Is anyone else unhappy with the Piano sounds?

dphil5163 · Post by **dphil5163** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 3:59 pm

I use piano as a "base" for many of my layered sounds. I have worked with the M388 for several weeks and I cannot get any pianos to sound and respond to my liking. I have no complaints for the action or other sounds and capabilities of the M3. But, you would think for $3500 you should be thrilled with the Piano when you can spend $600- $1000 for a Casio, Roland or Kurzweil and get a piano sound worth dying for. I spent $799 on my Alesis QS8.2 and it has the finest digital piano I have ever heard. In fact, I tried sampling the Alesis piano to the M3 and after sampling six notes ran out of RAM. That means I'm going to have to buy an expansion board and STILL may not have enough memory. CAN ANYONE HELP??? I need a really great piano without having to add a module or softsynth. Thanks!

sani · Post by **sani** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 10:38 pm

First,
liking/disliking a pianosound on a keyboard is and always will be a matter of taste. Personally, I think that the piano sound on M3 is one of the best Korg has ever put into a workstation since M1 (considering the fact that Korg is famous for not being able to make a good piano sound).
See, you mention the Alesis QS 8.2 and its piano sound, worth dying for. I have that Alesis here next to me in my studio, and it is IMHO the biggest piece of crap I ever owned. But some other people like that instrument.
The sample size of the M3 piano is probably bigger than the whole Rom in the Alesis (16 Mb). It doesn't mean that this necessarily makes the m3 piano better, but to my ears the M3 piano is a really good one (I think it is a steinway).
Regarding your sampling and going out of memory: I'm sure you are making something wrong. The stock 64 Mb on the M3 is more than enough to capture/sample the Alesis piano. You have to know that the pianosamples on the Alesis use loops on every sample, so the whole multisample is probably not bigger than 4 Mb (you have 64Mb!).
You simply have to learn how to sample proper from a keyboard.

spinoria · Post by **spinoria** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 10:45 pm

If acoustic painosound is a high priority then you should check out kurzweil. They always had great pianosounds and even if the don't impress to much in headphones it really works in any mix.

I also thinks the M3 has great pianosound but the Kurzweil is even better.

GregC · Post by **GregC** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 11:50 pm

dphil5163 wrote:I use piano as a "base" for many of my layered sounds. I have worked with the M388 for several weeks and I cannot get any pianos to sound and respond to my liking. I have no complaints for the action or other sounds and capabilities of the M3. But, you would think for $3500 you should be thrilled with the Piano when you can spend $600- $1000 for a Casio, Roland or Kurzweil and get a piano sound worth dying for. I spent $799 on my Alesis QS8.2 and it has the finest digital piano I have ever heard. In fact, I tried sampling the Alesis piano to the M3 and after sampling six notes ran out of RAM. That means I'm going to have to buy an expansion board and STILL may not have enough memory. CAN ANYONE HELP??? I need a really great piano without having to add a module or softsynth. Thanks!

This has been discussed on 3 separate threads

Do a search for making edits to the acoustic piano

dphil5163 · Post by **dphil5163** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 1:34 am

Regarding your sampling and going out of memory: I'm sure you are making something wrong. The stock 64 Mb on the M3 is more than enough to capture/sample the Alesis piano. You have to know that the pianosamples on the Alesis use loops on every sample, so the whole multisample is probably not bigger than 4 Mb (you have 64Mb!). You simply have to learn how to sample proper from a keyboard.

OK, Sani... Please tell me how to properly sample the Alesis keyboard, or direct me to where I can find out how, other than the M3 Manual. Thanks!

orpheus2006 · Post by **orpheus2006** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 1:18 pm

IMO the M3 has an excellent piano sound. I also have a Yamaha Motif, but I prefer the piano sound of the M3.

Hint:
Especially for the M3-88, you may want to set the velocity curve to 9 (Global settings -> Basic setup) which gives you a wider dynamic range. Try it, compare it to your Alesis and then judge again.

sani · Post by **sani** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 5:02 pm

dphil5163 wrote: OK, Sani... Please tell me how to properly sample the Alesis keyboard, or direct me to where I can find out how, other than the M3 Manual. Thanks!

I can't teach you how to properly sample. Learning how to sample is an art, and google could be your best friend.

But I can give you some tips:
The goal of sampling is to record a sound for a limited time, create a loop and put mulitple individual recordings together into a multisample.

Regarding your question, some tips:
1. Save your favourite piano patch to a different location where you can change it while your original remains unchanged.
2. For sampling purposes, turn the effects off. You will add effects later on the m3, so the recording must be dry.
3. For the piano, to make a proper sample from a keyboard, you should manipulate the ADSR of the piano on the Alesis. It means that a piano has a sound with a strong attack and a decay portion which fades away with the time. You shoud make an ADSR like for an organ. Strong Attack, constant decay (very important) and short/zero release.

Now when you play the piano, it will get a little softer with the time, but it will never fade away. You will have a portion of the sound after the attack with a constant volume level. This is important because now you are able to put a loop after the attack.

4. Open the Filter on the Alesis, put it to max. value. You will recreate the filtersettings later on the M3.
5. The goal is to capture the raw sample/recording from the keyboard. The program part (ADSR, Amp, filter, effects) will be recreated later.
6. Finally: make a recording of the sound. You shoud record about 3-5 seconds.
7. Learn how to make loops. Use a computer and a wave editor. It is better because of the screen size. If you sample the sound for 3-5 seconds, you will see the waveform picture and the repeating parts of the loop from the original waveform. Try to put the loops on the same place. Then, you can cut away everything after the loop end time because it will never play and just unnecesarely occupies the memory.
8. Zoom in and delete any silence between record start and the beginning of the waveform
9. Don't sample every key. Instead, without effects, try to play every note and listen for some changes in the character of the sound. If you hear a change, it is probably a new record. There are some other techniques, but it would cost me to much time. If it is to complicate for you as a beginner, just sample every third tone (c, dis, fis, a, c,...)

Regarding the Alesis: keep in mind that the piano samples are stereo and on two velocities. You should sample in mono twice for the left and right channel on two velocity points.
It simply means that you have to sample one note 4 times! It is a lot of work.
For sampling the piano, making loops and creating the raw sounding multisample, I would need 5-6 hours, but I'm very experienced in sampling.
Prepare for a lot of work. Good luck.

dphil5163 · Post by **dphil5163** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 7:17 pm

THANKS SANI! That's a lot of information and some good tips. I really appreciate you taking the time to put these things on the forum. Maybe one day I will learn to sample the RIGHT way.

sani · Post by **sani** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 8:14 pm

http://www.akaipro.com/archives.php

Here you can download manuals for akai samplers.
I have owned the S2000 model. Just download the manual and read a little about what sampling is, how it is done and there are also some good tips about making a good loop (you also have to learn what crossfade loop is; it is a must for making proper loops).
IMHO the Akai manuals are fantastic because they also try to teach you while korg manuals just lists and describe the features.

KarmaKazi · Post by **KarmaKazi** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 9:34 pm

Post subject: Is anyone else unhappy with the Piano sounds?

No

KarmaKazi

KorgSinceTheM1 · Post by **KorgSinceTheM1** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 12:13 am

The piano sounds in the M3 are great IMO. A huge improvement over the Triton series. However in a live situation, I found that I had to re-eq them a bit to cut through the band.

For some odd reason they sounded a bit dark, and I am running my keyboard setup through a pair of JBL Eon15G2's. Thank goodness for the 4-band eq controls (program mode) right in the front page, one can easily tweak the eq to your likings.

In a studio setup and on recordings, the piano sounds are great as is.
EP's and classic rhodes patches are also great.

I'm sure Korg or other third party companies will support the M3 with alternate piano sounds in the future.

dphil5163 · Post by **dphil5163** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 4:05 pm

Especially for the M3-88, you may want to set the velocity curve to 9 (Global settings -> Basic setup) which gives you a wider dynamic range. Try it, compare it to your Alesis and then judge again.

My M388's velocity curve only goes to 8, but raising it did help! Thanks for the tip, Orpheus!

orpheus2006 · Post by **orpheus2006** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 5:48 pm

dphil5163 wrote: My M388's velocity curve only goes to 8, but raising it did help! Thanks for the tip, Orpheus!

If you update to OS V1.11, you can set it to 9 which is IMO the best setting.

Sparky14624 · Post by **Sparky14624** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 5:14 am

orpheus2006 wrote:IMO the M3 has an excellent piano sound. I also have a Yamaha Motif, but I prefer the piano sound of the M3.

Hint:
Especially for the M3-88, you may want to set the velocity curve to 9 (Global settings -> Basic setup) which gives you a wider dynamic range. Try it, compare it to your Alesis and then judge again.

Just adding my 2 cents on this. I own a Kurzweil, and have had several Yamaha pianos over the years, and just recently purchased an M3. The Kurzweil IS very good, but I think the M3 is a better piano sound. Seems to have just the right amount of solidness to it, compared to what I think is a sort of muddy sound from the Kurzweil. I know I'm probably in the minority on this, but while I've always liked the Kurzweil piano sound, I just haven't been all that blown away by it compared to others that I've heard, especially the M3. The M3's got a very full, solid tempermant to it that just sits well with me and gives me that "Steinway" feeling.

Lorenzo · Post by **Lorenzo** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 8:29 am

Sparky14624 wrote: Just adding my 2 cents on this. I own a Kurzweil, and have had several Yamaha pianos over the years, and just recently purchased an M3. The Kurzweil IS very good, but I think the M3 is a better piano sound. Seems to have just the right amount of solidness to it, compared to what I think is a sort of muddy sound from the Kurzweil. I know I'm probably in the minority on this, but while I've always liked the Kurzweil piano sound, I just haven't been all that blown away by it compared to others that I've heard, especially the M3. The M3's got a very full, solid tempermant to it that just sits well with me and gives me that "Steinway" feeling.

what model do you own?
regards, Lorenzo

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