V-Piano in ken's music room..

[kenchan]

since we're talking piano sounds i'd like to kinda showcase my buddy walgrafix's Steinway samples he did for our fantom-g. i programmed some of the core patches in the sample sets.

http://soundforfantomg.jimdo.com/the-sound/

this is by far the closest the fantom-G has ever come to a real piano. :) i love the sound and the way the patches came out. honestly i lost interest in buying the RD700NX ever since finishing the piano and RhodesMk1 patches a week or so ago. they sound very good. very responsive, minimal velocity layer switching heard or felt through the G8's keys.

only limitation is the FantomG's limitation like polyphony and short releases on the highest register. everything else is RD territory. im going to work on the RhodesMk2 patches tonight and upload in the Fantom-G forum again. these tines sounds 10x better than any of roland's tines patches to date. :)

[HwyStar]

Thanks for explaining the difference between the CP1 and the V. That helps me to make my decision on which board to get. I now play mostly classical piano and have had my time in the sun playing keyboards and have tired of them and the action of the keys. I really appreciate the feeling of playing grand pianos and don't want to go back to keyboards at this point. Plus, I am getting to old to play in modern bands and it is time for me to fade away...

bennevis has some excellent posts over at PianoWorld (http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthre ... 058/1.html and I plan on dialing some of his settings into the V before I get it to make sure it sounds correct. It seems like he has taken great care in getting the settings "just right" and these settings would help me get the most out of the V. I played a Blüthner Model 2 this weekend and if I can get that sound out of the V then I am set for good. That piano rocks!

Thanks for your help Ken!

[kenchan]

Thanks for explaining the difference between the CP1 and the V. That helps me to make my decision on which board to get. I now play mostly classical piano and have had my time in the sun playing keyboards and have tired of them and the action of the keys. I really appreciate the feeling of playing grand pianos and don't want to go back to keyboards at this point. Plus, I am getting to old to play in modern bands and it is time for me to fade away...

bennevis has some excellent posts over at PianoWorld (http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthre ... 058/1.html and I plan on dialing some of his settings into the V before I get it to make sure it sounds correct. It seems like he has taken great care in getting the settings "just right" and these settings would help me get the most out of the V. I played a Blüthner Model 2 this weekend and if I can get that sound out of the V then I am set for good. That piano rocks!

Thanks for your help Ken!

hey no problem, hope some of my info is useful for your decision. :D i too did quite abit of editing on the VP using the pc editor. it's fun how you can make the keys imperfect to make it sound even more real and authentic. :) next step down the road for me would be to check out those monitors you mentioned at the local stores.

yep, i visit that piano forum on occasion but i dont post there. im not really a pianist per se so i dont feel like i belong in there. hahaha.

[kenchan]

for some reason (probably the exchange rate) the VPiano's price just went up $700... wow...
was going for $5999, now $6700.

same goes my FantomG8... was $3499, now $3799... dang.

[HwyStar]

Really! When I got my VP last week I paid $5995 for it. When I was in the store the salesman called the owner and the owner over the phone said it was $6700... I corrected them both and said it was $5995. So there maybe some truth in your statement that it is going for $6700. Sweetwater is selling it now for $6799!

Exchange rate; or Roland needs some cash to pay for those nice new shiny VP grands! :)

PS: I created a forum for V-Pianos and V-Pianos Grands over at http://www.v-piano.net. This forum does not want to add a category for both pianos; I asked the admin to create it and he did not want to... This would be a good place for us to talk about both piano's and share information a little more fluently.

[kenchan]

hahaha, yah this is the first time an electronic device i owned went up in price that dramatically. :D

thanks for the invite...but i dont think im going to be posting much over there. :)

[piaknowguy]

Hey Ken! You need to buy this forum off of Artemiy! =)

[kenchan]

piaknowguy- hahaha! i was waiting for him to pay me to keep this forum going. ;) jk

[kenchan]

price not yet confirmed but Roland is apparently making 300 VPiano Grands this year and scheduled to start shipping late May (well, that's if none of the materials to build the electronics were affected by the disaster in japan).

should be fun to try out even just to compare it with the now "portable" VPiano. :D

my guess is that the unit will cost about $18K. reason being the sampled grands were about $10K, add another $3K for the sound engine, then another $2K for the audio hardware, then another $2K for the currency, another $1K for just being special. :D

[kenchan]

some great news for nord fans.... the new Stage2 supports half-pedal and long release. :D also the keybed has been improved vs the StageEX for both the weighted and waterfall keys. all features are those that i actually asked about to their program manager months ago. im real happy they listen to customers. im sure other piano players felt the same way that a stage piano must have these features. :)

ive been trying to sell my nord StageEX Compact for some time (in market place, new condition).
i think im going to replace with the Stage2. :p something about nord's sounds... its kinda tinny
but has character. with the sweepable mid-eq band, should help me quite a bit to get the piano
i want. (will not replace my VP or CP1, but want the Stage2 for fun).

[kenchan]

Ever since giving my VP to the wife, she's been playing classical music on it and it sounds so beautiful I love it. :D

Its like my favorite time of the day to relax. Often times after supper she plays so its perfect coffee time for me to just kick back. :p and she keeps learning new movements it never gets old.

[mickeyl]

Hey kenchan, same here... my wife is a classical piano player, she doesn't mess around with the vanguards, but I do, so we both have something to enjoy.

[kenchan]

sounds great, mikeyl. :) my wife's been playing the VPiano almost every day... it's great to listen to her play.

recently ive bought a macbookpro for my photography hobby. Just out of curiousity i tried the CubaseAI5 and GarageBand. pretty cool stuff. then proceeded to download the VST/AU TruePiano demo (40days fully functional but only one out of 4 pianos selectable or something) and added a slight EQ while in Cubase. it sounds just as good as a Nord and even plays like a Nord. the sound is kinda like a steinway with a touch of fazioli at the top. hard to explain, but it's very melodic to play. not as dynamic as either my CP1 or VPiano... o my wife didn't like it too much but it could also be that i was running the VST off my CP1. will need to try off my FantomG8's PHA2 keys next time.

i think im going to try some of the other VST/AU's down the road... like IvoryII, Pianoteq3 and their add-on Rhodes, might even start with Alicia's Keys by NI (Yamaha C3Neo) for kicks. i like the fact that VST instruments are sounding pretty damn good these days and just plugs-into my DAW with no other hardware needed.

and going back to my new mac....having lots of drum loops at my disposal is great too, unlike programming my Akai beatbox off and on which is tiring and limited to only sounds in the tone generator.

After playing with my new softwares i came to the conclusion that workstations like KorgKronos is old news. this day in age, buy a nice keyboard with keybed (even reuse your old RD700 or something), USB cable, macbookpro, a few VST/AU softwares, and you're all set.

hope you all have a nice weekend. :)

[kenchan]

hey just a quick update. i ordered up the Native Instrument's Alicia's Keys VST... hope to have it installed by mid-week. will trigger off both my CP1 and FantomG8 and see how it feels. i think im also going to buy their Mark1 scarbee or something sample. im not a big 73 key fan but heck for 79bucks it's hard to beat.

i think once you get a nice keybed it's all in the software. :)

[kenchan]

im sure most of you have already tried the scarbee Mark1 VST in the past... im just kinda slow and finally getting into these virtual plug-in instruments for my cubase. as mentioned earlier i tried VST in the past (even have a copy of cubase vst from like 10yrs ago when it was new) very unimpressed with the sounds and performance at the time. but these days VST's are really the replacement for rackmount tone generators.

anyway, i bought a copy and tried it. i have to say just having that TruePiano and this Mark1 VST is just like having a nicer version of nord piano. lol. highly recommended if you haven't tried it yet. :) im not bashing nord in anyway but their StageEX was never that impressing to me after trying many different digital piano's... and was the reason why it was sold earlier this year. save the cash, reuse your MIDI keyboard and buy these VST's instead. much cheaper, faster, and you can do so much with them at your finger tips. :)

will try the alicia's keys VST by NI later tonight, hopefully...