Regarding monitors for the RD. Anybody heard or know about these?
http://www.thomann.de/gb/esi_near_08_classic.htm
Good looking and with 8 inch speakers. Too cheap maybe?

That is simply an opinion. It is based on what someone likes their music to sound like. I personally like my music flat. If you have good quality monitors with flat response you will be listening to something as close as possible to the way it was recorded and intended to be heard.

High end home audio speakers usually aim at being "flat". This doesn't mean they can't pump out massive bass and screaming treble, but usually that is determined by the source material (the guy who mixed the movie's audio for instance), or by adjusting your settings/eq.

In the same way, if you want a realistic full piano sound, you want it to be played through speakers/monitors that are flat. This will ensure all the different frequencies are represented to the listener in just the right amounts that they were intended when the piano was recorded.

Hope that helps. Colored sound isn't necessarily bad, it's just not technically as "accurate". While some people prefer, others don't...

I ran an Erik Satie MIDI file through our NX here in case anyone wants to listen to it. I'm fairly impressed with how realistic it sounds.

RD-700NX Key Sympathetic Resonance

I am always interested in how DP manufacturers emulate real pianos, so today I thought I'd do a quick test of what key sympathetic resonance sounds like on the RD-700NX and how it responds.

I played C3 (one octave below middle C) slowly so it didn't make any noise, then I played all the notes one at a time from one octave below it to one octave above it. It turns out that only the notes C, F, and G (both above and below) produce a sympathetic response to the note C on the NX. I tried this experiment on our Young Chang grand as well, and these same notes produce the strongest resonance to the note C, though other notes induce weaker resonances. So, to a first order anyway, the NX seems to emulate reality.

I decided to record this NX key sympathetic resonance a couple of ways.

First:

1. C3 played softly, lifted, then played silently and held.
2. G2 brief (note played and lifted).
3. F2 brief.
4. C1 brief.
5. C3 lifted, then played silently and held.
6. F3 brief.
7. G3 brief.
8. C4 brief.

Next:

1. C1, F2, and G2 played softly, lifted, then played silently and held.
2. C3 brief (note played and lifted).
3. C1, F2, and G2 lifted.
4. F3, G3, and C4 played softly, lifted, then played silently and held.
5. C3 brief (note played and lifted).
6. C1, F2, and G2 lifted.

So in the first test the notes F, G, and C are used to stimulate the note C; and in the second test the note C is used to stimulate the notes F, G, and C.

This is with the key sympathetic resonance turned all the way up to 127, and all other resonance effects (pedal, duplex, reverb, etc.) turned off. If anyone wants to listen to it I put the MP3 of it here:

MP3: http://www.mediafire.com/?kf80gyipxxf5oh6

[EDIT:2011-03-31]Fixed descriptions to steps 3 & 6 in the second test.

Just tried it on my GEM. Like your Young Chang, notes other than C, F and G also produce some response, although very weakly in some cases, as you'd expect. The type of response also varies considerably, with some notes producing different harmonic overtones of varying intensity. Interestingly, the B and Db either side of the C create what sounds like a proximity vibration. All very realistic. Interesting that this decade-old design still trumps the NX in certain respects!

Receiving the first GEM DPBSD entry made me pretty excited. Blended layers (or whatever it is they do there), good key and pedal sympathetic resonance, long attack samples, nice string damp sound, not too badly stretched. I can see why people are / were attracted to them, they were definitely ahead of the curve. With longer loop samples they could have totally killed.

Not sure it was the length of the loop samples that really had much to do with their relative failure in the market....

I think they never caught on due to poor market recognition and presence....who in their right mind would form a company called "General Music"?!...no brand cachet at all. But ultimately, the products were unreliable. Then there was no consistency in their distribution chains around the world so owners of broken gear had no support.

I've owned a couple of their things and I always had that feeling..."I wonder when it will fail?". Not if, when.

Steve

Yes, but both Wakeman and Emerson were happy to use GEM products on stage - not a bad endorsement, really

I have to agree that their marketing/distribution/support was appalling, but their research and development was excellent. I still love playing my GEM piano, and there's no other DP I've ever owned that could keep me engaged for longer than a few months - and I've been through a lot of them.

Yes I agree, they had a bit of coverage with Wakeman and Emerson and I don't doubt that the ProMega 3 for instance in concept is an impressive bit of kit. They were certainly ahead of the curve with algorithms for resonances etc. But concept and execution are two different things. Shame it never really got properly established.

Well, the good thing about the PRP is that it's only one-third of a Promega 3, so there's only a 33% chance of it going AWOL!

Seriously though, even though I've experienced very occasional freeze-ups (is it running Windows?), they are not as unreliable as you suggest. Touch wood, it's never let me down during a gig, and hopefully never will - and I don't treat it gently.

I've had a Little Phatty freeze up, too, but I'd still buy another Moog

Now that the main issue is fixed on the NX, and I'm going to be keeping it... one of my main uses for this instrument is to play over .WAV files (shame the issue hasn't been completely fixed with the WAV files though) - But I'm now at the stage where I'd like to be able to change the volume of the playback while playing the piano.... did anyone ever figure out if there's a way of changing the volume in real time do you know???? with a fader for example??

It can be done on the FP with a knob, so surely it can be done on the NX!

You asked about storing playback volume, that can be done when storing live sets which is good... but still it would be nice to have control over it. I noticed a quicker way is to hold down the 'select' button, and you can then change the volume with the jog wheel, but that requires 2 hands... so can't really be done while playing.

Hope we figure this one out!

Wow thanks! Your "holding the button" trick works for split and transpose as well. Too bad the screen doesn't "stick" until the button is pressed again.

Version 1.03 of the RD-700NX firmware has fixed MIDI SYSEX data request messages! I was getting no response before to a data dump request. I updated the NX MIDI post here if anyone is interested. There is a link there to my MIDI test files too.

Some Roland secret agent must read this forum!

If that's the case, Mr. Agent, please tell your engineers to fix the strings layering issue on the FP-7F too!

Sorry if I have missed it earlier in the thread, but are there any recomendations for an off the shelf hard case? Would like something that could fit the foot pedal in as well (although I do have the rpu3 which is quite large and would be a stretch). Thanks in advance.

UPDATE: I called Roland support regarding the missing damper noise via MIDI issue. The guy I talked to seemed very knowledgeable and he was able to replicate the problem while I was on the phone. He said it definitely was an issue and that he would immediately send a bug report to Roland engineering in Japan.

please let them know that this applies to all SN pianos

On the NX, you can adjust the tonewheel organ drawbars via the four sliders and the buttons above them. Pressing any button does the same thing: it switches between the upper 4 drawbars and the lower 4 drawbars.

But the center drawbar is left out of this, and I can only adjust it by laboriously (for George Jetson) arrowing over / down to it and spinning the value wheel (or using the INC/DEC buttons instead of the wheel).



Has anyone found a shortcut to adjusting the center drawbar? Not a huge pain, but it seems like a UI design oversight.

Anyone out there know if there are any extra hidden diagnostic modes for the NX?

There are two that I know of:

1. Hold down V-LINK during power-up - this shows the firmware version and performs some kind of self-check.

2. Hold down MENU & WRITE during power-up - this shows "Loading ...." with an expanding line of "..." dots as it's waiting.

I mashed all the buttons while in the above two modes and nothing happened. I also tried holding down all of the other buttons during power-up but that produced no new modes. Maybe there's a jumper inside, or an internal serial port or something.

Time on your hands, dewster?

I picture some toast being eaten at the same time as all the menu experimentation.. !

With a glass of wine in his other hand...

Time: no.
Toast: no.
Wine: yes, but later during reruns of "Spaced" (hence Time: no).

dewster, have you tried pressing the long black and white buttons that run along the bottom?

James
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Good question. No, because I'm assuming (perhaps foolishly) that the keys aren't sufficiently integrated into the processor board to be something that the boot routine could easily test.

For instance, I'm pretty sure Yamaha uses a simple separate processor here in the P120, with a serial connection (MIDI?) to the processor.

I'm inching ever closer to opening the NX, the paltry 90 day warranty Roland gives us Yanks is certainly way over with. I primarily want to investigate how hard it might be to put uniformly lighter hammer weights on all the keys, but having a gander at the other guts could be informative as well.

Lighter hammer weights?

To reduce the overall weight of the instrument, or to reduce the playing weight of the keyboard action?

'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' would be my advice...

Cheers,
James
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You mean playing? Practice? No bitching and moaning on here instead? There'd be way too many musicians crowding the psychiatric wards. It's not healthy.

To eliminate grading and the latter, though the former would be very welcome too.

Last night my wife and I were eating tofu hot dogs, and it crossed my mind that this semi-accurate emulation of slaughterhouse floor scrapings is generally perceived as an accomplishment. And by vegans no less!


You forget I have an MSEE, which is the moral equivalent to a license to kill - electronic things I'm trying to fix or improve.

Hmm...if you're after a non-graded, light-ish action, perhaps consider the swapping out the NX's keyboard for something like the action in a Yamaha CP5.

However, if acoustic piano-like realism is the objective, I'd stick with the stock PHAIII action.

Cheers,
James
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