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I notice how out of tune my Roland FP-4 sounds when playing chords below middle C. I now play mostly on my Yamaha GC1 grand piano but I am spending the winter away from home and play on my Roland FP-4.

Is my digital out of tune? Or is it tuned differently than my grand piano?

Perhaps it's not set to equal tuning? I would play around with the tuning capabilities - I assume it has this as an option.

Hi, could you post a simple audio file of chromatically ascending or descending major triads on your FP-4? Major 3rds would also work. But whatever you play, make them half notes so we have time to listen to each one. I am an aural piano tuner, so I should be able to tell if the digital's samples are in tune or not.

There are a number of factors concerning tuning of a sampled digital, which the Roland FP-4 is. The individual notes are recorded separately, and between recordings, pitch of individual notes sometimes drifts, even in a sterile environment like a recording studio. They usually have a piano tech/tuner on hand during the recording process to try and catch errors, but you can only check so much without it turning into wasted recording time vs. profits reaped from the end product.

Also Roland uses different pianos for sampling different notes, even though you are playing them all with one keyboard. How the 2 or 3 different pianos are built (even the same model and make), will affect the tuning because they all have slightly different overtone frequencies in their individual wire piano strings. There could be some interference between samples of one piano and samples of another in all Roland keyboards.

In contrast, Yamaha uses one concert grand to make all the samples for one keyboard model. The downside of this is that if there is a couple of dead or clunkier notes (comparatively with other 'perfect' notes) then you get what you get. Roland side-steps this by infusing notes from a first piano, then notes from a second piano maybe in the bass, then notes from another piano in the high treble. In essence, the best qualities from each piano are selected and represented in the final product. So you get fantastic tone all across the keyboard - an impossibility in the real world.

It would be interesting to hear in your audio file, if there are tuning discrepancies because of this.

Can't wait until they actually release a board with "fantastic tone all across the keyboard", then. I guess they are holding back to avoid spoiling us.

Has it got 'stretch tuning'? If that's on, it would make the lower notes flatter and the high notes sharper. Or maybe the tuning has been set to one of the unequal temperaments (meantone/Werckmeister/Kirnberger etc).

Maybe your grand piano is out of tune?

My FP-4 is not "out of tune", although you can hear that very slight chorus effect of strings not being perfectly synchronized on certain intervals. I would like it a lot less if it had a sterile purity - which is probably impossible given the compromises inherent in tuning intervals within a standard octave.

How do I check on the tuning of my FP-4? Is it in the manual? I could download the manual and read about tuning capabilities.

FWIW, I've noticed that my Casio PX-330 also sounds slightly out of tune, however I've only noticed it on one song so far - the song has a couple of major chords in the octave just under middle C (non-inverted), but with the left hand playing the third in the bass. I just tried turning off stretch tuning, and it sounds a bit better I think. I haven't noticed any problems with these chords in a few software sampled pianos.

Greg.

My Roland FP-4 probably isn't out of tune, but the chords sound different. Is this a normal sound for digital pianos since they do not get out of tune like acoustic pianos.

Maybe a tech will correct me on this, but I believe many piano tuners don't tune pianos to strict equal temperament, where the intervals between adjacent notes are exactly the same, or to put it another way, equally out of tune, whereas digital pianos (because the pitch of individual notes can easily be altered electronically) are, so that all chords of the same kind (same group of notes) sound the same whatever the key they are in, only higher or lower.

Equal temperament means that only octaves are exactly in tune; major thirds are actually too sharp (ratio 1.26 when it should be 1.25 - quite a difference) and fifths are too flat (1.498 when it should be 1.500). And so on. A violinist playing solo wouldn't play in equal temperament; a guitarist, limited by frets, has to. A keyboardist depends on what system his instrument is tuned to. Piano tuners probably try to get more thirds closer in tune than equal temperament allows for, which is different from what you get from DPs.

Bennevis: Yes, that's stretch tuning. Just a tidbit of info, but I once asked a piano tuner (actually - a piano engineer) whether he would stretch tune the piano I had hired him to tune, and he said "all pianos are stretched", and explained the issue regarding the inharmonicity of piano strings. It's just standard practise to tune pianos that way.

I think it's common now for DPs to be stretch tuned as well, however there may be an option for equal temperament, so that it sounds in tune when layered with other instruments. (my Casio PX-330 has this option) I.e - when layered, it may be more important for the piano to not beat against the other instruments, than it is for the piano to sound optimum by itself.

Greg.

My V-Piano's default tuning setting is equal temperament, and unstretched. It has seven different user-selectable unequal temperaments (including the very weird 'Arabic' with microtones); and two different degrees of stretch tuning ('gentle' and 'deep') as well as 'user' are offered.....I still haven't figured out how to access the 'user' one, which I suppose allows any degree of stretch you want up to +100 on the dial . But I've long ago set the tuning to 'deep' stretch (it just sounds nicer); and I prefer equal temperament for most of what I play, as the music modulates frequently to remote keys, for which the V will simply sound badly out of tune if I have unequal temperament dialled in. But when playing Baroque music (Bach, Handel and Scarlatti), I often experiment with some of the unequal temperaments - a perfectly tuned third is a sound of great beauty . You also have to set the temperament key to the key of the music when you do that, otherwise everything can sound horrible....

So, I suspect most (all?) DPs in their factory default setting have their tuning unstretched, and in equal temperament, but it would be interesting to see what sort of tuning options (other than transposition, which I suppose is universal for electronic instruments) other posters' DPs have, and what setting they prefer to use.

Bennevis: I've just checked the manual for my PX-330, and I was incorrect - the default is NON-stretched. In fact, I'll have to go back and repeat my test, because I may not have done it properly - I was just trying to go by the LCD screen display, without actually reading the manual.

I think the default on my Kawai MP9000 is actually STRETCHED, from memory, but I'll double check that too - I'm very curious now.

Greg.

Arrrghh!! I mis-interpreted the manual. The default for the PX-330 is "stretched" afterall. (there is a seperate setting for temperament, and the default is of course "equal")

Greg.

....and I misinterpreted my V-Piano! .

I finally found the manual, and all the three settings are stretched: I assumed the 'Standard' setting is unstretched, but I managed to get the graphic display of the amount of deviation away from the mathematical straight line up on the screen, and 'Standard' stretch actually lies between 'Gentle' and 'Deep'. To get completely unstretched tuning, I'd have to select 'User' and turn the dial to -50......

So, it does look like all DPs have stretch tuning as default, or as standard if not user-selectable. Just like the way a piano technician would wish.......

Kawai DPs use 'Equal' temperament by default.

Kind regards,
James
x

James,
I just had a look at the CA95 manual, and there is a seperate setting for "Stretch Tuning" (as opposed to the temperament). The default setting for "Stretch Tuning" is "Normal", and "Normal" does in fact mean a "normal level of stretch tuning" - it does not mean none. (as far as I can tell, anyway).

Also, refer to the Temperament section:


;^)

Greg.

Yes, you are correct.

Nevertheless, it may be a "stretch"(!) to assume that all DPs have stretched tuning as the default.

Greg.