Korg Forums

Is there any way to get a classic piano sound on the microKorg?
I assumed it'd be one of the first / default settings on there but it isn't, so I was just wondering if it's even possible to get?
I so please let me know the Voice Name / Number!
Thanks alot!

The Microkorg is an analog modeling synthesizer, so no, it's not possible to get an authentic acoustic piano sound. With some programming chops you can create a sound that resembles a piano though. Electric pianos are doable as well.

It's not like you would want to play those mini keys like a piano anyway.

Yea...i need help creating a piano sound at all. I know its possible cause the dude from death cab for cutie uses a mircokorg to create some sweet piano tones. any suggestions?

and i can't download any patches cause i have no MIDI/USB cable yet.

to recreate a piano sound that sounds anything like a piano, you will need MUCH more advanced synth. the microkorg is good for fun, strange sounds, but for the price, you can't expect it to sound anything like any acoustic instrument

get a micro-x

Well if the guy from death cab can do it on his microkorg, then i can too.

he probably uses it to trigger another sound module or rack module through midi.

yeh that'd be the only way.

sorry dude

if you want something new, something like the X50 would be great.

cheapest option for a piano sound would be to pick up an old rompler rack
unit, like an old roland jv series or somethin
or see if you see a second hand triton rack goin cheap.

or there are many keyboards new or old that would do the trick.

but to simplify everything for you
there's keyboards that use synthetically generated wave forms as its source material, and usually filters this signal, may modulate its frequency or do other weird and wonderful things to it, and may run it though fx, and supply the user with various modulation options to get a sound.
these are great for getting specific types of sounds that dont really sound like acoustic instruments at all, though many classic synth sounds are from people attempting to recreate 'Real' sounds using this archetecture and without samples.

then you get keyboards that are based around samples, often stored to Read Only Memory (where the word ROM comes from)
samples are edited recordings of real instruments
someone presumably sat down with a piano and sampled a few keys, and transposed these samples over the rest of the keyboard. this is sometimes called a multisample.
the keyboard comes with a selection of these multisamples
this multisample is often layered, run through filters and various fx etc etc
and often has various modulation options
but most do not have sampling capabilities for the user to make your own samples. these are nicknamed ROMplers

some keyboards have their own sampling capabilities, letting you record or import your own samples, most keyboards dont have this capability.
this sample is often layered, run through filters and various fx
and also often has various modulation options
these are samplers

you get keyboards that try to combine multiple things
like sampling, Rompler attributes and maybe a sequencer
these are often marketed as workstations


for pianos and "real" sounds, piano's its best to get a Rompler keyboard
for best synthetic sounds... get a synth

i dont know who sold you a microkorg telling you it could do realistic piano
with a simple 2osc synth engine, (which does include some more complex synth waveforms...which can get some keyboard like sounds)
no samples and 4 notes of polyphony..

there's a lesson here in doing research before buying gear.

heres what you want
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rompler
get this
be happy

This is gonna sound like a shameless plug, but may I recommend "Welsh's Synthesizer cookbook" on eBay? It features a patch that can be programmed and actually sounded great on my alesis micron, so maybe the MK would be able to do an alright job of it..

TrondC wrote:to recreate a piano sound that sounds anything like a piano, you will need MUCH more advanced synth.

more advanced - not nesscarily, besides thats like comparing apples to oranges. different type of synthesis or sampler, or rompler, ..yes.

you dont look for a authetic acoustic piano sound out of subtractive synthesizer like you wouldn't look for a resonant sweeping envelope saw on a acoustic piano.

plosive wrote:

TrondC wrote:to recreate a piano sound that sounds anything like a piano, you will need MUCH more advanced synth.

more advanced - not nesscarily, besides thats like comparing apples to oranges. different type of synthesis or sampler, or rompler, ..yes.

you dont look for a authetic acoustic piano sound out of subtractive synthesizer like you wouldn't look for a resonant sweeping envelope saw on a acoustic piano.

true
but this guy did
lol

when I used to own a functional MS2000R I did manage to create a patch which had some close approximations of a piano through the low and midrange, on the higher end it started sounding much more synthetic. I probably could have gotten it even closer had I spent some more time tweaking, but I preferred the sort of organic/electronic characteristics of the sound. I know I've read at least a couple of threads where the same question was asked and the suggestion was to use the DWGS and select one of the electric piano waves. I guess that would be quite a few peoples' reasoning, but in fact the piano is a struck string instrument, so when my random fiddling on the synth started to resemble a piano somewhat I decided on using a bass sound as the basis instead. worked out pretty good until the the module stopped outputting any sound at all.
currently have patches I made of a similar nature on both my Nord Lead 3 (more synthetic sounding) and Korg Radias R (surpringly good imo, though it's still not going to fool anyone into believing it's the real thing, but then I like it that way). have a couple of variations on the Radias, one arpeggiated and using a decent amount of delay, and another more straight forward with a little less effects. anyway, if I wanted a more realistic piano sound I'd either try to record the real thing or grab a rack rompler with decent piano patches, either something manufactured by Roland or E-mu within the last 10 - 20 years.