need for larger velocity scales, 0-128 to small

[peter_schwartz]

Well, sorry for being a geek, for we are quintessentially academic, but this is exactly what progress is about and how new ideas are born...

No need to apologize for being a geek. Oh, and my characterization about the conversation being "academic" was not directed at you but at the accumulation of 5 pages of this stuff. Look up "academic".

A few years back, I don't think any reasonable person would have expected to see what happened with the smartphone revolution (espicially iPhones)... Guess who didn't buy Apple shares 10 years ago ? People expected their phones to do one thing : call. Today, we feel cheated if we can't film a bloody movie with it.

A phone is a revolution? You're... being serious?

And re shares in Apple, as they say, hindsight is always 20/20.

We expect our keyboards to behave differently than their accoustic counterparts simply because they have always behaved that way.

Electronic keyboard instruments don't have acoustic counterparts.

With today's processors and their computational power, it would be so simple to integrate a smarter way to determine note velocity.

There's nothing stupid about the way it's computed now. Besides, the degree of realism doesn't just come from having greater velocity resolution.

Would I pay and extra 500$ to have a keybed fitted with multiple sensors on each note ? If it means I can really get the same feeling I had when playing on 15k+$ concert grand, I thnk the answer is F&CK YEAH !

You might achieve that feeling, but you'll never get exactly the same response. You simply cannot achieve the 3-dimensional experience of playing a real piano from an electronic keyboard through a pair of speakers. However, for less money than a piano, you can buy a tremendous simulation.

As for your suggestion that if I wanted to play a piano, I should "gowon" and play a piano, I'll kindly inform that I don't have the money for a concert grand, I wouldn't know where to put it and on top of that, I'd need some pretty devoted roadies to carry it around !

I think you totally missed my point about the piano.

Fact is : people do feel that something just doesn't feel right with their velocity response. 5 pages of forum discussions say so !

Really? I just looked back through 5 pages of response and the only person who have inferred this is "synthjoe". The rest of it is a theoretical, sometimes academic (in the learning/interesting sense) discussion. But you read into things what you will...

And dude, if your piano is beat to s**t, isn't in tune and has a squeaky pedal, you should definitely sample it - you'll find that the sound has a lot of character.

Again, you missed my point. People tend to take every good thing for granted. Let's say someone buys a Kronos. Or a Yamaha whatever. Or the E/W piano collection. They don't have to put up with the initial throw-down or the lifetime of care and maintenance that they do with a real piano. They don't have to invest in microphones and preamps to record it, or worry about disturbing the neighbors doing take after take. Yet people send up the hew and cry because there aren't enough velocity steps on their electronic instruments?

[ozy]

For most products, at least, Korg now makes our own keybeds.

probably also because, when you asked OEM producers to provide you a "88 mikro-nano-keys vintage looking hammer action" keybed for the mikropiano, they threatened ritual sucide to defend their honour.

Yet people send up the hew and cry because there aren't enough velocity steps on their electronic instruments?

you are right.

people should feel happy, and compare their own fortune, to that of less fortunate people who really need larger scales

[Randelph]

Good one Ozy!

In this discussion I wonder why there hasn't been more mention of the role that other things besides the velocity curve that the manufacturer and the end user can tweak to get maximum "playability". For example, while I hear the CP-1 has a great keybed, I also hear that Yamaha tweaked the "expressiveness", "playability", "feel" to great results, and that was more than just the physical keybed and velocity curve.

Thought this was an interesting end-user review about the VAX-77, a foldable controller board. Quite pricey, but has PAT and gets great reviews on its suitability for both piano and organ feel. This is a bit from a HC Keys forum topic by Audacity Works: http://acapella.harmony-central.com/sho ... AX77/page2

• Best action I've ever played in a keyboard
The VAX doesn't have the most authentic piano action out there (that'd be the V-Piano) and it's not a feather-light lead machine, but it's the only keyboard that can do both really, really well. Velocity is determined by optical sensor—not contact pressure—which, along with a handful of other advancements means the feel and response is light years ahead of anything else I've played. It's almost weird being able to accurately program drums from a weighted controller, but the action is that fast. There really isn't a playing style the VAX doesn't excel at—It's like picking up an amazingly set up vintage American Strat after playing pawnshop knockoff guitars your entire life. Or driving an Audi A8 after putzing around in Yugos forever.

For those of you who haven't read this entire thread, the VAX-77 wasn't always this good. When it appeared at NAMM in January '09, the action was pretty disappointing. Infinite Response completely redesigned the keybed, and the difference is huge.

Don't take my word for it. Stevie Wonder played one at NAMM last month, also said it was the best keybed he had ever played, and ordered one on the spot.

Cursory List: polyphonic aftertouch, release velocity, 12 split x 4-layer patch architecture, 4 pedal inputs, reverse-color hot key (that can recall patches on the fly), included carrying bag with wheels, bi-directional communication with Apple Main Stage (REALLY cool feature where your patches appear on the touchscreen automatically), and lots more.

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[danatkorg]

Good one Ozy!

In this discussion I wonder why there hasn't been more mention of the role that other things besides the velocity curve that the manufacturer and the end user can tweak to get maximum "playability". For example, while I hear the CP-1 has a great keybed, I also hear that Yamaha tweaked the "expressiveness", "playability", "feel" to great results, and that was more than just the physical keybed and velocity curve.

Sure! That's one of the main tasks of any professional sound designer.

[peter_schwartz]

Gonna suggest to Sharp that he ban self-portraits.

[jemkeys25]

give the guy a break, he's on jenny craig, and that vax-77 for $1200, thats really steep for a controller, but a laser sensor could be a good idea.

[EvilDragon]

Last time I checked VAX77 was $3000.

[Randelph]

Dan,
What are some of the things, in addition to designing the keybed and velocity curves, that the manufacturer and end user can do to adjust the dynamic expressiveness (which is what this thread is about) AS WELL AS the (elusive) "playability" / "feel" that is so important-?

This is hard to quantify, but I've experienced it with my Nord Stage in particular and with some of the sounds on the M3, and have heard many people compliment the Kurz PC3 series for having this finger to keyboard connection to the sound that feels authentic/organic/real, basically saying its become more than the sum of its technical parts, it feels like a real instrument.

I imagine some of things are: where the velocity splits are set; ADSR envelopes; articulation noises.

PS,
You crack me up!

JK25,
Actually, it's closer to $3,000 for the VAX-77

Randelph

[danatkorg]

Dan,
What are some of the things, in addition to designing the keybed and velocity curves, that the manufacturer and end user can do to adjust the dynamic expressiveness (which is what this thread is about) AS WELL AS the (elusive) "playability" / "feel" that is so important-?

This is hard to quantify, but I've experienced it with my Nord Stage in particular and with some of the sounds on the M3, and have heard many people compliment the Kurz PC3 series for having this finger to keyboard connection to the sound that feels authentic/organic/real, basically saying its become more than the sum of its technical parts, it feels like a real instrument.

I imagine some of things are: where the velocity splits are set; ADSR envelopes; articulation noises.

Keybed --> Velocity curves ---> Velocity signal ---> see below

Velocity signal -------> Mod destination 1
|---> Mod destination 2
|---> Mod destination 3
|---> Mod destination 4
|---> etc.

The velocity curve is provided to adjust the overall feel of the instrument to your personal taste.

Within the sounds, velocity can affect and/or modulate many things:

* Select or crossfade between different layers in a Combi or Program, or between Multisamples within a Program layer (aka "Osc") - potentially triggering completely different sounds
* Modulate many, many synth parameters, from basics like volume and filter cutoff & resonance to hundreds (maybe thousands?) of more esoteric controls, as well as modulating other modulators such as envelope levels & times and LFO frequencies & shapes, amounts of those modulators applied to destinations, etc.

All of these factors combine to form the way that the sounds respond to velocity - and of course to other controls, such as aftertouch, joysticks, knobs, etc. Making all of this work well, at all velocities and across the entire keyboard, takes a significant amount of time and effort, and in my opinion it's one of the things that separates the pros from the rest in terms of sound design.

Hope this helps!

[jemkeys25]

$3000, and i thought $1200 was way to much for vax77, I can get a kronos 61 for that kind of money.

[Kayemef]

@peter_schwartz

I just looked up academic, I'm natively french speaking - so it is possibe that I don't grasp the concept the same way Uncle Sam does... So I googled it and

"hypothetical or theoretical and not expected to produce an immediate or practical result".

So I figured my statement about progress and how new ideas are born was pretty accurate.

And yes, I do believe that BlackBerries, iPhones and Droids revolutionized the way we socialize and interact with content on th Web. Check Wired magazine's very nice article "The Web is Dead. Long live the Internet"

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/all/1

As for all the quotes... I won't answer to all of them, I might have misundestood you on certain points, but for clarity's sake let me just summarise my thoughts here :

I like my fancy keyboards and all the cool stuff they can do, but when I punch in a piano patch, it just doesn't feel right. A synth isn't a piano... fine I get the gist of that, but it's not about what it is , but more about what it could be .

Synths have indeed been around for 30-40 years, but that's still is a very short lifespan in comparison to the pianoforte. A lot of technique has grown from the playing possibilities offered by an actual accousitic piano, assuming it's a good one, of course. And it's not just concert grands... think of all the original struck electric pianos. Lets face it, the keyboard world, apart from the organs, is dominated by percusive type (usually hammers) instruments. Isn't the concert grand piano touch the holy grail of the weighted 88 key keyboard ? It's what all weighted keys aspire to be, but all of that fancy mecanical stuff is not enough to complete the illusion if impact is not sampled correctly (think Kurzweil MidiBoard). It's would be a lot easier for the player to control velocity with a multiple sensor system, especially when playing very fast and very soflty. Even synth sounds can benefit from that.

If we have the technology to do so, why don't we try to capture as best as we can the actual motion of the keys and how that translates into correct velocity quantisation. I firmly believe that averaging a note's "volume/loudness/energy/call it whatever" to a constant velocity is not accurate (i.e. sensors mesure time at two intervals and calculate average speed of key assuming that it travels at constant velocity)

A synth is a synth, a piano is a piano... They both do their thing, leave it be... it doesn't have to be that way. That's the point.

@Kayemef, develop a keybed that puts the two timing sensors on the hammers, on the very last fraction of the hammer throw. That should get close to what you're talking about.

I suppose that could work, but only if the key were to be completely depressed. Which isn't necessarily the case on a piano, you can launch the key by striking swiftly and then the key can spring back upwards without affecting the path of the hammer. On a piano, you can also play "halfway down", gives a nice ring and soft shimmer to the tone. It's all about escapement. Besides, if you have multiple sensors, I don't see why some of them couldn't "shut-off" for certain instruments not needing the whole multiple sensor concept.

I know this is getting off topic, but this is the conclusion I ended up with after asking myself questions about MIDI range and velocity curves. It's not just about MIDI range and velocity curves.... Maybe we should move this to another thread ?

I think this type of discussion is important, even though it is academic.

On the Oasys forums, people talked about disk streaming technology, than BAM - disk streaming on the Kronos.
People talked about DAW integration, BAM - done on the Kronos.
Some people said they woouldn't buy an Oasys II - well, then called it Kronos
If we talk about better keybeds, who knows, maybe we'll see a RH4 Keybed with multiple sensors in a few years.

[peter_schwartz]

So I googled it and

"hypothetical or theoretical and not expected to produce an immediate or practical result".

So I figured my statement about progress and how new ideas are born was pretty accurate.

There are many definitions for "academic", and that's the wrong one for the context I used it in. Ah, the Internet. Google something and think you have the answer... Anyway, I understand how you could have missed some of my points, as English isn't your first language. So maybe we should just leave this one alone.

And yes, I do believe that BlackBerries, iPhones and Droids revolutionized...

What's going on in Egypt is a revolution. Everything else is just crap, or close to it.

While it's true that the internet and mobile phones have "revolutionized" communication, it's also got a downside... People now put too much importance on constantly communicating, and much of what is communicated is nothing more than 'merde' (I think you'll know that word). I had a car phone back in the late 1980's/early 90's. So mobile phones aren't a revolution to me. It's still entirely possible to live a nice life in 2011 without a PDA and Twitter. But I do draw the line at hot/cold running water and electricity.

I like my fancy keyboards and all the cool stuff they can do, but when I punch in a piano patch, it just doesn't feel right.

That's, um, because it's not a piano.

Look, anything could be better. There are archetypes and then there are simulations. The archetype will always be superior in certain ways, especially when it comes to acoustics. Like I said in my previous post, you will never get the 3-dimensional experience of playing a real piano out of a sound system. At least not with today's technology. So what is it about simulated pianos that will satisfy you? More key clunk? More overtones? The ability to half-damper the sustain pedal? Etc. etc. etc.

Isn't the concert grand piano touch the holy grail of the weighted 88 key keyboard ?

Which one? Steinway? Yamaha? Young Chang? They're not all the same. That aside, if you're a pianist, the answer to your question is "yes". But if you're a synth player, or a rhodes player, or a pipe organ player, the answer is "no". Or if you're like me and you need to simulate all kinds of acoustic instruments using samples for your work as a composer/orchestrator, the the answer is "I need both".

If we have the technology to do so, why don't we try to capture as best as we can the actual motion of the keys and how that translates into correct velocity quantisation.

Because technology costs money. And most people won't want to pay a premium price for a better keyboard action.

Let's imagine a Kronos+VAX77 combination that raises the price by only $1000. Can you imagine how people would complain? "Oh my god, what a ripoff!" "Price-gouging!" There would be any number of highly unreasonable reactions based on price alone. But that doesn't change the fact that technology costs money.

And would a Kronos+VAX77 combination even be necessary to get a better response? Maybe not. Perhaps the Kronos' keyboard action is perfectly fine just as it is regardless of the extremely low price point it's being sold at.

I firmly believe that averaging a note's "volume/loudness/energy/call it whatever" to a constant velocity is not accurate (i.e. sensors mesure time at two intervals and calculate average speed of key assuming that it travels at constant velocity)

No, it's one interval, not two. Key down to key contact. The key down point is the zero point in the timeline. The time it takes to make contact is the first point. That's one interval, not two.

Basically, if so many musical instrument manufacturers have gotten it so wrong, no electronic keyboard instrument would feel right to play.

[Zeroesque]

The VAX77 can send hi-res MIDI velocity via CC#88. Pianoteq responds to this, not sure what else might. This is potentially closer to what the OP had intended to discuss.

[Kayemef]

@peter_schwartz

You quote me a lot... we both know it's quite easy to take one sentence out of context and attack it with arguments, thus butchering the original ideas. I just hope any further comments will take into consideration the whole of the text, with its nuances and goals.

BTW, just looked up academic in American Webster, you're going to have to help me figure this one out. I still think I have it right. Also, replace revolution with huge leap forward in consummer electronics. Replace interval with moment, that was obviously an error in wording.

[ozy]

People now put too much importance on constantly communicating, and much of what is communicated is 'merde'

amen.