Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Korg SV-1 vs. Roland RD 300NX

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Call me crazy, but I'd much prefer one well implemented piano over two half pianos. Kawai gave up stretching a while ago, is it too much to ask for Korg (and Yamaha, etc.) to do the same?


When it ran the DPBSD gauntlet I couldn't detect any key sympathetic resonance (which is entirely different than key-off samples). Maybe it's one of those things that doesn't play via MIDI?

Anyone with an SV-1 want to test this? If so, here's how to do it (please record it and post an MP3 so we can all hear it):

1. Lightly press note C3 with your left pinky, and C5 and C6 with right thumb and pinky, and let any sound you hear completely decay.
2. Play C4 (middle C) loudly and very briefly with your left thumb.
3. Two seconds later lift C3.
4. One second later lift both C5 and C6 together.

Thanks for chiming in, Dave. I have actually read all of your excellent posts on this matter. Regarding price, I'm likely to try and grab a B-stock or refurbished SV-1 88 if I go that route. I think the Roland is retailing at 1699 to start, but I'm not sure what it will actually sell for when it hits the street. With refurbished SV-1 88's selling for 1600 on Ebay right now with a full warranty, I'm thinking they will probably end up being roughly the same price.

Just so it's clear to everyone seriously considering the SV-1, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Soundpack 2 is just a new set of presets. There are no new fundamental samples to be found in it, just new presets of the samples built-in to the SV-1. No?

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Any of the new Roland's that combine modeling with sampling (NX technology), this results in near seamless dynamic control, are the go to boards for me.

I have owned an SV-1 73 for the past 4 months and I really enjoy it. My primary interest was in the quality of the EP sound, and the bark of the SV-1 made it seem like a real Rhodes. I wasn't impressed at all with the AP sounds, but bought the board anyway... then I downloaded the SP2 sounds -- and now I feel the AP sound is the best feature of the keyboard.

My favorite AP sound is Grand Piano 2A from SP2, and my favorite EP sounds is TineEP&DmpRes from SP1.

The best part about modern keyboards is that they can improve after you buy them (at no extra cost!). Go to you local Guitar Center and try out every keyboard, and let your ears and hands be the final judge.

Well, what if the two 44-key sampled pianos had twice the sustain of the single 88-key patch? Which would you prefer then?



You couldn't detect it. Oh well in that case...



Maybe it is.

Cheers,
James
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Hi,

You're right -- the SV-1 uses custom ROM chips so no new samples. However, I think SoundPack2 makes use of some bass samples that were previously "hidden".

For what it's worth, I owned an SV-1 for almost a year, but decided to sell as I thought the SP2 acoustic pianos weren't enough of an improvement. The sustain got longer, thankfully, but what troubled me was the basic piano tone of the instrument. I found there was way too little mid-frequency information in those samples, forcing me to boost the mids by 8 to 10 dB to get anything resembling a decent Steinway tone. Many DPs - stage pianos especially - seem to have this kind of forced EQing, which is a shame really. I find Yamaha and Kawai are the only ones who do not hype their samples in this way.

Some further impressions on the SV-1:

- Excellent Rhodes and Wurlitzer sounds
- Very average CP80 electric grand
- Action feels good, but not great
- Average keyboard-to-sound connection on acoustic pianos
- Nice complement of front panel controls, although they feel a bit cheap
- Good modulation effects
- Brittle sounding distortion effects, including valve circuit
- XLR outputs a plus

All in all, a nice instrument, if you like the tone. Try before you buy.

-joachim

Any opinion on the EP's Jazz+?

Did you find a board you liked better jve?

I'm still looking. I might get a Yamaha CP1 if I can find a good deal. There's the CP5, but the user interface doesn't inspire me. These are not perfect pianos, but I think I can live with the flaws. To me piano tone and player-sound connection is most important, and the Yamahas fair well in that department.

cheers,
-joachim

Yes I think they confuse damper resonance and symphathetic string resonance without pedal. That happens quite often, also for the Casio's.

From Korgs advertising I believed, the PA588 has sympathetic, but when I tried it, I couldnt hear it.
Reading the advertising again, I came to the conclusion they mean damper resonances. Unfortunately there is no clear definitions about these terms.

All else being equal, like most people, probably the brighter one (as long as it isn't overly bright).


OK I just checked this again. Nope, no key sympathetic resonance in either SV-1 AP (via MIDI). Nothing but noise floor after the stimulus. I do hear a string damping effect that sounds pretty realistic, but that's an entirely different thing.

The stretch group transitions are really audible over the lows and mids (not the best timbre matching between groups) which is a shame. The mechanical key and pedal noises are a bit too prominent, though I assume these can be lowered en masse by adjusting the confusingly named "RX noise level" parameter. Too bad the various noises aren't individually adjustable as a little goes a long way and more isn't necessarily better - they need careful management to avoid sounding obnoxious.

I personally demand that all editable parameters be available via the front panel, even if this means a deep dive into cryptic menus. The USB driver will almost certainly cease functioning with some future version of Windows or MacOS, and then where will you be? IMO they oversimplified the UI in this regard.

I asked you about sustain length vs stretching - I don't understand why you need to introduce brightness.



I gather the SV-1 interface is intended to be as direct and immediate as possible. However it's still possible to adjust the sounds using a Windows/OS X application.



Well, I doubt Windows/OS X will be dropping USB support any time soon.



See my previous answer.

Cheers,
James
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Very sorry, I completely misread your question. I believe you're asking if I prefer stretching with longer loop samples or no stretching and shorter loop samples. If so, my answer is: this is 2011 why are we even discussing this kind of Sophie's choice?


I'm looking in the editor manual, it seems you can only adjust the "RX noise level" which I believe is after all the noises are mixed together at whatever levels Korg has deemed proper and correct. Do you see where they can be individually adjusted?


No, the fear is that Korg won't keep their SV-1 editor and USB drivers up to date.

Just for clarification, the level of the "RX Noises" can be adjusted without the editor by engaging the function button and turning the bass knob in the equalizer. However, Dewster is correct in that these noises can't be adjusted as separate components.

Most of the major manufacturers have a pretty good track record of keeping updated drivers available and Korg is not the only one with this issue to bear in mind.

I suspect the Korg EPs are better, but Roland's seamless dynamic control over the acoustic piano makes the choice easy for me. Piano trumps Rhodes and all the other considerations in my situation.

Correct. These are some of the factors that DP sound designers must consider when creating each patch. I onced asked a Yamaha engineer why their DPs typically do not feature 88-key sampling. He answered that, in his opinion, musicians are more likely to appreciate longer sustain lengths than shorter individual samples for each key. We went on to talk about other challenges facing DP hardware - suffice it to say it was a very interesting discussion.



Okay, but this doesn't really answer my question, unfortunately. Let's try again: if you were placed in the shoes of that Yamaha (or even a Kawai, Roland, Korg...) engineer, and required to decide how limited sample memory should be used most efficiently (and musically), which method would you chose?



No I don't, and after watching this overview of the software, it doesn't appear possible for each 'RX noise' level to be adjusted individually. However, the editor software certainly does provide access to parameters that cannot be adjusted from the 'oversimplified' front panel (the point I wished to demonstrate), and I for one rather like this approach.



Well, there's always that possibility, and the same could be said for every other manufacturer. However judging from the SV-1's editor application, I'd suggest that the Korg software team is pretty strong.

Please note that I have no connection with Korg, and I'm certainly not a fanboy. The SV-1 looks and sounds like a strong product, with features that will clearly appeal to a certain type of player - arguably someone who is more interested in vintage electromechanical sounds than acoustic.

There may well be flaws with the SV-'1s piano patches - some of which may even be highlighted by your DPBSD test. However, there's clearly a lot about this model that does work very, very well on a musical level. Therefore it's important to judge the overall product as an instrument, rather than continually focussing on minor details that the majority of players are unlikely to worry too much about.

Kind regards,
James
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This is something I don't understand. From your conversation with those engineers, are we really to believe that there is "limited" memory in a $1600 + piece of gear? I realize the literal answer to that is yes - everything has limited memory - but the memory and computing power required to run a relatively sophisticated modeler like Pianoteq, or a top-notch sample library, is easily achieved with a $500 laptop in this day and age. I assume that professional keyboards remain expensive compared to far more sophisticated pieces of technology because there is not as much scale to drive down manufacturing costs. There aren't that many consumers for these products.

But there might be another reason. For the sake of argument, suppose the DPBSD helped us arrive at a nearly-unanimous consensus about which technology is superior among the available options. Not that we determined the platonic ideal of acoustic piano tone, but that we determined that one of the given technologies was officially so good that for all intents and purposes a sophisticated audience could never tell it was digital on record or even in the room. That technology would have to become cheaper over time, because that's what technology does. There is hardware involved too, but again the cost of keybeds will only go down. And yet, somehow, I bet that the requirements of marketing, salaries, and the arbitrary product hierarchy that all of these companies maintain would keep prices about where they are now. In other words, maybe the only reason there isn't a board with no compromises that costs the same as an X-Box is that they need it to be that way.