Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Question about the Audio input on DP

Hello slowtraveler, the USB cable and audio cables are separated
But, my firewire cable (from Mac to the audio card) is rolled to make a small loop, perhaps is not a good thing...I will have a try unrolling this cable

enzo,

One very popular technique that works very well in many instances is to put a 3 to 2 ground lift power adapter on the end of your dps' power cable.
A good trouble shooting routine is to start with only your computer and DP connected to each other and plugged into the same power, nothing else should be connected to those 2 things or the power strip, then try lifting the power cord of the keyboard with the previous mentioned ground lift. A ground lift at a hardware store is around $1.00.

Will a ground-lift work here? Does this piano have a grounded plug? Mine does not.

oops!

Many DP's have a power adapter and not an integrated power supply with grounded plug. Laptops are notorious for ground loops when you connect USB and/or FireWire and audio out to a device like an ungrounded DP. The ground loop isolator will kill the hum noise. Good shielded wiring will also help.

In my case it's not so much hum etc, but simply a bad sounding audio input channel. Regardless of what I connect to it. Bad and/ or cheap audio circuitry design for DP audio input certainly won't help much with the either problems (hum / other frequency distortions) either.

I think we're looking at a combination of known traps (ground loops) and prehaps inadequate design on many DP's. It's not advertised as a main feature, but since the input is there anyway , I would like to see it done properly. As far as I understand from posts here on many brands inputs are not very well designed and/or made.

It's my experience that the audio inputs on DPs' are set to 0db gain, which is max. Whenever I plugged into the input, the signal was extremely loud.
I don't know if the NU1 has a inout trim, but if it did I would 'trim it down'.

If it was mine I would again start with only the DP and computer being hooked together and plugged in. Certain extension cords will allow you to flip around the 2 pronged plug. I would try that.

The OP would be smart however to 'bite the bullet' and follow Mr. Kawai's suggestion concerning the Behringer piece.
IMHO, it's absolutely a ground loop issue.

Hello,
I finally got the Hum destroyer from Behringer, and it worked perfectly !!!
no more hum, no more buzz.
But, unfortunately, I am completely disappointed with the result using Ivory2 => the sound seems dull, it is not "clear"
I can hear that the sound is deeper than the internal sound of the DP, but:
1. the sound is clearly lacking of clarity (seems like treble have been trimmed)
2. the touch is too light, and I am trying all combination possibles, I cannot get a correct "touch"

For the moment I really prefer the internal DP sound => it is crystal clear and the sound control I get with keyboard is much much more precise...
I don't know if it is a Ivory 2 settings problem, or if the audio input is poor quality, as well as the midi output, but I tried almost all option and tuning in Ivory with always bad results...

Anyway, thanks for the advices, it solved my problem, but did not make me satisfied by the result...

Try turning the output from your Ivory system up so you get nice strong signals on Ivory's output meters and turn the master volume of your piano way down. Play the piano fairly hard and turn its master volume up until you get a decent average volume. Gain stage matching of systems with interdependent volumes controls is tricky, but it's possible you can improve your results.

Hi Enzo,

Exactly my problem too;

1) Yes you can get rid of hum etc by using good cabling and a ground loop killer.
2) Yes you can get a grip on volume control (without sacrificing valuable bits on the computer output) by using a good - in my case passive - volume controller
3) Yes you can try to find the best level match for the audio input of the DP , not over- or 'underdriving' the input

But still the sound is dull, unclear , bit stressed and 'small' when using the audio in, with respect to what's coming out of the computer , or other device's output.

What I want to know is if I am doing something wrong and it should be possible to get a clear , delicate sound from the inputs, or that the DP inputs are just not better than this and not meant for real playing pleasure, but more added for convenience / a gift. If that is the case we can save valuable time and stop searching for ways to get a better result from the DP's audio-in. As long is that is not solved, it's frustrating. We may be on the same search mission...

One would assume that the EQ and other digital processing tricks applied to the internal DP sounds to optimize performance with the internal amps and speakers, are not available to the auxiliary inputs, not to mention that the AUX IN analog signal path itself may not be so great.

Along with gain stage matching as @emenelton suggests, some additional outboard EQ may help, but I fear that the result will still not show the Ivory piano to its best advantage.

It would be nice not to have those behringer trannys in the way!

Has anyone tried one of those extension cords that you can flip your two pronged plug in?

Local off

What midi volume on your note values are you achieving?

I enjoy trouble shooting but will stop if asked.

As slow traveler said , the Aux audio input signal path may not be so great. What I try to figure out is if that is really the case or that it is a flaw on only some units, or still an error in the way things are connected. When I connect a high end audio source (no a laptop or similar), you don't need the ground loop killers and can connect the cable directly to the audio in. No hum or other externally caused sounds, by still no clear audio quality. I'm afraid I have made a mistake in the idea that the audio ins would be prerfect to use my SW instruments alongside the build in sounds. Yes, I do have good monitor speakers and a mixer, but wanted a DP with build-in amp and speakers for the living room, making it a compact and simple elegant setup. Otherwise I could have choosen a model without build in audio signal paths. Bummer ;-((

I believe you. I've owned a couple Privias and currently a ES6.
I think my Kawai has that. I've never tried it.



With your scenario just described, turn your piano's master volume almost all the way down. Turn your music sources master volume out, as far up as you can until it distorts and then back down a little. That defines your benchmark. If your music player has a built in eq, try it. At this point your external source should be controllable by the master volume of your dp and be able to be played quite loud out of your DP's speakers..
I believe the audio ins on these pianos might be really hot, -10db -
It sounds like you've run the gamut on this and have probably done all this a million times already.
I will try my ES6, then I will know how you all really feel!

I think it must be really hard to produce high-quality built-in audio systems under the cost targets and design constraints faced by DP manufacturers.

Consider that the USD 1000/pair cost of my own Focal CMS40 powered near-field monitors (good but by no means the most expensive you can buy) is comparable with the total cost of some respectable slab DPs with built-in audio.

Consider, also, that the speakers in a DP are often pointed at your knees or straight up in the air, limited in size and weight, and mounted in lightweight plastic or chipboard cabinets with weird resonances.

The built-in audio systems of our favorite DPs sound quite good nevertheless, because the designers work on optimizing system performance as a whole. The "secret sauce" is EQ, reverb, stereo expansion, and other processing techniques applied to the digital audio streams before conversion to analog.

This processing is typically not available to AUX inputs, at least in the current generation of DPs. Even if it were, which would require more hardware and software to implement, I'm not sure what the results would sound like, or what fraction of the total customer base would be willing to pay for such features.

Granted that they won't put $1000 speakers into a $1000 piano. But my $100 speakers sound better than the ones in the piano.

And, yes, the down-pointing arrangement of the speakers is suboptimal.

But I'd hardly say that "the built-in audio systems of our favorite DPs sound quite good".

I'd say "the built-in audio systems of our favorite DPs sound quite like crap".

If there's anything good to say about them, it's that "they sound better than a $10 Walgreen's clock radio".

I don't know that it's a question of blame. Perhaps it's not the fault of the manufacturers that digital piano speakers do not really satisfy. But from our point of view as customers it doesn't matter whose fault it is. If we want the best speaker setup, we simply do it ourselves. Just like if we want the best tone generation, we don't rely on onboard sounds.

By the way, although I say "simply" above, I do recognize the difficulty of finding an amp/speaker/positioning/sound-control situation that really satisfies. It's actually kind of a pain. But you can do better than typical DP speakers with a simple setup.

To put the record straight; I'm not talking about the speaker quality here , or the lack of correction EQ for the speakers on the audio input. The signal is simply not transparent / clear on the inputs , when listening on headphone. Even without AB comparing, the sound is touched by some stress/ compression, more narrow in depth and lacks the quality of the source to the extend that it is no fun listening to music or playing a Sw instrument through it. Cabling and leveling are checked.

I don't think the speakers in the OP's DP, an NU1, point down.

I hope I don't expose a shortcoming of my own that I am not currently aware of.

My ES6's speakers sound like a really nice sounding piano while playing the internal sounds. IMHO, the P155 and Privia's internals do not, that's one of the reasons I've kept the Kawai. I do set the tone to 1 level below normal and set the keyboard to heavy, So the tone is warm.
It's just a really nice piano to listen to.

Hello
I wanted to add that I don't think the internal speaker of the NU1 are bad quality
there are indeed really good with internal sound (I previously owned several others DPs before the NU1, I can say it is by far the best sound system)
But, when using Audio In, the sound is crappy and the key velocity is completely unnatural...
So, even If I use Monitors, that will not solve the key velocity problem

=> My conclusion is that virtual pianos are far to be a decent alternative to embedded piano sound...(I am so disappointed to say that)