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Hm. Then these three acoustic pianos must have been in a rather deplorable state, I'd say (as an owner of the above setup, and of acoustic pianos).

+1

I cannot for the life of me imagine why someone would prefer a 'low end" upright acoustic piano to an upmarket DP with good speakers!

A tuned, well-maintained, grand piano is going to be generally "better" for most musicians (i.e. sound better) than most DPs although the gap is shrinking but there are many other considerations, not just the actual sound of the instrument.

Yes, it's that exact combination that enticed me to write this thread.

We've only skimmed the surface of what's possible in the realm of (1) virtual piano controllers coupled with (2) sound modelling (as opposed to sampling without modelling). The sky's the limit for these two technologies, and I think this pairing is poised to really take off.

This potential is what excites me the most. It will be interesting to see whether Roland, or Kawai, or Casio, or Yamaha is the first to develop (and patent) this technology to its fullest and most robust potential.

- the BIL is a tuner/technician so, no, they weren't in a deplorable state.

Once again, hm.

Kawai should buy Pianoteq.... James? (only half-joking about this).

No problem...this is an interesting discussion all around.

However, especially with the last few posts about the VPC1 and a PC running piano software, it seems to me that the market currently offers something for everybody. For those that want it at the high end, there are the V-Piano and V-Grand and similar (though sampled) offers from Yamaha and Kawai (i.e. DPs in a grand piano cabinet). Just below this, you have a large selection of console digitals, and the the stage pianos (not necessarily listed in order of sound quality or keyboard feel). Those who want to go with separate components as several have mentioned in this thread.

To me, it seems things are doing well overall and we are all free to pick what suits our needs/wants. As typically happens with technology, I believe that what is currently at the highest end will become the mid-range and there will be an entirely new high end over the coming years. All of this may be moving too slow for some here, but the development of the DP is moving forward.

Tony



Tony

I agree with the thrust of your observation, but even if the current state of VPCs + sound modelling falls short of matching APs, it's the upside potential for future technological advances that is truly exciting.

I have no doubt that in the not-too-distant future, such DPs will not only match, but will exceed what's possible in current APs.

The one is calle V-piano, for unknown reasons since 5 years sold only in two hi-end pianos, so not available to most of the people, the other one is called Supernatural, where sampling is coupled with modeling, available in pianos from over 1k usd.

Both are outstanding in how they perform, both are from Roland.

I suppose it has to depend on the qualities you're comparing. If you include <the buzz I get when I drool over that lovely hunk of real AP hardware over there> then it might never be possible. The idea of the 'real thing' will always be paramount for the AP snob.

This is probably true, but it's inconceivable that Kawai and/or Casio and/or Yamaha won't fully incorporate Roland-styled sound modeling either this year or next year. Indeed, it's downright mind-boggling that these three have waited this long to introduce Roland-type sound modelling.

- equally boggle-worthy is why Kawai etc haven't stuck a generous chunk of Ram/Rom into one of their DPs and incorporated one of the existing top-line sample libraries or a high quality version of one of their own.

As things stand, I'm not struck on the pianthesizor modelling approach.

Cool. Hopefully you'll become even more impressed as future technology advances exponentially.

Its not mind-boggling at all. The big companies will follow what the market will yield and if they can keep selling units without putting a lot of money into R&D they will stay behind the current technological advances. Its a very small segment of the market including posters on this forum that want and expect more. Your average consumer buying a digital piano for junior will not have a clue about what we are discussing here and will not care.

Let's be thankful there have been companies pushing the technology forward but for the big corporations the market will dictate what gets manufactured and sold.

As for sampled digital pianos, why not have console DPs that only have one or two pianos in them? If a person buys an acoustic piano, there is really only one sound available - the acoustic piano sound that the piano was built to make. My V-Grand (and I believe also the V-Piano) only does piano and not flutes, guitars, and other instruments or even EPs. If all the ROM or flash that a typical DP might have these days was dedicated to just one or possibly two sample sets, might it be possible to not have the looping and stretching mentioned so often in this forum? I know that many would argue that with memory being inexpensive these days (though flash is still expensive), we should expect to have all of it - lots of piano sample and all the other goodies too. But if DP manufacturers are not going to provide enough flash or ROM to do that all well, then maybe just a piano sound that is really good would be suitable since that is then more like an acoustic anyway.

Tony

We are definitely living in our own plastic bubble in this forum, far away from what the vast majority of DP buyers are interested in, or have knowledge of......

Does the typical DP purchaser know anything about sampling v modeling, or that it's possible to produce sounds from a DP using a computer and a software program, without any sound generator in the DP itself?

Roland apparently spent zillions over a decade developing the modelling technology for the V-Piano, which eventually trickled down in a modified form to their SN DPs. I don't think sales of the V-Piano & Grand ever recouped even a tiny fraction of the cost of their R & D. Yamaha, Kawai et al have no inclination go down that route - why should they, when the vast majority couldn't care less?

Well not to throw another log on the fire, but for approximately $2700 CAD, you can get an RD-800. It has our current best piano action (PHA-4 Concert) and well over 40 SuperNatural (non looped, and fully sampled + modelling) acoustic piano sounds, plus DOZENS of SuperNatural Electric Pianos, and Organs. Pretty good bang for the buck....and a SIGNIFICANT amount of R&D went into its development I can assure you. At the rate it has been selling, the R&D money was well spent.

Jay

I certainly will, but people in general might not.
They don't have a clue about acoustics, how to sound treat and select a room, and not even how to place their speakers.
They also don't know why a digital piano with built-in speakers won't deliver an optimum sound, or even that it doesn't. :-)
Many don't have computers powerful enough to run the heavy software, or how to set them up properly.
Laptops are small and cute but not as powerful and capable for music as your self-built and designed desktop or tower PC.
More amazing machines will be built, but they might not sound much better if the speaker system can't deliver it to your ears, and if the room acoustics will allow it.

Holy Moses! More than half a billion in sales is at least an order of magnitude higher than I was expecting. I am now even more dissatisfied with Yamaha DP offerings (if that's indeed possible).


If only that were true.


No, the AP sample set in a typical DP takes up 90% or more of the total storage space. The other voices are almost nothing to throw in, so why not.


Not true, it's amazingly affordable. A good DP sample set (unstreched, unlooped, many velocity layers) can live quite comfortably in a few bucks of Flash. And the cheapest stuff is designed specifically for streaming.

We know that Jay
What most of us cannot understand, and what was discussed before, is - why, Roland having this stunning modeling technology (which still sounds far better than SN, at least in the official roland recordings) is not putting it in the instruments available for most users - but only in the Vgrand and Vpiano?

We can only assume, that parts or V are being used in SN, but, as was stated here by many people, if there would be a Roland piano, with V-piano sound inside console cabinet, with metronome and just 10 other sounds like organs and some other old piano-like instruments, it would be a market killer.
We don't need the whistles of rare Amazonian birds in the piano. We want a reference sound&action. All that fancy stuff is rather useless in pianos more expensive than 2kusd, because those pianos I think are mainly bought by more aware and demanding customers, who are using only piano sounds, and do not care completely about the other sounds.

Btw, you can throw that idea to your central - we, customers, want a v-piano in console cabinet in affordable price. Thank you