[net.music.synth] synth shopping...

mdb@aicchi.UUCP (Blackwell) (01/28/86)

I'm looking to get a synth and related equipment sometime late this year.
(My 1986 christmas present to myself :-)  I need some advice on what is
available for my particular application.  I have very little experience
with current synths.  I usually play piano...

What I would like to do is to be able to write multi-intrument scores and 
be able to play them back.  Since I am a pianist at heart, the keyboard/
controller *must* have velocity sensing.  I also need to keep the overall
cost down.  Hopefully below $5k.  Most of the <$2k synths I have seen at
local stores do not have velocity sensing, and are limited to playing
two 'instruments' at once, usually via a split keyboard which reduces 
the available range for the 'instrument'. I would like to be able to 
print out the scores in serveral formats (eg, piano, band, vocal).  
Scores should be enterable(?) by computer or keyboard.  Hopefully some
good editing should be available, too.

Well... Is this all possible???

I also saw a very nice thing called a sampler, by akai.  VERY nice sounds.
Is this gadget worth the ~$1500 price tag?

BTW: It seems no-one can do a good acoustic piano on a synth (or sampler).
Why???


Thank you all in advance for any help you can supply.

				Mike Blackwell
				ihnp4!aicchi!mdb

ach@pucc-h (Stephen Uitti) (01/28/86)

In article <661@aicchi.UUCP> mdb@aicchi.UUCP (Blackwell) writes:
> I'm looking to get a synth [...] need some advice [...] I usually
> play piano...  I would like to [...] write multi-intrument scores
> [...] the keyboard/controller *must* have velocity sensing. [...]
> below $5k.
	I'd go with an 88 key MIDI controller, Roland makes a good
one.  As a pianist, I liked it's feel in the store...  Then get
an Oberheim Xpander or Matrix-6 (a Matrix 12 is twice the voices, but
I'm not sure your budget can withstand it.)  All of these machines can
do poliphony with arbitrary split/layering.  The Xpander and Matrix-6
do 6 voices (the Xpander has no keyboard of it's own).  The Matrix-12
does 12 voices (I just took delivery of one - it's awesome, even compared
with my Prophet T8 and certainly my DX7).
> I would like to be able to print out the scores in serveral formats
> (eg, piano, band, vocal).  Scores should be enterable(?) by computer or
> keyboard.  Hopefully some good editing should be available, too.
	Get a computer and some software.  Don't buy this sight
unseen!  I've heard good reviews of Roland's MPS that runs on an IBM
PC.  I think it does what you want.  You might be able to save yourself
some money by using an IBM PC clone (made by someone other than IBM).
Make sure that the system works for what you want to do before any
commitments are made.  I should stress that again: make sure the
computer does what you want.
	I think there is similar software available for an apple, and
probably a Mac.  Look around.
>Well... Is this all possible???
	Sure it's possible.  You could go even cheaper by getting a
Sequential Circuits Six Track, or something.  I've heard (but haven't
verified myself) that a Casio CZ-101 can do 4 differant sounds at a time
(and you can MIDI it to a real keyboard).  The Casio can be had for ~$300.
This might be acceptable if you don't care too to much what it sounds
like, as long as it's "close" (for example, if you want a band to play
it normally).
>I also saw a very nice thing called a sampler, by akai.  VERY nice sounds.
>Is this gadget worth the ~$1500 price tag?
	I've seen it advertised (in Chicago) for just under $1000.  It
sounded pretty good.  I'm not really into sampling machines, myself.
The prophet 2000 sounded pretty good too.  Often samplers are noisy, and
therefore have difficulty with bells.  The Akai has a Vibes patch that
didn't seem to suffer from this.  On the other hand, the sound system
that it was played through wasn't the best.
>BTW: It seems no-one can do a good acoustic piano on a synth (or sampler).
>Why???
	Piano's are incredibly complicated sounding.  The harmonic structure
varies considerably in time.  The envelope is only approximated by ADSR,
or the ADR, ADRR variations.  The sounds are differant up and down the
keyboard.  Also, every piano is differant.  One of the better piano's can
be found on the Kurzwell.  It's sort of a sampling machine for $13K.
The Fairlight does pretty good too, but for $40K...  The best piano I've
heard on an "analog" synth is on the Matrix-12.  Some people don't agree.
Other people don't think that some pianos aren't good piano imitations.
It can be very difficult to figure out how to record real pianos so that
they sound OK on playback.  The room the piano is in can have a real
impact on the sound.  Every detail is important.
>Thank you all in advance for any help you can supply.
> Mike Blackwell	ihnp4!aicchi!mdb
	Stephen Uitti, Purdue University.  ach@pucc-j

knudsen@ihwpt.UUCP (mike knudsen) (01/30/86)

> I'm looking to get a synth and related equipment sometime late this year.
> (My 1986 christmas present to myself :-)  I need some advice on what is
> available for my particular application.  I have very little experience
> with current synths.  I usually play piano...
> 
> BTW: It seems no-one can do a good acoustic piano on a synth (or sampler).
> Why???


You raise a lot of questions, worhty of pages of rambling
answers.  However, I'll just venture one personal opinion
that I was thinking of posting.  Namely:

Never mind whether a given patch on a given synth sounds LIKE
a piano.
The REAL question is:  Does piano music work well
on it?

I'm mostly a pianist, but on my new Korg DW-8000 (1985 Xmas present
to myself, BTW) I use several
different factory preset patches (with my own twiddlings)
for different types of piano music, or to match the mood I'm in,
even changing presets for different sections of one piece.
Actually, I play lots of Harpsichord music as well.

To do piano music, a synth voice must be:
	Clear thru-out the whole keyboard range 
	 (lots of e-piano patches get too muddy in the bass);

	Well-balanced enough that you can bring out a part
	in any part of the range by varying your touch

	Crisp on the attack, but not excessively so

	Not harsh or muddy when played in close chords

	Have the appropriate decay time (easy).
	
Also, be aware that touch-sensitive synths allow this feature
on patches where you wouldn't expect it -- strings, brass,
even organs and voices.
Plus, may presets named "Hard Rock Bass" and such often yield
excellent piano/harpsichord sounds with a little tweaking.

If you won't take my advice, marry a rich girl and buy a Kurzweil,
or an electronic piano maybe (yech).
	mike k
PS: You'll want a separate MIDI keyboard, with the full 7 octaves.
Piano pieces on 5-octave keyboards can pose frustrating problems.

ward@chinet.UUCP (Ward Christensen) (01/30/86)

Keywords:music synthesizer

Mike: so, you want a multi-instrument [technically called 'multi-timbre']
synthesizer, and want to be able to score and print?  Well, so did/so I,
and here's my experiences:

I bought a Sequential Circuits Multi-Trak last July, and ordered Rolands
MPU-401 and MIF-IPC hardware, and Music Processing System software.  The
Multi-Trak is nice because it can play 6 different instruments at once.
It has a built-in sequencer (6 tracks, 4 songs, 1600 notes) so I could 
have something to "dink with" while awaiting my software.  Meanwhile,
I bought a portable PC to run the whole thing.

I am now singing the blues, but having great difficulty PLAYING the blues!
It turns out that the SCI M-T apparently doesn't "MIDI" well, thus I
have been unable to figure how to do the "traditional" means of entering
songs: playing one "part", then playing it back while adding more parts.
Specifically, I've recorded a bass line, but cannot find a way to then
play that back from MPS while adding a 3-part harmony.  MPS is an awesome
piece of software - interrupt driven graphics displays during playback, etc-
but some REAL useful things, like being able to readily edit "program
[instrument] changes", are lacking.  If I select "bass" (patch # 47) on
my M-T AFTER starting MPS recording, then it IS recorded, and will cause
an instrument change on playback.  However, it is "invisible", i.e. you
have to remember to "carry along the blank measures at the front of the
song", etc.

I could go on forever, but its time to become philosophical: SEE IT, TRY IT,
[or find someone who owns it] BEFORE YOU BUY IT.  Don't spend almost $5000
and wind up with something that DOESN'T DO what you wanted.  Also much of
the software is copy protected - what a joke, I wouldn't DARE to use MPS
for anything serious - one dropped bit, and you're waiting 2-3 weeks for
a replacement.  Its a $495 "video game".
 ---
"You know, the more you know, the more you realize you don't know" /Bela Lubkin

jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) (01/30/86)

> BTW: It seems no-one can do a good acoustic piano on a synth (or sampler).
> Why???

I am reluctant to post this, since I don't want to get into a "can you
synthesize mechanical instruments electronically" debate, but a few weeks
ago I saw a new, very amazing, instrument by Yamaha which uses FM
synthesis to do a reasonably good synthesis of a number of keyboard
instruments, including a piano.

Now, "reasonably good" is putting it somewhat constrainedly, since in my
opinion the sound produced was sufficiently close to a home upright piano
that I don't think most people would consider it significantly different.
What was really amazing, though, was that the keyboard *felt* and responded
*exactly* like a piano -- not an approximation, exactly.  I experimented
with it a good bit to try to discover how effective a simulation of a
piano was involved, and couldn't find anything anomalous.  (One thing I
didn't try and regretted later was striking one of the lower keys sharply,
which on a conventional piano down in the lower octaves produces a
particular sound, which I guess is due to an increase in the amplitude of
the higher harmonics due to the hammer striking the long strings so close
to the end of the string, but I don't know.)  The weighting and action of
the keys was identical to that of a good piano, with one exception, viz.,
that on many pianos if you depress the key slowly there is a point of
detent near the bottom of the key's travel, such that the loudness of the
note produced is more a function of how rapidly you push the key through the
detent, rather than simple velocity at the time it reaches the bottom of
the key's travel, or the force with which it is depressed. (The reason for
this, at least in grand pianos, is that as you press the key, the key
works a series of levers that throws the hammer upward toward the strings.
However, near the bottom of the travel, there is a sort of "break" where
the direct connection between the key and hammer releases, so that the
hammer can fall back.  If you push the key sufficiently slowly that it
doesn't throw the hammer up against the string, then when it reaches the
break point, the mechanism that releases the hammer to let it fall back
seems to go through a sort of secondary motion that again has the effect
of throwing the hammer up towards the strings again, at a different rate.)
However, a lot of upright pianos I've encountered don't do this, and so
I don't think it's an essential thing to simulate.

Anyway, getting back to this instrument... it produced only sounds made
by mechanical keyboards (several types of piano, harpsichord, and some
sort of not particularly good organ), and cost around $3000, so
unfortunately I didn't remember the model number.  It did have a MIDI
interface, though.  It's worth looking at if you're mostly interested in
a synthesizer that produces conventional keyboard instruments' sounds.

[Incidentally, I also saw the allegedly immediate predecessor to this
instrument, which was made by the same company, had a similar name, and
looked like a piano.  (This new instrument looked more like a conventional
synthesizer.)  This predecessor instrument sounded terrible, nothing at
all like a piano, so they apparently made a lot of technological progress
between the time the two instruments were released.]
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