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On Sunday evening I was doing a concert with my Kronos. I took a couple of minutes in the middle to demonstrate the technology to the audience. I showed them how some songs are accompanied with KARMA and others are prerecorded tracks.

Then I pointed out how the Kronos gives me the choice of "Steinway," "Yamaha" and "Bosendorfer" concert grands and played a little on each one. It was amazing to see the facial reactions of several in the audience. One lady could be seen mouthing to the person beside her, "I don't hear any difference!," which summed up the reaction of many.

I'm amused at the number of hours we spend critiquing piano timbers. Most people in our audiences don't care. They just want to hear good music. I've known this to be true for decades, yet I still find myself stressing over which piano to use. It's true that not all digital pianos are created equal, but as long as it's a quality instrument most people won't notice the difference.

On a side note, I had a cool moment demo-ing the keyboard to some students a few months ago. The room also had a very good Yamaha upright. We A/B-ed individual notes on the upright and the Kronos. It was pretty scary how much they sounded alike. One of the kids looked at me said, "Wait, I'm confused." Made me laugh!

The audience probably can't pick out the differences, but we can.... We are the ones playing and good sounding instruments inspire us to make that good music that they do appreciate and understand. We can't give them that that they love if we don't start with something that inspires us.

I hope that makes sense.

I am curious though what type of venue were you in that allowed the time and opportunity for you to demo the Kronos to an audience.

The best Kronos piano is the one that you like playing the most

most of the non-musical people tend to just listen to the music... but most of the people who played music thinks beyond the music itself.. for example, if we hear a music, we may first identify the chord progression, the melody, and for audiophile musicians, they look for the sound... for example when we hear certain piano sounds, we may think "wow this sounds so good, where does it come from??" i think that's why most audiences didn't care the tools which we make music, they just hear music to pleasure themselves..

back on topic, because i don't have the austrian piano on kronos, then i have to say that the best piano are the kronos german grand (specifically dark german grand 2 s.. i tweak it a little bit..
when talking about piano sounds, it's a matter of taste.. i found that german grand sometimes sound "plastic".. in that case i use dark japanese grand 2 s also with additional adjustment..

runningman67 wrote:The best Kronos piano is the one that you like playing the most

I agree, also it is very subjective what people select.

L. Mays Piano---the best by far!!! Jk, but it is my favorite--love the heavy reverb.

apex wrote:The audience probably can't pick out the differences, but we can.... We are the ones playing and good sounding instruments inspire us to make that good music that they do appreciate and understand. We can't give them that that they love if we don't start with something that inspires us.

I hope that makes sense.

I am curious though what type of venue were you in that allowed the time and opportunity for you to demo the Kronos to an audience.

I completely concur with the idea that we each need to have an instrument that inspires us personally.

The venue was a church concert. As a solo performer, I sometimes introduce my "band," which currently is the Kronos. In this case, I was doing a concert celebrating 30 years in music ministry. I was demonstrating how the technology has changed over the years.

GooseK87 wrote:L. Mays Piano---the best by far!!! Jk, but it is my favorite--love the heavy reverb.

My fave to Goose

I really like the German Grand (A000 of all of them), it has a very classical delicate sound. But the Japanese is stronger, particularly in the bass notes, which is better for live use and pop/rock music.

So I have a custom hybrid program, with Japanese in the bottom two octaves (of the 61), and then German Grand for the rest.

The Austrian is also nice but it is all attack and dies away very quickly. It has quite a 'scraping' sound like fret buzz, so I actually still prefer the German.

I've also got a 2nd version of my hybrid with the Japanese transposed an octave down and layered on top of the German on the bottom two octaves, instead of being a straight split.

My two cents regarding the whole audience can't tell a good piano from a bad one thing.
In my mind this is really a bigger topic. In my playing days, I doubled as the band's sound man. At one point I was speaking with a non musician friend from the audience and expressing my concern over how the mix was sounding. His opinion was that I shouldn't be concerned because the typical audience member can't tell the difference anyway.
I thought about this and came to the conclusion that while they might not be able to identify that the guitar has too many highs or the base drum is too thin or the vocal harmonies aren't balanced, they can, on an intuitive level, tell whether the band sounds good or not. If that were not the case, then why would anyone record in an expensive recording studio when they could just as easily stick a Radio Shack microphone in front of the band and have at it. ( Not to disparage products of the Tandy corporation or its subsidiaries ).
The same goes for individual instrument sounds. An audience member may not be able to identify a particular instrument sound or variation but when they hear a good piece of music played with high quality instrument sounds that compliment the piece they can appreciated it even if they can't tell you the specifics of what they like about the sound.

cyeutter wrote:My two cents regarding the whole audience can't tell a good piano from a bad one thing.
In my mind this is really a bigger topic. In my playing days, I doubled as the band's sound man. At one point I was speaking with a non musician friend from the audience and expressing my concern over how the mix was sounding. His opinion was that I shouldn't be concerned because the typical audience member can't tell the difference anyway.
I thought about this and came to the conclusion that while they might not be able to identify that the guitar has too many highs or the base drum is too thin or the vocal harmonies aren't balanced, they can, on an intuitive level, tell whether the band sounds good or not. If that were not the case, then why would anyone record in an expensive recording studio when they could just as easily stick a Radio Shack microphone in front of the band and have at it. ( Not to disparage products of the Tandy corporation or its subsidiaries ).
The same goes for individual instrument sounds. An audience member may not be able to identify a particular instrument sound or variation but when they hear a good piece of music played with high quality instrument sounds that compliment the piece they can appreciated it even if they can't tell you the specifics of what they like about the sound.

Please don't misunderstand my original point. I'm not saying that the average audience member can't hear the difference between a "good" piano and a "poor" piano. I'm saying that all three in the Kronos are high quality, but that at times we stress over which one is the absolute best. At this quality level, it matters more to us than our listeners.

In support of your point, I often tell my students to keep working even if they think a song is "good enough." The audience may not know why a song sounds better, but they can tell when it does.

apex wrote:The audience probably can't pick out the differences, but we can.... We are the ones playing and good sounding instruments inspire us to make that good music that they do appreciate and understand. We can't give them that that they love if we don't start with something that inspires us.

I hope that makes sense.

I am curious though what type of venue were you in that allowed the time and opportunity for you to demo the Kronos to an audience.

I've heard sounds you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've heard C-beams vibrate in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to play (German Dark).

The main thing is how it feels to play....so with that said, anyone want to add which pianos they actually like? Lyle mays...there's one-
Thanks!

It's the dark German grand for me, with sympathetic string resonance and a good sympathetic dose of reverb. I've finally found something to give my EX5 (15 year old) piano patches a run for their money

I must confess that I downloaded the Berlin piano demo, and was completely underwhelmed by it. Certainly felt it was no improvement on what I have.

It is of course a very subjective subject of course.

I find myself using the Qui Robinez Dream Pianos Collection quite frequently.