recently, I had a Tyros 2 which in my opinion had a perfectly acceptable grand piano sound. Guess what, most Tyros 2 owners on their forum ( P.K.Owners club ) slated it. And if that's not enough, they are all up in arms over the poor piano sound on the new Tyros 3. They are claiming that on the demo d.v.d by Martin Harris he has actually doctored the piano sound, and not used the standard one on the keyboard ( Oh what fun ) !!!!!!!!!
Chris
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eternalmusic
- Posts: 34
- Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2008 7:28 pm
Hi Lee.
That's my new 400MB Piano I sampled, but it could be made available for the Pa2X/Pa800 with some work. It's so big because none of the notes are looped. It's all natural decay. To get it working on a Pa2X I'd have to loop the data and apply the decay using the Engine of the keyboard.
I have no idea. I have a friend who has the largest library of sheet music you ever saw, and I just asked him for something that would make a nice demo for a Piano sound. What he gave me was handwritten on a few sheets of paper, so I'm not sure who the original author was.
Regards
Sharp.
Wow, is that only on OASYS?
That's my new 400MB Piano I sampled, but it could be made available for the Pa2X/Pa800 with some work. It's so big because none of the notes are looped. It's all natural decay. To get it working on a Pa2X I'd have to loop the data and apply the decay using the Engine of the keyboard.
Yes, thanks.Is it you playing...?...Very nicely done!
What song is it
I have no idea. I have a friend who has the largest library of sheet music you ever saw, and I just asked him for something that would make a nice demo for a Piano sound. What he gave me was handwritten on a few sheets of paper, so I'm not sure who the original author was. Regards
Sharp.
Question to those in the know...
Played through the SAME sound system...is the PA800 Piano different than the PA2XPRO Piano (I'm talking about the RX Grand Piano)
The reason I asked is that while I have heard some better..the Piano on my PA2XPRO is pretty darn good to my ears! But some folks have said they were not impressed with the PA800 RX Grand Piano.
IMHO, There area lot of other sounds that need a lot of work as compared to the quality of the Piano. Like the Sax's with bad samples, and some others too. (I have a partial list, with details)
So, as you know I sure would like to have some replacements for those bad ones.
Lee
Played through the SAME sound system...is the PA800 Piano different than the PA2XPRO Piano (I'm talking about the RX Grand Piano)
The reason I asked is that while I have heard some better..the Piano on my PA2XPRO is pretty darn good to my ears! But some folks have said they were not impressed with the PA800 RX Grand Piano.
IMHO, There area lot of other sounds that need a lot of work as compared to the quality of the Piano. Like the Sax's with bad samples, and some others too. (I have a partial list, with details)
So, as you know I sure would like to have some replacements for those bad ones.
Lee
Lee,Lee wrote:Question to those in the know...
Played through the SAME sound system...is the PA800 Piano different than the PA2XPRO Piano (I'm talking about the RX Grand Piano)
The reason I asked is that while I have heard some better..the Piano on my PA2XPRO is pretty darn good to my ears! But some folks have said they were not impressed with the PA800 RX Grand Piano.
IMHO, There area lot of other sounds that need a lot of work as compared to the quality of the Piano. Like the Sax's with bad samples, and some others too. (I have a partial list, with details)
So, as you know I sure would like to have some replacements for those bad ones.
Lee
i'm not a very good keyboardist so when i play myself i don't notice those problems; however, i do play lots of midi files in sequence mode. I found out that when i have a fast piano track with lots of trils and repeated notes, i get a very strange "jackhammer" type of sound especially with Rx grand piano
hey Karen, this is not an isolated problem with Rx grand . This "jackhammer" problem is been around since our grand grand parents Adam and Eve. It's known as "Gun Machine Effect", because it almost sounds like it, when you have "fast repeated notes" in the lower range. Especially sounds like Timpani, orchestral sounds ..etc. You can solve the problem if you're using a sound library, but you'd be more limited with keyboards. There are a few tricks that you can use. Try randomizing those repeated notes as much as you can. Make sure they have different values of velocities, that's gonna help a lot depending on the velocity layers available per sound. Then you can randomize the length of the notes by very very small amounts. If you still hear some problems, use the pitch wheel to randomize the pitch of the problematic notes " by small amounts" It'll sound a lot better if you do these.karen wrote:Lee,Lee wrote:Question to those in the know...
Played through the SAME sound system...is the PA800 Piano different than the PA2XPRO Piano (I'm talking about the RX Grand Piano)
The reason I asked is that while I have heard some better..the Piano on my PA2XPRO is pretty darn good to my ears! But some folks have said they were not impressed with the PA800 RX Grand Piano.
IMHO, There area lot of other sounds that need a lot of work as compared to the quality of the Piano. Like the Sax's with bad samples, and some others too. (I have a partial list, with details)
So, as you know I sure would like to have some replacements for those bad ones.
Lee
i'm not a very good keyboardist so when i play myself i don't notice those problems; however, i do play lots of midi files in sequence mode. I found out that when i have a fast piano track with lots of trils and repeated notes, i get a very strange "jackhammer" type of sound especially with Rx grand piano
Sam
Karen,
For an example of the issues...go to sound mode, select Sax/Tenor Sax Noise 2...play strongly C6-E6...the sound has lots on Honking in it in this range only.
Tenor Sax Expr.1 and .1 and Jazz Tenor 1 same thing but in C5-E5.
Also lots of the sounds hve a big difference in vibrato speed, sometimes about twice as fast/slow....on slow ballads it messes up the beautifull melody.
An examle of this is go to Trumpets/Trombone select Cornet Expr...play slowly and hold the notes, up/down the keyboard...Lot of variation in Vibrato speed...OK,So what...well now use that voice and play a nice slow love song with feeling...the results are upsetting to me anyways.
A lot of these sounds are the ones selected for you in STS's and are some of the best sonds in cateory...so it's some of the 'Main' voices.
Lee
For an example of the issues...go to sound mode, select Sax/Tenor Sax Noise 2...play strongly C6-E6...the sound has lots on Honking in it in this range only.
Tenor Sax Expr.1 and .1 and Jazz Tenor 1 same thing but in C5-E5.
Also lots of the sounds hve a big difference in vibrato speed, sometimes about twice as fast/slow....on slow ballads it messes up the beautifull melody.
An examle of this is go to Trumpets/Trombone select Cornet Expr...play slowly and hold the notes, up/down the keyboard...Lot of variation in Vibrato speed...OK,So what...well now use that voice and play a nice slow love song with feeling...the results are upsetting to me anyways.
A lot of these sounds are the ones selected for you in STS's and are some of the best sonds in cateory...so it's some of the 'Main' voices.
Lee
LightGreen wrote: The present Pa800 Grand Piano sound is the same as on Casio home keyboards
Where do you come of with these things from? How does the piano samle on the pa800 sound like one on a casio.? There was a member a couple of weeks ago who wanted to sell his pa800 because he didn't like the feel of it. He found that a casio $200 keyboard had a better feel
.I think the pa800 piano sample is different than the pa2x, the pa2x is one of the best on any keyboard, but at the end of the day it is pretty much subjective. It's like asking what is the best piano in the world. Would all people agree with whatever answer is given?
KORG PA2XPRO
Assyrianpianist wrote:karen wrote:Thanks Sam,Lee wrote:hey Karen, this is not an isolated problem with Rx grand . This "jackhammer" problem is been around since our grand grand parents Adam and Eve. It's known as "Gun Machine Effect", because it almost sounds like it, when you have "fast repeated notes" in the lower range. Especially sounds like Timpani, orchestral sounds ..etc. You can solve the problem if you're using a sound library, but you'd be more limited with keyboards. There are a few tricks that you can use. Try randomizing those repeated notes as much as you can. Make sure they have different values of velocities, that's gonna help a lot depending on the velocity layers available per sound. Then you can randomize the length of the notes by very very small amounts. If you still hear some problems, use the pitch wheel to randomize the pitch of the problematic notes " by small amounts" It'll sound a lot better if you do these.
I made those changes to the repeated notes in my sequencer. It took me a while to do it, but i don't hear that "jackhammer" thing anymore. Thank you!