There is a new DPBSD MIDI file now up at the share point:

====================
= Revision History =
====================
v1.4 - 2010-02-17:
- Added C5 (x7) velocity = 127 at start of file as an aid in setting peak recording level.
- Added two pedal=111 notes to the partial pedaling test, moved all pedal events midway between the notes.


I also updated the readme file to include the following new recording instruction:

Recording & MP3 output:
- If you record directly to MP3, please don't normalize the file or do any other processing to it.

Rodney, thank you for your excellent post, and helping to restore a degree of order to the proceedings.

Great job!

Cheers,
James
x

What would stop DP manufacturers from keep using whatever hardware they're using now, but simply adding a small SSD and streaming the samples from the SSD? SSDs are light, noise free and durable (as long as you mostly read and don't write so much) and so should meet all requirements. Random read speed is about 50MB/s. Shouldn't that be plenty fast enough? And the end user price of an Intel 40GB SSD is just 120 USD.

Whaa? Sorry, no FUD emanating from my camp. Though one look at the sheer mountains of FUD around here and I can see how someone might make the logical assumption that there's no way just one camp could produce it all. But there you go.

Oh, yes there is.

Snazzy

Nothing's changed for me I'm still watching the thread keenly with a wry amusement.

Anything that tries to objectify a subjective always makes me PMSL.

I knew it would be worth to wait - I wanted to buy a new DP since july last year but decided to wait for new Roland models

Im almost sure I turned reverb off but I guess I could do another recording to be sure.

The piano has settings like:
- damper resonance
- duplex scale
- string resonance
- key off resonance
- damper noise
They are all set to the default middle (5/10) and the effects are audible. If you'd like I can change something for testing, but maybe just my input levels are too low? See here original file:
http://www.mediafire.com/?yvnmqzjnznj

Do you know how to adjust it in Adobe Audition (only trial but fully functional I think)? The slider in windows mixer is set to highest level, on my piano the volume was almost maxed. My audio card is Asus Xonar DX, connected from piano's out ports into line in.

Roland U.S. now has the HP-307 manual online at:

http://media.rolandus.com/manuals/HP-307_OM.pdf

Page 25 talks about "Reverb" and it has a setting from 1-10.

I hope to have my 307 in another 2 weeks. So I've already browsed through the manual.

Sally will have something negative to say about this, I am sure.

Also, dewster mentioned that it didn't sound like reverb was turned off -- I came across this paragraph in the HP-307 manual:



Sally will have something negative to say about this, I am sure.

Congratulations on your choice of the HP-307, Sally...I hear it is a great instrument.

Snazzy

dewster, perhaps you could also recommend that users perform a factory reset before running the test, in order to ensure that the instrument's default settings are being used.

Assuming you don't make this suggestion in the readme file already, of course.

Cheers,
James
x

I wasn't aware that cabinet resonance could have some impact on "reverberation effect". I'll use the new midi file with cabinet resonance set to off and upload it again, but tomorrow after work - it's late here :P

The problem is latency. that is the time to read the first byte from a random location. After that delay, then as you say the data follows fast enough. If the sample library were kept on an SSD then it would need to be loaded into RAM when you select a new vioce. There would be a delay while the new voice loaded.

Also I doubt any of the internal buses in a DP are set up for 50MB/S More likely a 1/10th of that.

Actually there are DPs that hold very large sample libraries and hold their library in RAM and you can change the data using a computer. You can buy one today.

Nord Piano

It's probably off, I just heard something faint that sounded rather reverbish.


Do you hear them in the MP3 file? I've listened fairly closely and I don't hear them. It could be the high noise floor I suppose.


Nice soundcard! Do an Options | Properties in Windows mixer and select the recording source, then enable all sliders for it. Mute any inputs you aren't using. It didn't come with some sort of custom mixer software?

In Audition you can right click on the VU meters at the bottom of the Edit screen and click on "Monitor Record Level" or hit F10. This will show you the levels without having to record.

Thanks for that! I was just about to fill out the Roland account sign-up to get it, you saved me the work.

Yes, perhaps even superior to the Yamaha CP1, or so I've heard.

Sally will have something negative to say about this, I am sure.

Probably to your ears, it would be, Sally, and I hope it's everything you expect it to be and more.

Congratulations once again.

Snazzy

Rodney, you should contribute more regularly to this forum again. The sharing of your wealth of knowledge is much appreciated. As somebody with an electrical engineering background, I find your analysis of why inexpensive memories can't be used in DPs spot on!

Thanks Rodney!

Mychal

Same here. I re-recorded the VintAudio C7 in 44.1kHz 32 bit float, saved it as a Windows *.wav, then saved it as a 194kbps CBR *.mp3 and then opened them both back up in Audition and looked at the phase views. Very little visual difference. To me anyway this issue is closed. MP3s should be fine for the gross features this analysis examines.


WAV


MP3

Anyone wants to play with it, the files are in the archive.

+1
Rodney, hope you decide to return to your posting habit again, especially given the meaty subjects and interesting products there are to discuss anno 2010 and despite the often disappointing, middle school maturity level of many of the postings here. Content is always welcome above taunts.

Hi Dewster.

I have re-recorded the Kawai MP-5 using your new midi, ver 1.4.

As Kawai James suggested, I updated the MP-5 to the latest firmware version (1.15) and performed a factory re-set, before recording, so you have the DP as it would be 'out of the box'.

http://www.box.net/shared/32xaomgbhb

regards,

Rob

Does anybody here have the Nord Electro 3 or Nord Stage EX?? It would be interesting to have sample from their piano, especialy some of the XLR grand patch. Their Nord Piano 88 is comming soon...

Latency for SSDs is about 0.2 milliseconds. I don't think that should be a problem?


If I do the math, we'd need about 5.4MB/s bandwidth for reading 128 mono polyphony per second. Ok, if you want to do smooth velocity layer switching (which probably requires reading two samples and mixing them), then we might need twice that, so 10.8MB/s. That doesn't really sound like so much...

If a bog-standard electro-mechanical hard drive can adequately support tons of polyphony (and it most definitely can), then an SSD can do it in spades. SSD's run circles around PC hard drive read access times.

Rodney, please don't think I'm trying to personally bash you, quite the opposite, but I feel compelled to respond to your post.

DPs don't use hardened, I-Temp, or Mil Spec electronics, they use inexpensive consumer grade general purpose parts. Synths used to use custom parts because they had to, but ASIC development is incredibly expensive, and these days off the shelf ICs are entirely up to the tasks in your average DP or synth.

Even from the outside, we can all easily see that computational electronics has absolutely exploded. I worked in FPGAs for 10+ years and I could barely keep up reading about all the new features they were introducing, let alone utilize them. The processor side was the same. Due mainly to feature size reduction, speed, heat, and power consumption are non-issues in something simple like a DP. High-end cell phones likely have more powerful processors.

No less earth shattering was the introduction of embedded Linux in our products. Before that we used a couple of operating systems that were written and supported by small in-house groups. Writing and supporting even a small OS is a very complex, expensive, and problematic undertaking. Linux came along and wiped all that out. Suddenly it was much more difficult to debug the hardware due to the imposition of device drivers and protected modes and such, but the stability, extra features, and connectivity more than made up for it. It was quite a revolution.

The music business is actually pretty small. I think it seems bigger than it is because of all the publicity associated with it. And the businesses that support the music business are even smaller, which makes it hard for them to take risks or do anything really innovative. In engineering you get young inexperienced engineers with new knowledge and ideas, and they are up against older engineers with old knowledge, but who have more power due to their seniority and experience. Which is normally OK, but in the rapidly changing tech environment we have now it's sub optimal. Add to that the dissociated, dysfunctional, multi-layered power structure of a modern company and you can easily get long-term product stasis. That's what I think we're up against more than anything else.

In fact, the way most real innovation happens in high tech lately is a small start-up develops something new and becomes acquired by a larger company. This may seem normal by now, but it is really quite odd to me that large companies are almost incapable of doing anything but acquisition. And often the acquisition is done more to acquire patents and reduce competition than to nurture innovation.

In conclusion, hardware / software technology aren't holding DPs back in any significant way at this point.


I like it too, but I haven't gone through as many sample sets as most people around here so I wasn't sure how it stacked up. Wonder what happened to VintAudio?

Excellent peak and noise floor levels in your MP3! I'll replace the one currently in the archive with this one.

I don't know, I maybe barely hear something like sympathetic resonance (uncertain), but I really can't hear pedal or key-up noises. Rob, can you hear them in the MP3? Do you hear them when you are normally playing the keyboard?

KAWAI James, could you perhaps listen to the file and comment on this issue?

Well, as another forum member suggested, it's possible that the MP5 does not utilise string/damper resonance etc. when playing MIDI files.

Cheers,
James
x

Oh. I thought the firmware update was supposed to fix this? Or was that another Kawai model?

The cabinet resonance indeed introduces some reverb but I don't hear it with default middle setting, only once I go up 2 steps. Maybe your ear is just more trained Anyway - I did another recording with cabinet resonance turned off and using v1.4 midi file.

As for:
key-up samples - is it key-off resonance? if yes it is audible, very subtle with default setting, only obvious once I turned it off (0) and maxed (10) to know what to look for
pedal down - yes, very subtle with default setting
pedal up - can't hear
sympathetic resonance - when I test it myself I definitely hear it on my piano; not as trained to know if it's in mp3

Im sorry for some glitches you can hear on first notes. I tried recording this 3 times and I always had 2 or 3 glitches somewhere in the file. This one was actually least intrusive. If it's unsatisfying I can give it another go.
I didn't touch the file (no equalization), only boosted +5dB input level in Audition while recording.

http://rapidshare.com/files/352580888/dp_bsd_v1.4_Roland_HP-307.mp3