which srx you recommend

[cuborg]

I want to have first quality grand piano in my juno-g so I thought I'd add SRX card. But not sure
which one. Some to consider are:

Ultimate Keys Exp. Board
Complete Piano Exp. Board
Concert Piano Exp. Board

any tips? Are these sounds MUCH better then what originally ships with fantom boards or just a little?

[Artemiy]

Ultimate Keys doesn't have a piano that is better than the Juno's, it is based on sounds made in early 90's. Concert Piano exists since around 2000, so it's not THAT fresh too. But Complete Piano was released just a year ago, so this is definitely what you need, this is a grand which is on par with Fantom-X grand but may be a little more detailed since it occupies the whole card.

[Project]

what about that William Coakley perfect piano?

is it worth the $?

[stevie]

"this is a grand which is on par with Fantom-X grand but may be a little more detailed since it occupies the whole card. "

LOL - understatement of the year Art! It is FAR better than the standard X piano - if you're a piano snob like me! Interested to hear about Coakley's piano - since I can't try it, I won't buy it.

Steve

[Artemiy]

William's Piano is great, really fresh and nice. But for a casual user it's harder to use than an SRX board - you need to buy the library, and then buy sample RAM and storage card. However, I am sure for real piano lovers it's worth it.

[EricM]

I have both SRX-07 Ultimate Keys and SRX-11 Complete Piano. As mentioned earlier they aren't even in the same league.
Though the SRX-07 has plenty of other cool patches and waveforms to make it worthwhile to get. I love the Memory Moog strings and Solina patches.

----------------------------------------------
Roland Fantom X8
Yamaha EX-5
Roland JP-8000
Korg M1
Nord Lead 3

[cuborg]

I'm not sure if I understand, what release date have to do with sound of grand piano? Grand piano sound is around 200 yearsor more so it should not change right? Unless sampling methods have improved that much in last few years.

I know that grand in juno should be the same like in Fantom X since both have same engine. But somehow I don't like that sound
in both too much, maybe is possible to tweak it somehow.

It's too metallic for me when key is pressed harder,
I mean when I play soft its fine but when I hit a little bit harder
sound changes into metallic one killing my ears.
If that I could change it would be fine.

[Project]

well the juno-g has FOUR key samples spread out across the keys but on the fantoms you can have 128 per tone so the juno-g isnt going to satisfy a piano snob. but the fantoms? i dont see why they cant.

[cuborg]

only for samples per key? So how come it is supposed to be same sound engine? So SR-11 should help I guess...

[Project]

not 4 per key. 4 per patch. the zones can overlap or not.

Roland doesnt consider multisampling part of the engine.
I do which is why i took my juno-g back and got an x6.

[cuborg]

thanks Project for clarifying me this.
I didn't buy juno for piano sound though,
I have fp-5. Other sounds are excellent for me.

just adding srx-11 for 2 hundreds is not that bad,
still almost half price of the X6.

[howardS]

Well, if you want you can go here and compare many different piano samples and VST instruments and judge for yourself.

This site plays the same midi song on a Fantom XR using each of the following patches:

1. UltimateGrand patch
2. SRX-11 - Superb Grand
3. William Coakley's Perfect Piano version 5

I think Coakley's sounds the best to my ears. I dont find that SRX-11 sounds better than the UltimateGrand so I wouldnt get the SRX card.

There are other issues as well though that have to be looked at other than just the pure samples. It is important to also look at how hard you play as the points at which the voices change greatly impacts on how the patch sounds. For me, the stock velocity settings for the UltimateGrand were not acceptable but after a little tweaking with those settings I was able to create a patch that works really well for me.

I still think Coakley's samples will sound better though and will likely pick it up soon.

[cuborg]

thanks Howard,
very nice site.
I did comparison in good headphones, and here are the results:

1.Synthogy's Ivory - absolutely the best!

2.William Coakley's Perfect Piano - very good

3.Roland Expansion SRX-11 - quite good

Not acceptable for me at all, not this league:
1.Kurzweil PC2x
2.Yamaha Motif - the worst

Now question how to install Ivory in my Juno-g ???
In worse case scenario what it takes to install that
William Coakley's piano?

But I must say I am in love in Synthogy's Ivory already...

[howardS]

I agree with you completely, cuborg in that it is all about what sounds right based on your playing style. That is why I started playing the velocity settings as I said in my post. Great samples is just the start and it takes a lot of work to find the right breakpoints for the samples while bearing in mind how you play. When you play lightly they all sound pretty good but when you start to dig deeper you see the flaws. It is then that the differences between voices 1 and 4 stand out. The Coakley one though seems to sound great at all of the velocity levels.

Oh, also, I just remembered that I also played all the internal piano samples in the Fantom X and founds ones that worked for me at the various velocity levels. It seems that there are many onboard piano waves to choose from and I really think that you cant just buy another board if you are really picky (as I am!). You really need to get in a play with it to make the patch to your liking. I would recommend that you do some tweaking with the patches before spending the money on another board.

As an aside, I spoke with William Coakley about two weeks ago and was I complaining about this exact issue and he said that his 80 or so patches that come with his CD are geared to many different playing styles and that at least five or six of them were designed with heavy handed players in mind. Being a piano player first, I can tend play with a lot of weight in my hands and I couldnt find a single one of the internal Fantom X piano patches that offered the dynamic response that made me happy. I think that checking out that site is the starting point, though, so have fun listening.

[Project]

cuborg remember that 4 samples per patch limitation for the Juno-g?

that means no William Coakley piano. and even if you have a fantom-x/s you can not use Synthogy Ivory because it is a VST/RTAS plugin. Most of the plugins dont have the samples sitting in a directory so you can just grab em and load them up in your fav sampler. they reside packed in a proprietary file