Pianos

[thunderkyss]

In all fairness.......To the Roland demos.....I've had just about the same reaction watching & listening to the Roland Demos as I have your's Mr Coakley.......Only to be disappointed when I got my own hands on the machines, from the S88, to the new FantomX, to the RD700SX(or what ever they're calling them)

Maybe the places I've gone to demo them don't have as nice a setup as what was used for the demos........I don't know.


FantomS
AW4416
Now all I need is talent.
Anyone selling any talent??
member # 55
registered 21 May 2003

tundrkys98@yahoo.com Yahoo messenger: tundrkys98

[Radon_22]

With greatness must be humility. When someone makes the claim that they have a good product- that's certainly acceptable. But when they attack another product as inferior "because the wrong mics were used, etc.", among other reasons, it smacks of used-car-salesmanship. Especially if you didn't know what mics were used.

Whenever someone answers every post with and advertisement, it can become a bit annoying, be it selling a piano sample or an organ patch.

That being said, Welcome!

Radon_22

"The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning, and does not stop until you get into the office" - Robert Frost

[William Coakley]

Demos can be very deceiving and its tempting for developers to make those little edits, add EQ, use mastering tools and throw in a few plugins to sweeten the sound... the rationale for it comes from believing that they are presenting the full potential of the piano. Add to that some whiz bang playing where the notes are flying by so fast it's impossible to hear flaws and you've closed the trap.

Years ago in a Church where I had installed a huge stereo system, I heard a demo of the Korg O1W and was fooled into thinking I had missed a good sounding piano in it somehow. The piano sounded great with a descending run where it was exposed. Alas when I played the patch it was the same old piano that had been there all along... with the chorusing, all the verb, EQ, LFOs. So I deliberately downplay the demos so you can hear into the sound and hear the quality of the instrument not my playing ability. As hgLord, a member here, will tell you... it's everything it's represented to be. That's why any developer with a truly great instrument will WANT to follow up after the sale because he knows the piano can sound as good in your studio as it does in his.

William williamcoakley.com

[thunderkyss]

really like that link. nice touch.

have you set it up as your signature??


FantomS
AW4416
Now all I need is talent.
Anyone selling any talent??
member # 55
registered 21 May 2003

tundrkys98@yahoo.com Yahoo messenger: tundrkys98

[ocomain]

William,

Love those demos...in fact, several times I was so into feeling the music that I just kept it playing...forgetting everything else! I have loved your pianos ever since I owned an Ensoniq ZR-76, and later E-Mu's Sounds of the ZR ROM. I was always amazed as to how you were able to produce such gorgeous pianos with such a small footprint compared to other sample libraries. I am definitely a believer and am so pleased that you have produced something so inspiring, specifically for the Fantom. It's truly great to have you participating in this forum and I can't wait to play your new pianos!

Take care,

Michael

[William Coakley]

Thanks for the welcome. My hope is that over time your skepticism will be replaced with enthusiasm.

Since you don't know me and haven't read about me on my site I just wanted you to know that I would never dream of signing my family's name on a product that I call "best"... if it wasn't the best out there. My life IS music and piano my central instrument since age 4. I play, write, arrange, produce, engineer, tune mastering rooms, am a electronics tech, concert piano tuner/tech, author of the first Electronic Music Dictionary etc. But all that aside, I know what I got ...because I use it everyday in my work and I know how well it works and I see the smiles it brings to clients when they hear it.

When I hear a piano, I can tell when the mics aren't the right ones because I've used most of them and know what the right mics can do for a piano.

And it doesn't make any difference whether or not I have a product to sell; I would be saying exactly the same things... because it's true and I'm not going to lie about it or be polite in a forum that has been put in place to discuss these things. Others have noticed problems with the Roland piano and all I have done is to use my experience to explain WHY there are problems. I'm sure centuries ago, a good clock maker could tell you exactly why a clock kept good time or not. I am an expert at what I do... I design pianos. I design them for me unless contracted otherwise and I know why a piano is liked or not because I play and write everyday for every style imaginable. And like it or not, you are hearing my designs every day if you're listening to radio or TV, DVD's, albums, PBS documentaries.

I understand your skepticism ...and all I ask is for you to offer me the courtesy of thinking that honest and sincere people do exist out there who are trying to make the music world a little more beautiful one piano at a time.

Thanks for listening

William

[Liquid]

I've checked the Roland demo DVD again. Scott says that the SRX11 is indeed sampled from a 9 foot piano (and mentions that they spent about a day recording each velocity level). The interview is with Dan of MartinSound. Hope that helps someone.

[William Coakley]

any mention of the Ultimate Grand?

William

[Liquid]

No, it just covers the Summer NAMM stuff. And the demo he actually plays is only a few seconds long.

[William Coakley]

hmm... guess the emphasis is on '...buy the new and improved version.

I took a look at the multi media presentation for the SRX. A couple of things come to mind. First, the "limited background in piano" by the engineer.

Second, that they recorded room ambience and

third, that it took two people to do what can be better done by one. It's not clear what Scott's background is other than he plays and works for Roland. In the end, regardless of the fire side chat, the product quality seems to be in question. It hasn't received much acclaim by some members here. A complaint here and there is not too disturbing but a pattern of discontent with it seems to be forming.

William

[jcthemc]

i think one of the greatest flaws that I find in sampled pianos is dynamic range another is like william says is ambience... a majority of my issue with the ultimate grand is the blah-ness of the low end without mastering... it is completely weak... and almost looped sounding. correct me if I am wrong william but the high end is probably easier to sample than the low end because the wave resolution is so high and thus the majority of the sample ends quickly. I have found that the low end takes lots of patience and precision because the waveform is so long and inconsistencies are easily detectible but it seems that engineers tend to say "ahh the heck with it its good enough" and dont stay on that note till its perfect.

it took 2 hours for me to find a mediocre loop point on a Hammond B3 Sample at full drawbar on C2 but only 20 seconds to find a near perfect loop at C6. I am still not happy with the C2 sample but the point is that the average engineer will say thats good enough. But from my perspective(and Williams) its not good enough!! we want great. we want every single note to be a clear and pristine entity, like a fairy in a crystal bottle, perfect and completely satisfying by itself.

thats why internet samples are not good enough... ownership of each individual note is about the love relationship that the artist has with each note. after reading the way william describes his pianos, I get the sense that while he may not physically own the Piano himself, He still truly owns them because each note was picked out and looked at individually and perfected, only then was the next selected and the whole process started over with...

William, congratulations on such fine sounding instruments. I hope my work one day will reflect the perfection that you and I are so passionate about...


JC THE MC...
Fantom X6 2.0,V-Synth 2.0,B4Real 6.0,Traction 1.0,Sound Forge 7,Acid 4.0,Mackie DFX 12,Alesis QuadraVerb

B4 Real Authentic Hammond B3 Emulator for the Fantom X Series Synths!

B4 Real Authentic Hammond B3 Emulator for the Fantom X Get it here!!!

[dkpcola]

Finding a good loop point for any give WAV sample seems like a hardest job for me.
Any good tips for finding good loop point(here I mean reasonably good loop point)?
Some stock samples were created with modifying original instrument sound to get over this issue, I guess.

[William Coakley]

The problems with the Ultimate Grand can be identified before its creation. Although no one directly claims to be its developer... the most likely prospect admits to having "a little piano background" which could explain why so many are disappointed with it. My first piano took a month and 40 sample sets to arrive at something and I had an extensive background in piano. I had been sampling since 1982 (still have my E1) and had been studio engineering for twenty years. That is why the Steinway D40 was named after the 40th set of samples to be DEVELOPED... not just taken. You have to develop them to see where your errors are.

The approach to designing this piano reminds me of my first attempts... more must be better. More layers, more memory, more everything. This is very naive and led to some fatal errors in design which generate most of the problems you hear.

First, it is a small grand with everything below 300 hz EQ'd out. I can only guess at what led anyone with ears to do something so destructive... maybe they had an extensive rumble problem in the samples... who knows, but it doesn't make any sense. This gives the piano an unnatural sound... "that nasal sound" as one owner put it. So before this piano ever gets played, it's been emasculated.

The layers don't switch properly which becomes evident if you attempt to swell a rolling arpeggio... nothing happens until suddenly out of nowhere, this super bright turbocharged layer appears like Hayden's surprise symphony.

The insistence on marketing a "4 layer piano" finished off any prospect of it becoming anything. Marketing seems centered on being able to brag on the 700 plus samples it has... but that decision destroyed the natural dynamics (to the decays) the piano might've had since it required that samples could only be 1.5 to 2.5 seconds long before looping.

Anywaze, I could go on and on here but the point is, so many hopes were raised over clever marketing so its a fair target for scrutiny.

Just a note... someone here mentioned free piano samples on the internet and you put'em together. No one with great piano samples is going to give them away especially if they want to create more beautiful pianos and devote more time to doing so. Fellow developers have often found layers lifted out of their commercial libraries up for grabs on some site...so I would be careful to determine where the material came from.

William williamcoakley.com

[William Coakley]

Ar you using the Fantom editor to try and find loop points?

William

[William Coakley]

I stumbled onto something interesting. The #1 piano patch in the F bank seems to be the best of all the Ultimate Grand patches and there's a good reason for that. You'll notice it's somewhat smoother in its layer switches. Remember I said that two layers of the piano could be thrown out and the piano would be better... well, there it is. The #patch in the F bank makes the point... it uses only two of the 4 layers and it sounds better despite other artifacts and the sonar ping at the sample break G#5.

William williamcoakley.com