I've been researching because I wanted to have a digital piano.
The first question that surely will come to your mind is "Why digital, why not accoustic"?
Well, there are some advantages with digital pianos, the first one (I hate) is the possibility of headphones, as where I live I wouldn´t be able to freely practice... neighbours...
The other main thing is that a decent upright is very very expensive for my budget, and I don't want a potato piano, I really don't want it.
It seems that I'm too demanding in matter of sound... so I started my research on the affordable digital (stage pianos) and the result was a TREMENDOUS disappontment!! Those "pianos" (if you can call them so) are toys in matter of sound!! You can't make any nuances in those instruments, the color doesn't change at all, the dynamics are ridiculously poor... the only good thing I've found is the hammer action on some models, pretty much like the real thing (because they actually have the real thing inside, mechanically speaking)
So, I understood the budget would be higher than expected (finally unaffordable)
The digital piano wasn´t an option either.
And just for morbid curiosity I started to pay attention and listened to the top notch grand digitals such as this beauty:
and I found that this stunning digital grand was awful as well as the cheaper ones!!!
I couldn't understand why someone would pay a fortune for that!
I continued my research and I found that the basic problem of these instrunments (devices) is the polyphony, even the extremely expensive ones have less tahn 300 notes of polyphony.
That's what make those pianos uncapable to reproduce the extreme resonances taht occur inside the real piano, which are extremely complex to calculate for a convincing emulation.
If you listen to that Yamaha N3, you´ll perceive only the clean notes that each key triggers, but nothing else is there, nothing else at all!
So when I understood the core of the problem I found a solution, the VST pianos. You can add any polyphony you want and the older notes you play will never be killed by new notes.
I installed Fazioli by Imperfect Samples.
The result was better, the color now changed properly, and the dynamics were much better... but it still wasn´t completely satisfactory. Something was missing there.
Even with the symphatetic resonances, I found the mass of the sound was really poor, specially while stressing the instrument with extreme performances.
I started to learn about the cosntruction of the virtual instruments and i really got amazed about the infinite flexibility of those instruments. You can really do whatever you want in matter of customization.
First of all, I colored the dynamics of my piano with some enrichment process that were managed by the velocity parameter (the force you play with). That made a very obscure pianissimos and very open and stressed fortissimos.
And I added four systems of resonators (symphatetic) that are triggered when the damper pedal is down in combination with stressful performances.
The result is this:
Now I really can express my emotions in my digital piano
I hope you like my story, and my piano!
The first question that surely will come to your mind is "Why digital, why not accoustic"?
Well, there are some advantages with digital pianos, the first one (I hate) is the possibility of headphones, as where I live I wouldn´t be able to freely practice... neighbours...
The other main thing is that a decent upright is very very expensive for my budget, and I don't want a potato piano, I really don't want it.
It seems that I'm too demanding in matter of sound... so I started my research on the affordable digital (stage pianos) and the result was a TREMENDOUS disappontment!! Those "pianos" (if you can call them so) are toys in matter of sound!! You can't make any nuances in those instruments, the color doesn't change at all, the dynamics are ridiculously poor... the only good thing I've found is the hammer action on some models, pretty much like the real thing (because they actually have the real thing inside, mechanically speaking)
So, I understood the budget would be higher than expected (finally unaffordable)
The digital piano wasn´t an option either.
And just for morbid curiosity I started to pay attention and listened to the top notch grand digitals such as this beauty:
and I found that this stunning digital grand was awful as well as the cheaper ones!!!
I couldn't understand why someone would pay a fortune for that!
I continued my research and I found that the basic problem of these instrunments (devices) is the polyphony, even the extremely expensive ones have less tahn 300 notes of polyphony.
That's what make those pianos uncapable to reproduce the extreme resonances taht occur inside the real piano, which are extremely complex to calculate for a convincing emulation.
If you listen to that Yamaha N3, you´ll perceive only the clean notes that each key triggers, but nothing else is there, nothing else at all!
So when I understood the core of the problem I found a solution, the VST pianos. You can add any polyphony you want and the older notes you play will never be killed by new notes.
I installed Fazioli by Imperfect Samples.
The result was better, the color now changed properly, and the dynamics were much better... but it still wasn´t completely satisfactory. Something was missing there.
Even with the symphatetic resonances, I found the mass of the sound was really poor, specially while stressing the instrument with extreme performances.
I started to learn about the cosntruction of the virtual instruments and i really got amazed about the infinite flexibility of those instruments. You can really do whatever you want in matter of customization.
First of all, I colored the dynamics of my piano with some enrichment process that were managed by the velocity parameter (the force you play with). That made a very obscure pianissimos and very open and stressed fortissimos.
And I added four systems of resonators (symphatetic) that are triggered when the damper pedal is down in combination with stressful performances.
The result is this:
Now I really can express my emotions in my digital piano
I hope you like my story, and my piano!