Roland Vpiano?

[kensuguro]

Brain, is this what you were talking about?
http://www.roland.com/V-Piano/

Seems to be a physmod piano in there.. I don't know why they insist on calling it "living", and bury it with ambiguous idiot verbage. I hope the model's good. It's nice to see a digital piano authority go the physmod route. Wait 'till yamaha comes out with one, and kawai, taking advantage of their acoustic piano history.

Physmod seems to make sense using hardware dsp (or dsp cards in a PC) since you know beforehand what sort of calculations you're going to do, and so everything can be optimized. But knowing that the model is going to be continuously tweaked and fixed, it'll be a lot of firmware updates... Roland's 700SX was already extremely tweakable, I was wondering if it was a hybrid physmod / samples. I guess I wasn't too far off.

[kensuguro]

http://rolandus.com/products/productdet ... arentId=72

Sounds GOOD! It's of a different class than pianoteq's plastiq synth sound.

[kensuguro]

I guess yamaha's best shot was this one?

http://www.topix.net/content/prweb/2009 ... rand-piano

It's one of those "digital" grands that look like micro baby grands with a speaker in it. Interesting approach was to have the string vibrations go through the keys, which I want on all keyboards!

But man, "4 speakers where the piano was sampled".. they put in all their effort into making a mammoth digital piano, and it's not modeled. Which probably means Yamaha doesn't have any work on physmod pianos, compared to a decade worth of research that Roland's already done. Or are they saving it for messe, I'm not sure. Seems logical if AvantGrand is their flagship, that they'd put in the physmod if it were even remotely ready, considering Roland's release.

It seems to me, Yamaha develops technology to put into these high end products, rather than their CP line, or their stage piano line. As in, most of their technology seems to collect upwards, and ends up in their high end home pianos. For Roland, it seems like all their coolest technology collects in the stage piano department, which is nice. Clearly Roland's a cut above everyone else now.

I'm never going to buy a "digital" grand, considering how old these things become in just a few years. It's hard enough trying to get rid of the p250.. I can't imagine how I'd get rid of a baby grand's worth of obsolete technology when it goes out of date.

[braincell]

It was probably the V-Piano. I will have to ask Michael Metlay when I get the chance. He's at NAMM now. I must say that the V-Piano impresses me more than Pianoteq because it sounds warmer. Nobody would ever guess it's electronic when you make it out of tune! I'm a little skeptical that it can model specific piano models and sound as accurate as samples do. It will surely cost a lot too. It does seem like something I would want just to practice on one day; that and decent monitors and acoustic tiles!

[LHong]

Yeah! I also want the V-Piano too! Roland has done good job!

Yamaha sampling technology as follows Video:
http://www.yamaha.com/yamahavgn/cda/fla ... player.asp
Most of Yamaha Digital-Pianos (today) are using iAFC technology

iAFC (Instrumental Active Field Control)
This sophisticated technology puts you and your performance center stage – creating a richer, warmer and more spacious sonic environment. Using built-in microphones, iAFC picks up the sound and combines it with the D-Piano's internal sound through the rear speakers, making automatic adjustments in real time to enhance the sound and match the acoustic characteristics of the room you're playing in.

Three advanced iAFC technologies (Reveal By Yamaha)
• Dynamic Damper Effect (DDE)
DDE delivers discretely sampled overtones, harmonics and resonance from the rear speakers to recreate the warm spacious sound that occurs when holding down the damper pedal on a grand piano.
• Spatial Ensemble Effect (SEE)
This uses advanced signal processing to recreate the natural reverberation and resonance you would hear if playing a grand piano on a real stage. When playing with another musician or singer, the effect utilizes the built-in microphones to enhance the atmosphere and ambience of your duet performance.
• Natural Soundboard (NSB)
The physical soundboard of a grand piano is one of its largest and most important sonic parts. This effect uses the built-in microphones to create a virtual soundboard producing a rich, expansive, and more natural sound.

Long

[Mr Arkadin]

i'd be interested in this when it trickles down into an RD700-sized/priced piano. This one's a little big for me, but could do with a new one to replace my ailing Kurzweil.

[kensuguro]

the way all these companies try to avoid giving you facts just makes my head hurt. Either they're being obnoxiously secretive, or just have a bad sense of product naming.

Graded Hammer Standard
Graded Hammer Effect

What the hell does that mean? No product discrimination!

I do hope v-piano gets a major size down. It's clear Roland wants to do a premium stage piano with all focus on piano sound, and touch. Which is what many people are looking for! I'm sure the second one will be the one to kick ass.

It's interesting though, because the physmod architecture allows them to market it as "download new updates for free as they become available". And of course, they won't tell you that the matter of fact is "we will determine when the hardware becomes obsolete by the way we write the software". Kind of like pc and macs.

[braincell]

Graded hammer action is just what they call their weighted key action which is not uniform across they entire keyboard. This is to mock the action of a real piano. You would expect shorter, tighter strings to have more bounce. They have used method this for a long time in all their pro weighted keyboards. I like the feel of them.

It would be really nice of the V-Piano will be available without the keyboard.

[kensuguro]

Graded Hammer Standard
Graded Hammer Effect

I meant that by naming, it's hard to tell what the difference is between the two. Actually I won't say just hard, I'd say impossible.

Yeah, a v-piano vsti would be cool, though I suspect it needs optimized dsp.

[braincell]

Just a box would be fine with me. I have a keyboard already and I suspect there is nothing special about the roland one versus yamaha.

[kensuguro]

well, except their escapement simulation which turned out to be a gimmick. I'm okay with yamaha p250's action, roland's pha II isn't bad either. So pha III's got to be better. People rave about the ivory-like finish tho.

[siriusbliss]

It was probably the V-Piano. I will have to ask Michael Metlay when I get the chance. He's at NAMM now. I must say that the V-Piano impresses me more than Pianoteq because it sounds warmer. Nobody would ever guess it's electronic when you make it out of tune! I'm a little skeptical that it can model specific piano models and sound as accurate as samples do. It will surely cost a lot too. It does seem like something I would want just to practice on one day; that and decent monitors and acoustic tiles!

It's impressive, but expensive, and it's still a piano form-factor.

The demos at NAMM were very good - in typical Roland fashion.

Greg

[braincell]

Seems like the best sounding hardware piano. How is the action?

[siriusbliss]

Seems like the best sounding hardware piano. How is the action?

Don't know. Didn't play it - and I'm not a pianist

One thing that's cool about the modeling is that you can start with a grand piano, move the mics, and detune the outer strings (of the 3) to create a 'cocktail' piano.

the demo switched from grand, to honkey-tonk, to cocktail with pretty impressive results.

But it's a PIANO - not a box or plugin.

Greg

[braincell]

That is a good thing that it is self contained. If they can get the price low enough they will corner the market on fake pianos.

I'm sure it sounds good. Does it sound real? Maybe that doesn't matter so much. I'm guessing that it is the most real sounding fake hardware piano yet and a joy to play, provided the action is acceptable.

[kensuguro]

well, jimmy will tell ya, roland's PHA actions are a joy to play. I like 'em very much too. You can check out their 700GX, it uses PHA-II and that's already won the hearts of many players. v-piano uses PHA-III, so it's the new and improved version. What more can you ask for.. hehe.

Comes down to price and size. I'm on p-250, so I'm used to bulk and weight. Not like I move the thing.. but v-piano I think is a little heavier, and bigger, making it one of (if not THE) heaviest and biggest stage pianos out there. Maybe it's not even going to fall under the "stage piano" category. Seems more like a "brick and mortar" piano, with a lot of emphasis on the "brick" part.

Also, I have a feeling that roland isn't going to release a rack version any time soon. From their description, it sounded like they were using continuous tracking on the keys (like vax77 I think) to get their key strike vectors.. which means the model depends on that input. So, while it's possible to simplify the model to be compatible with normal velocity info, seems to model is tied to the specific hardware more than conventional synths. But I guess it's a good thing because with v-piano they accomplished both physmod piano and a vector based non standard piano controller (probably goes way beyond normal MIDI standards internally, like VAX77) at the same time. Both are products in high demand.

[Shroomz~>]

It's certainly not something you can sling under your arm & jump in a taxi with, never mind jumping on a train or something to go for a jam somewhere. You could always buy a 20 foot freight container for it though..

[siriusbliss]

That is a good thing that it is self contained. If they can get the price low enough they will corner the market on fake pianos.

I'm sure it sounds good. Does it sound real? Maybe that doesn't matter so much. I'm guessing that it is the most real sounding fake hardware piano yet and a joy to play, provided the action is acceptable.

My opinion, and my opinion only - is that it sounded very good quality overall, but somehow seemed to have that Roland 'sheen' to it, meaning that they may have added some processing to the main samples. Not sure, but somehow it lacked the 'airiness' that I would expect.

Now note that this was heard at NAMM, over a PA, in a crowded room with soundproof curtains and people jamming noisily in the background - so not the ideal environment.

I also don't see them lowering the price.

Greg

[kensuguro]

personally, I've never been a fan of their piano sounds... it sounds like all the parts were made of platinum or something, just over resonant and zzziinging everywhere. My hands would fall off if I played a real grand to sound like a roland piano.

I guessed that their preference wouldn't really matter since it was physmod. Theoretically, if 2 companies modeled the same piano, and if the model was accurate, then the 2 models should end up sounding fairly similar right? Or else what's the point of modeling?

But I guess even if the model was right, the process of sampling the piano (virtually micing it) comes in to play, and that's where each company would build its character... ideally you'd just pick your mic setup and get rolling. I mean, theoretically, you'll need set up your virtual mic where your speakers are, to get proper perspective. And if you want to get into more detail, the virtual mic has to compensate for the frequency characteristic of your speakers.

[braincell]

I am sure Yamaha is working on it now. I prefer the Yamaha sound to the "Roland sound".