Has anyone else noticed a rather odd sustain on the 2nd F above middle C on a DP990 or an HP302/5? To my ears it doesn't have anything like the same amount of sustain as the G above it. The best way to 'hear' this is to play it with another note - play the D below middle C plus the F and after a very short time the F is completely lost. Do the same thing but with the G and you can hear the G ring out for much longer.

This was using piano 1 on the DP990. It occured with both speakers and headphones so isn't a resonance thing. The other piano sounds did show this to some extent but nowhere near as bad. I went to the shop where I bought it and the roland specialist agreed with me (it did the same on the showroom 990). It was also evident on the HP302. I'm not sure it is there on an FP7F or an HP307 though.

I'm not sure what I can do about it but it would be nice to know what others think.

Do you mean F6 and G6 Maybe that's where the no-dampers starts?

No, I think it is F5 and G5 (sorry, I'm a bit of a newb at this, so I assume F5 means the 5th F from the left?). I'll see if can get a recording to compare the 2 notes.

OK, here's a screenshot of a recording of several notes in that area:



It is fairly clear that F5 decays a lot more quickly than the others. Even hitting the key really hard you only get half a second before it has almost dropped to zero.

It is also interesting that A5 is very loud - it is quite hard to play that note quietly.

I also own a DP-990, and I have confirmed the same behaviour on my piano. The note sustains, but the amount of tone suddenly drops off. It just doesn't ring out like the other notes in the area.

[Edited]

pv88, Roland DP990 != Yamaha CLP990.

It's perhaps also worth noting that '!=' means 'not equal to'.

Thanks for checking Quarkomatic. At least I know it's not just my imagination!

Paul, you're quite right. I had never noticed this. It's not a problem to me particularly, but it is strange. It does not seem so pronounced on 'grand piano 3' - the second most useful piano, perhaps. This is odd because it's normally assumed to be a different treatment (eq etc) of the same SN set.

toddy, the DP-990 doesn't have a "Grand Piano 3" sound. It does have "Piano 3," tone 20 in the GM section. And if by "SN" you mean SuperNatural - the original DP-990 doesn't have SuperNatural. That was introduced in the successor. I think the DP-990F or DP-990SN... something like that.

Mine is a 990RF so does have the SN piano. I don't have Piano 3 though. Sorry for not making that clear.

[correction - it does have grand piano 3 (I always thought of it as piano 6)]

Thats very interesting, Paul968. I remember what seemed like the day after I bought my DP-990, Roland came out with SuperNatural. It seemed like my piano was already obsolete. I know SN is still sampled, but it is supposed to eliminate looping and provide "smooth and natural tone decay." So I figured it was pretty much completely new technology. But since the problem with the F5 key carried through, I guess it is really just a minor tweak with a large marketing budget.

The difference is subtle but worth having imo. To me, the thing which SN improves the most is the way that the decay stays 'richer' for longer. The non-SN piano seems to end up sonner as a pure tone, which feels slightly wrong. Just a shame about that F note!

mmm ...but the original post says 'It was also evident on the HP302' and this DP (which as you see below is my DP) does have SN, having an identical sound engine and sound set as HP305/307.

And, regarding Roland 'Super Natural' I agree, for realism and liveliness sn is vastly better than previous sound generators - no looping, no stagnant decay phase. It is certainly NOT just marketing hype in this case.

The differences in notes are a lot to do with the samples used (I think) rather than the supernatural feature. The FP-7F doesn't seem to have the issue to the same extent.

SN is much more than a minor tweak, and much better than looping.

I just checked the second F above middle C on our RD700NX. For the "Concert Grand" which I believe is the voice in ALL SN offerings, I hear maybe a slightly fast initial decay followed by a regular decay. I can aggravate this quite a bit by increasing the "Tone Character" to 5, and set to the max I think I can hear the transfer from sample to SN decay. So the lesson for me here is to use EQ to brighten the sound rather than the "Tone Character".

Let me add that the quick initial decay is so slight, I'm not sure that I'm really hearing it, and wonder how much the power of suggestion is at work.

...dewster's right (as usual, in my humble opinion)

I don't really hear it. The decay, if it is there, is so slight that it's not really noticeable in itself.

I reckon every acoustic piano on the planet will have this sort of trouble. Could be due to tuning, or something else. Since DPs are sampled from APs, we sould expect no less. In fact, I`d complain if it were not so . . . .I`ve got a few strange sounding notes on mine. Trouble is, the ones next to `em sound the same . . .

PeterWS says:

I`ve got a few strange sounding notes on mine. Trouble is, the ones next to `em sound the same . . .

Hey, this is a strange state of affairs. I mean, if they sound the same, how come they're strange?

.....actually, it sounds like the result of stretching the samples to me - groups of 4 or 5 notes all taken from the same sample. This is exactly the sort of thing dewster is always complaining about as it's totally due to digital process and nothing to do with the way real pianos behave - even with the odd mechanical anomaly.

....you know what? I think we're in danger of being too fussy sometimes. The lads are doing their best, and even if they aren't, why do we not shut up and play our guitars?

It`s definitely a sampling thing. But I still like the sound . . . strange or otherwise