Ok, well sorry. I don't think you can have read everything I've had to say about the V-Piano. But it's time for me to bow out.........

Well, actually I have, and I have nothing against your opinions per se - I just think you've given them now, in exacting detail. There needs to be room for people to express a range of opinions, that's all.

Literally the very first note:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T84ZLvuLQ24

In the Keyboard Mag Preview clip, there's a bit where they repeat a single note, gradually adjusting the settings each time, making it mellower each time. It starts off sounding bad/wrong, but as it becomes mellower, it sounds more natural. So, it seems to me that the adjustment is getting rid of the problematic overtones. Making it mellower is not really a solution, though, because we can't always use a mellow piano tone - sometimes we want a brighter tone. Will dig out the exact point in the video where they do this later.

Greg.

Here it is: http://www.keyboardmag.com/article/roland-v-piano-video/June-2009/97333

Click on the last (corrected: 5th) clip, and go to time 00:50. To me, the tone improves as it becomes mellower. (the very last strike sounds the best - it changed in an interesting way - not sure why).
I think the problem is that this character is just present too much - it's there on too many notes. If only the odd note here & there sounded like that, it would be ok.

I'm very curious to here the custom edits.......

Greg.

I think you mean the 5th video. OMG, what horrible audio quality in those videos, way too compressed, it sounds like a cell phone connection. You would think Keyboard Mag, of all things, would realize that good audio in their videos would be really, really important, but I guess not.

He's hardly the only one who has had a V-piano and got rid of it for the same reason. I can't think of a single professional keyboard player I know (and that's quite a few) who has had a V-piano and kept it after experiencing the issue. I'd suggest it is incumbent of the experienced people in this forum when threads about to V-Piano come up to post their thoughts especially to prevent newer less experienced members making a expensive mistake.
The reason why the V-piano creates almost vitriolic responses is that it is indeed so perfect apart from the one massive flaw, if it was a lesser board I'd suggest we wouldn't care nearly as much.
When I see someone without the necessary experience ask about the V-Piano I am certainly not going to shy away from raising the issue. No thread on the V-Piano would be complete without mention of it.

By all means, mention it to them, but when it becomes less about advice and more about telling people what they should think, or implications that if they don't agree, they aren't listening properly - well, then I think it goes too far. What about the members of this very forum who have a V-Piano and are happy with it? Are we to believe that they have poor taste or don't listen properly?

As I said, state your objection and leave it at that - after all, taste is a subjective thing. I think even predicting that if somebody buys a V-piano that they will "eventually" discover the problem is rather condescending. It would appear that it was the person who bought it without noticing the problem is the one who wasn't listening. I mean, what is it about this "effect" that can't be heard until you buy it and take it home? If it was a case of already knowing it was there but assuming you would be able to dial it out later after you've bought it - well, that's just as silly.

I'd like to think that once you have articulated your feelings, you could leave it up to the prospective buyer to decide, rather than these endlessly repetitive posts that virtually guarantee that any buyer will feel the same way once they learn to listen properly.



It has been mentioned, and I'm not against that. I'm talking about the difference between giving your opinion and highly repetitive brow-beating (The type that makes it clear that people should agree with you and if they don't, there's something wrong with their perceptions.)

It seems rather demeaning to those who own a V-Piano and like it.

Dewster,
If that's compression producing the swelling sustain, then I like it. I wasn't 100% sure. I agree that for our critical listening that it would be better not to have it, though.

The V-piano sounds clear in this presentation to me (despite the background noise) and its my favourite demo.

Greg.

I am not expressing any opinion about the V-Piano, but the band does make music, and I usually don't like this kind of music. Nice! I would pay for a dinner ticket!

Dewster - it's just occurred to me that you may have meant lossy audio compression rather than dynamic range compression. If so, I don't find it objectionable at all, at least not for the piano itself. I do hear artifacts, but for some reason they seem to be mainly in the background noise - not in the piano per se. I certainly don't hear those "chuff" artifacts in the piano attacks that we were all complaining about with those Kawai demos a few months ago.

Greg.

The overall compressed video's definately lack brilliance/clarity, resolution. FYI, indeed they can enhance or mask sounds. Especially since compressed audio needs digital error correctors. This quality is so bad, you really cannot judge on it.

Also, the moviews, they record a lot of the sound of the room with it.

Best is to just test it out yourself with all pros and negatives all people say here. If you're still happy with it, it's prefect isn't it? As easy as that.

And with a bit of respect, i think we can all have a healthy conversation here... I do notice a certain tunnel vision of some people here (not naming, no use anyways) and it doesn't help to say it has ponies inside, or evil devils ;-)

Just wondering... if indeed these flaws are keeping people far away from it, if roland would update the v-piano sound generator later on?

I'll stop harping on about the so-called 'inherent flaws' after this (I'm already totally fed up about this subject, to be frank, and only butted in when things were getting out of hand with oft-repeated posts reappearing from the usual suspects), but I had a brief encounter with the new Roland V-Grand yesterday, and listening through my AKG headphones (on its factory presets only - I didn't have time to put in my customizations), it seems that Roland has made no changes at all to the sound compared to the V-Piano. And that's over a year since the V-Piano was released in which they had the time to take note of any complaints about 'inherent flaws', and act upon them...

Or could it be that Roland never received any significant complaint about it? (My dealer says he'd never heard any - the main 'complaint' he got about the V-Piano was its lack of non-piano sounds and perceived poor value-for-money compared to DPs with far more flashing lights and bells and whistles: which I considered a plus... ).

Haha :-)

Maybe we should write a letter. If people really complain about it. We should make the actual recording and send it to them.

On another note. f we tlak about an instrument, we talk about a character.. perhaps this "flaw" is also "character"? ;-) (lookign it from a positive side ;))

To be really honest.. that metallic edge is ACTUALLY why i fell in love with the thing on the highs and lows... perhaps it's masakable in the middle with the right settings to create my own sound.

To be frank, one or two extra sounds on it might be not too bad. I would love to have a clavecimbel and electric piano on it :-)

How was the grand? i guess with headphones no different, but really wonder how the sound of the grand is compared to the v-piano

I'm pretty new to DPs, but I can honestly not hear what everyone is complaining about...I honestly think the V-Piano sounds pretty damn awesome when Robert Wells is playing on it, really suited for Boogie Woogie it seems.

If you like how it sounds, don't mind what other people are saying. Just take your time trying the instrument out before buying it (especially considering it is so expensive).

I for sure like how it sounds.

Unfortunately, the showroom was really buzzing yesterday, and the racket from other DPs made it impossible to judge the sound from its speakers properly. I'll have to go back some other time, but it sounded real good even with the ambient noise/music.....

Indeed Auver :-),

Well..ill try to explain...
if you hit a key on a digital piano, which has no velocity just full.. like a hard short hit on it.
The response of the string is that it sounds a bit metallic. Since the higher tones damped fast, you only hear it then.
especially in higher sections you hear this.

This same effect you can hear on middle tones when you play normally. This edge/vibration makes the tone more sterile than usual. It's no problem when you hit hard, but also in soft, you can hear it. It makes the sound less warm.

So far, I don't think it's much of a problem (yet).
Unfortunately, i'm unable to spend hours playing like other people do here... but I'm quite trained in ear, so i hope that's all good =)

@bennevis, cool =) I'm also very curious about it. Never seen it yet. But don't think i'll ever get a proper grand, v-piano grand or yamaha avantgrand one :-)
It's just amazing to play nevertheless =)

About the metallic edge on piano sounds, if you're into classical music, have a listen to Vladimir Ashkenazy's Decca CDs of piano music (played on Steinway D): he seems to like his pianos to have this brilliant edge (especially on initial attack), which some people have criticised as metallic when he plays forcefully (he's a Russian, don't forget). Listen to his Chopin and Rachmaninov (Rachmaninoff for Americans ).

If you listen to some other pianists (probably less hard-hitting too), they prefer mellower Steinways.

Interesting.. gotta listen that after my lunch break (at work too :P )
I prefer that metallic edge as mentioned earlier, that's why i'm not going for an FP7 / 700NX, that simple :-).

post my ideas later =)

Listened to Adagio Sostenuto of Mr.R,... sounds wonderful. I do think the little metalic edge not recognizable here.. but it's sharper edged then others.

What about Jan Vayne? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljjSUnzxARo

Here organ a bit too much...but if you listenen carefully, the piano has also definately sharp edge http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sViPVPFvxt4 (phantom of the opera) definately in middle

I'll have one last go.
Go to http://www.roland.com/V-Piano/
click on "skip" (down in the right hand lower corner)
Click on Video
Select the second clip. ("Part 2 Main Feature")
Move the slider to half way, and listen.

I hear an unnatural tone in the notes that he plays around the middle of the keyboard. Part of the problem is that the attacks (the sound right when the hammer hits the strings) are also not quite right.

It doesn't sound terrible to me though.

Greg.

I honestly can not hear a bad thing about it in hammer action. Although, i'm not a grand player at all.

It sounds like the mellow attack evolves into a brighter sounding decay over the period of a second or so, which is kind of unnatural if you think about it.

Can we collect all flaws together? since the negs are posted in this, and the topic about the v-piano cons..

If collected, i will gather the info and send them to a roland marketing department. If we want to get things moving, gotta be there in the end.

edit:
I mailed Roland (europe) with the following mail, and see if they are going to participate, read the forum. I addressed it to the marketing department.

The mail:


I think by this initiative, we can support towards a better instrument instead of having just a quarrel about it :-).

It's probably me, but I don't trust any audio where I can clearly hear the burbling of overly truncated discrete cosine transform coefficients.

I own a V-Piano. I tried it several hours over 2 days before buying it. I knew (thanks to this forum) about the mid-thing issue, and, in fact, it's the only thing which made me hesitate to buy it (and the price ). But I tried it side by side with some acoustic pianos which cost 3 times the price of the the V-Piano, and, although I enjoy playing some of them, and even if I could afford them, I still had buy the V-Piano, for the sound and the action.

I tried other digital pianos (I also owned a Yamaha P-85 and a Roland HP-207), in particular the Roland RD-700NX, but, although I liked the sound, It seems to me that I can not be as expressive as with the V-Piano.

I once played on a Steinway (don't know the model), and this is a piano I would prefer over the V-Piano.

To, in a certain way, illustrate what I try to explain, here the link to another thread (http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1657648/), where you can find a recording of the V-Piano I made.

I've been watching a lot of V-Piano videos and I have to say, it's really incredible how real the V-Piano behaves dynamically and with the string resonance and note decay. It's amazing really. If I had a ton of money, I think I might could live with the lack of mids... ...maybe.

Ha! You people think too much, or have analysis paralysis. I bought a damaged "V" with a big dent in it. Got it cheap. Play it all day; These units will be classic instruments like "Rhodes" machines oe B3's. Why? Because they are a dedicated board. No crummy fakesounds. Just piano. And they are expensive. The sounds are upgradeable as per Roland. The EVO add-on helped.

I swear I never heard a midrange piano, KB, sax, trumpet, or any instrument that taken as a single repeated note, become anoying after a time. The midrange on a piano or KB sounds dead because of equal temperement tuning that's all. Opera singers and barber shoppers know that. If you learn to sing from a piano you're gonna be outta' tune.

That Wells guy plays that "V" pretty good because, as I said before these demos pass thru the midrange briefly so we can't hear easily the "nasality" hehe.

I'm keepin' mine; I told the wife I got it $800 and she thought it was too much for a piano with a big dent.

You got your V-Piano for 800$?! What a bargain.

I've just noticed that the presenter's voices really do sound terrible. However, the piano still sounds good. (despite some clipping and other extraneous sounds)

Actually, I've just noticed that sometimes their voices DO sound clear. Perhaps this occurs when they use the same recorder/mic that they use for the piano, rather than their dedicated voice mics?

In any case, the official Roland video that I referred to has good fidelity IMHO, and I can hear the mid-range problem.

Greg.

The list of people that had one and couldn't live with it is a long sad one ....

If I were buying digital pianos for a Conservatory that were to be used to train classical pianists, I certainly would choose pianos that respond dynamically to the pianists' articulation in a realistic and authentic manner over the one that doesn't develop skills that travel well to an unforgiving acoustic and plays pristine but static samples that are purdy in the midrange. Pianists often can do nothing about the basic tone of the pianos they find in their venues, but their own chops (=to a large degree their timing and technique) determine how the audience evaluates the "tone". I would much prefer the piano that best helps develop the chops.