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A DP is basically an AP sampled in some way, we all know that. My question is, why the difference in sound between the DFP and AP? The AP has all the depth and character,the DP has none, we are reliably and often informed.

But isn`t the peripheral sounds/resonances also part of the sample? Is the problem to do with processing, where these other sounds are removed, or in the positionong of the microphones? or something else . . .

Maybe this has been discussed elsewhere here.

It is often discussed everywhere but a quick answer is that a recording will always be played back through a sound system. The sound system is confined to a compressed directional delivery. Even if an omini-directional sound system exists it would have to take on the physical form of an acoustic piano in order to produce the identical sound. The different nuances come from a variety of locations and from a variety of shapes and materials. Each resonates and bounces of their relative surroundings uniquely. If it could be captured accurately it would have to be played back accurately which it cannot.

It shouldn`t be difficult to capture the sound. People do it all the time on Youtube, and we hear it as such . . .

I think the future will be a very loud society. With the mp3, ear buds, YouTube, preference for bass and surround sound of affordable home theaters every kid today will be close to deaf by the time they reach 30 years of age.

Pardon?

Peter,

The post I was responding to looked like light-hearted sarcasm given the poor quality of YouTube audio.

Were you serious about this?

I've wondered about this issue as well. Especially with Yamaha digital pianos

If I were to play a Yamaha CF IIIS acoustic piano and listen with my own ears it would sound one way.

If I were to listen to a professional recording of someone playing a Yamaha CF IIIS I believe it would still sound the same to me even though I'm listening through headphones or speakers. I know it wouldn't sound EXACTLY the same, depending on various things like quality of my speakers or headphones, but I think the sound would be there.

Now when I play a Yamaha P155 digital piano, with samples from the CF IIS, there is a significant difference in the sound. Maybe it is because of the lacking resonances and all the interactions of the sound and the various materials of which the piano is made. Whatever it is, I still believe the digital sounds good, but very different from the piano from which it was sampled.

All the things you mentioned, and in addition:

The P155 uses a "stretched" sample set. The C and D (for example) are re-tuned samples of a C#. For the count of _really sampled_ pitches look at the "DPBSD Project" thread.

The P155 uses a sample of the start of the note (1 - 2 seconds long), and then "loops" a sample of the decay. So some of the subtle "beating" between individual strings in a note, is lost.

The P155 (I think) doesn't properly simulate the acoustic piano's "key-down" resonances. On the acoustic, if you hold down C3 (without striking the string), and play the chord C5/E5/G5, the chord picks up the overtone resonances of the C3. I don't think the P155 does that. Again, the DPBSD thread has a number of tests for similar behavior.

The acoustic piano has a tone quality (independent of volume) that changes _continuously_ as touch goes from ppp to fff. The P155 has (I think) 4 "velocity layers" (a sample at ppp, p, f, fff , for example). Those "velocity layer" samples are blended together smoothly (we hope!) in an attempt to match the changes in the acoustic's tone as the MIDI "keyboard velocity" goes from 2 to 127.

As price goes up, the quality of the simulation improves. You can get DP's that use full-length samples, and that are more careful about simulating everything that an acoustic piano does.

But they're expensive. Part of that extra cost is faster electronics, and more-sophisticated software for it.

If the "thinness" of the P155 sound starts to bother you, I suspect the next logical step is to a "software piano" -- a computer-based piano "sound generator", driven by the MIDI signals from the P155 keyboard. It's way cheaper to buy one of those, than to buy a Nord Piano (to pick one high-end example).

. Charles

Why DPs don't sound like APs (let me count the ways):

1. Cheap speakers / tiny amplifiers
2. Stone age sample compression (looping, stretching, few velocity layers, etc.)
3. Weak / fake sounding / completely absent sympathetic resonance
4. We keep buying them so they have little / no incentive to improve them
5. Serious players replace internal sounds with PC software

Did I leave anything out? [EDIT] Oops, Charles beat me to the roll call of shame. And I left out "perhaps NAMM this year yadda yadda."

I actually don't own a p155 myself, but have heard numerous recordings on YouTube, and played it many times at various music stores. I just used that piano as an example because I've heard both a CF IIIS and played and heard the P155.

I have also played software pianos and noticed that the sounds were much closer to the actual pianos they sample. I guess it has to do with what you were saying, Charles (looped and stretched samples).

Is it too difficult to use recordings of all eighty-eight keys and the full length of the notes for digital pianos than for a computer running software pianos?

It's not a question of difficulty. It's the cost.Software pianos run on a computer. These computer-based piano libraries vary in size, with some as small as 1 GB, many in the 4 GB to 8 GB range, and some bigger still. Disk drives today have capacity sufficient to store all that (and more).

In contrast, digital pianos have no disk drive so the samples must be stored in a read-only memory. ROM storage is MUCH more expensive than disk storage, so their piano samples are much smaller (to reduce the sample size and to reduce the cost). But this forces a reduction in quality.

Result: The best software pianos are better sounding than any digital piano, and even the cheapest software pianos are better than most digital pianos.

"It shouldn`t be difficult to capture the sound. People do it all the time on Youtube, and we hear it as such . ."

Ampy, Youtube quality isn`t brill,
But you hear those resonances still!

Being serious, I would have thought it would be difficult to eliminate them when or even after the sample is taken. . .

Peter,

Are you saying that you hear desired sounds in recordings of DPs that you do not hear when playing a DP?

Peter, I had (and some others) had say a lot to this issue in previous topics, my thesis was that sound perpective is the major challange with sampling and that micing is inherently narrowing this perspective.

Stereo sound contains more spacial information than light: through the phase information in sound image you can theortically an infromation about the depth of the different sound sources contributing to the sound in you ear. Beside of having the phase differences in otherwise similar sound images enable us to determine the direction of the sound source, to determine the dimensions of the sound source (a punctual one or something with an extension.)

So the microphone perspective is a fix encoded information in the sound image, hereby a very aidibly present but not obvious narrowing factor.

As you have noted, the close micing is the preferred samplig perspective, to be able more freely mixing and afterprocessing with other effects (convolution revrb, etc.). If you are record ing the samples with instrument noises and reverb (from instrument body+ambience), you are sticking with these fixated parameters restricting instrument options and to some extent playability.

How to heal Achille's heal of sampled pianos

And more than that: I was able due to this insights even to enhance my SW instruments with Kontakt VSTi-s within Reaper (Galaxy VintageD/Vienna Grand) - using the builtin spatialiser very significantly:Perspective enhancement by using spatialiser
The effect I felt was totally convincing, I am now pleased with my arrangement - for the first time I can concentrate fully on playing music. I am considering to open a separate topic for this, because I feel this simple enhancement option so important for all of us VST users and I am very curious of the opinion of others (so far very little feedback).

No. But you hear all the resonances of the acoustic when it is played through Youtube. And in a strange way, my own DP sounds much better after recording . . . tone wise that is!

Temperament;

I`m havin` trouble in my `ed
Understandin` what you just said . . .

Charles

"The P155 uses a sample of the start of the note (1 - 2 seconds long), and then "loops" a sample of the decay. So some of the subtle "beating" between individual strings in a note, is lost.

The P155 (I think) doesn't properly simulate the acoustic piano's "key-down" resonances"

That I can understand . . .Cheers man

DP manufacturers are aiming to present the most important part of a sound in the purest form possible within the constraints of the technology.

YouTube videos may capture a shotgun spray of sounds showing that all sorts of things can be picked up by a microphone yet the quality of the sound is too poor to present as the sound in a digital piano.

The extra ambience/resonance would require larger storage capacity, a stronger engine and better delivery of audio in speaker systems to fully appreciate. To present significantly better sound sampling in a DP is impractical. It comes down to drawing a line somewhere and making the best of what fits.

EDIT: The above is my theory and opinion only.

Also regarding your own recordings, generally speaking and not knowing the methods you use, the recording will be played back through a sound system which changes your spacial perception towards what you are accustomed to listening to in a commercial recording (some is a psychological perception of improvement) and will have received some additional enhancement from the recording device. Even if it is only slight, it is geared towards creating a better presentation of the recording.

Regarding this "... to present significantly better sound sampling in a DP is impractical."

I completely disagree.

I interpret "better sound" as that which today comes from a software piano library. At present, this calls for a PC or Mac.

But there's no reason why an adequate computer could not be added into a digital piano.

I run piano software on an old computer. It's a lame old laptop, but it's adequate. You would not need as much computing (or cost) inside of a digital piano because so much of the laptop guts could be omitted:
- No need for a big, heavy, expensive battery.
- No need for an expensive Windows or Mac O/S.
- No need for a wired or wireless network card.
- No need for a display.
- No need for a keyboard ... the piano already has the necessary controls and buttons.
- No need for a graphics card.
- No need for the laptop sound card ... the piano already has a sound system.

And if the processor on my meager laptop can handle piano software on top of a general purpose O/S with all of its attendant bloat, an even lesser CPU would serve adequately in a piano free of all that excess.

I wouldn't expect to find a low-end piano with all that. But it's already being done in the Crumar (sp?). Surely Kawai and Yamaha could do likewise (and better) in their high-end products.

But they don't! (Waiting for dewster to enter ...)

Well I would agree with your disagreeing but I was making a general comment on common DPs and was not trying to cover every possibility.

Of course one could be made.