Why do most people prefer not layer piano sounds on Kronos?

[benny ray]

I layered some piano sounds for ex. a German Grand on Osc1 and a German Grand on Osc2 for me it sounds a little fuller and has more depth but I would like some more professional opinions on this and the disadvantages or advantages of doing this. I found with E. pianos they were better to my ear by layering sounds using Osc1 and Osc2. Thanks for any input would be greatly appreciated. I just wanted some other opinions and facts that would help in programming piano sounds.

[EvilDragon]

Obviously it reduces polyphony, so if you have other things going on or you play a piece with lots of sustain pedal and you really need those voices of polyphony, you won't use a layered approach.

[AntonySharmman]

Benny , apart from polyphony reasons , there is an essential reason that you mustn't lay two different piano layers together ...
this won't be a real piano anymore , even if those layers come from the same piano , since every time a string vibrates
has always a different behavior , that's why advanced developers use Round-Robin feature on strings development.
Now if do not care about real piano and only want a "fat" piano like sound then you can consider only polyphony limitation.

[Niarf]

Also, you can try layering a japanese and a german, you will notice detunes in higher occtaves, cool ^^

[benny ray]

Yea I get the string vibrations would be different and thanks for the info but as far as Ep it seems to work ok for me especially for the Wurlitzer and Rhodes pianos.

[GregC]

I layered some piano sounds for ex. a German Grand on Osc1 and a German Grand on Osc2 for me it sounds a little fuller and has more depth but I would like some more professional opinions on this and the disadvantages or advantages of doing this. I found with E. pianos they were better to my ear by layering sounds using Osc1 and Osc2. Thanks for any input would be greatly appreciated. I just wanted some other opinions and facts that would help in programming piano sounds.

this is very common. There are several posts where folks have created a combi using 2 germans ( 1 detuned) or a german grand plus a Japanese grand.

I also do this and add strings, bass, drums. I have never experienced a polyphony problem and am heavy footed on the sustain pedal ( for the pianos)

[AntonySharmman]

as far as Ep it seems to work ok for me especially for the Wurlitzer and Rhodes pianos.

Yep ... this is the correct layering Piano-E.Piano-Bells-Strings Pad and never two or more Grand Pianos !
Though absolute panning is another sonic trick for our ears !

[Davd C. Polich]

as far as Ep it seems to work ok for me especially for the Wurlitzer and Rhodes pianos.

Yep ... this is the correct layering Piano-E.Piano-Bells-Strings Pad and never two or more Grand Pianos !

The Kronos is a synth. It's not a real piano. There is no "correct" layering
of any instruments. Do whatever you want on the Kronos. If it sounds good to you then there's nothing wrong with doing it.

[jeebustrain]

My standard live "rock" piano combi is actually 4 Kronos pianos, 3 germans and a Japanese. #1 is standard german, 2 and 3 are slightly detuned (differently) Germans, panned left and right, and #4 is a Japanese that's detuned even more, but at a lower volume and only on the upper 1/3 of the keybed. It makes for a great chorusy, honky-tonk type piano sound that cuts through a loud band really well and sounds really good for Journey/REO Speedwagon type stuff.

I don't believe in rules when it comes to synthesizing sounds - if it sounds good, do it, if it doesn't, don't. I've yet to have someone come up to me after one of the many gigs I've done like this and complain that my piano didn't sound natural enough. Hell, just the act of running a piano sound through a PA to mix with a band is going to take away some of the realism of one.

[SanderXpander]

I can only say personally that, when going for a realistic piano sound, I don't like layering.
But of course, do what sounds good, you can't really break anything!

[AntonySharmman]

I don't believe in rules when it comes to synthesizing sounds

Definitely true when you use Kronos as a synth , maybe I also could like a detuned piano with Uilleann pipes and
a cricket buzzing on top of playing chord but this is not a piano but a sonic phenomenon I might like to experiment with !

Also a computer is not a real piano but the high-end VSTi plugging like Ibory/Galaxy try to precisely emulate the
real pianos and the same happens with SGX2/HD1 , so there are some fundamental rules in piano modeling !
Have you ever seen in a famous VSTi piano development , 2 different Grd Pianos layered simultaneously ?
Don't ever expect to see such a thing ... that's the point of my "correct" statement !
So any of you can synthesize what ever you like but you can never name "Grand Piano" layered mosaic piano sounds.

I think that Benny has already got his answer !

[GregC]

My standard live "rock" piano combi is actually 4 Kronos pianos, 3 germans and a Japanese. #1 is standard german, 2 and 3 are slightly detuned (differently) Germans, panned left and right, and #4 is a Japanese that's detuned even more, but at a lower volume and only on the upper 1/3 of the keybed. It makes for a great chorusy, honky-tonk type piano sound that cuts through a loud band really well and sounds really good for Journey/REO Speedwagon type stuff.

I don't believe in rules when it comes to synthesizing sounds - if it sounds good, do it, if it doesn't, don't. I've yet to have someone come up to me after one of the many gigs I've done like this and complain that my piano didn't sound natural enough. Hell, just the act of running a piano sound through a PA to mix with a band is going to take away some of the realism of one.

i think its perfectly ok to experiment , to customize ' your piano sound'.

as much as I love my Kronos and the pianos, I really crave and have the sound of a 7 foot Steinway in my brain.

so if we find a sense of increased realism by layering a few pianos, I think thats a creative use of the Kronos.

Heck, keyboardists have been stacking their sounds with large rigs since the 70's/80's, esp with the use of midi

[benny ray]

Yea I layered some piano and ep for someone that bought my Kronos X and he loved them but I have heard a lot of people having varying opinions on layering I guess if it sounds good to your ear go for it. I am waiting for Kronos 2 and have been lost without Kronos X just saying.

[Andreuz]

I layered some piano sounds for ex. a German Grand on Osc1 and a German Grand on Osc2 for me it sounds a little fuller and has more depth but I would like some more professional opinions on this and the disadvantages or advantages of doing this. I found with E. pianos they were better to my ear by layering sounds using Osc1 and Osc2. Thanks for any input would be greatly appreciated. I just wanted some other opinions and facts that would help in programming piano sounds.

I say "go for it"! The purist will disagree. However, your ears are what matters. You know the old saying "That's music to my ears" (not someone else's ears... haha). Dang, half the fun of owning this great Kronos keyboard is experimenting with sounds. You should hear some of the sounds I get layering the Kronos on Spectrasonics Omnisphere... no words can describe how amazing that sounds, believe me.

Just my 2 cents,
Andreuz

[jeebustrain]

I kind of equate it a bit to the current state of recording drums. There is so much sound replacement and layering going on over the top of a real drumkit, that it's hard to tell what is recorded and what is a sample. Lots of engineers layer triggered 30-50Hz sine wave pulses along with the kick drum sound and layer white noise on the top of snare drum sounds (if they're not replacing the drum sound altogether). If the end product ends up sounding musical, no one but a purist is going to notice.

It also depends on the genre. I would likely never use my quad layered detuned piano if I was recording (or performing) a classical or traditional acoustic jazz piece. The band I'm in is a rock band that covers a lot of material from the 80s (the heyday of overproduction and "studio magic"), so even the acoustic sounds aren't really acoustic sounds.