How far have Keyboard sounds come?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mongoo
  • Start date Start date
M

Mongoo

New member
My friend and my family both have pretty expensive ($1,000 - $2,000) keyboards, but they do not sound what I would consider good.

How far can you really take a keyboard? I'm talking about realisim. What keyboards or moduals have the most realistic tones/sounds for a whole variety of instruments? Such as piano, ethnic stuff, strings, ect.? Are there any out there that can fool even the most trained ear or is that just a pipe dream?

Thanks

Mongoo
 
Mongoo said:
My friend and my family both have pretty expensive ($1,000 - $2,000) keyboards, but they do not sound what I would consider good.
Click to expand...

What kind of keyboards are they?
 
Most good keyboards with a sampling option(i.e. Motif, Triton, Fantom, K2600, etc.), have the facilities to faithfully reproduce many, many sounds. But first, care needs to be taken in the programming of the samples (I have yet to hear factory presets that sound 100% accurate, and most don't even come close). Secondly, the best samples and programming in the world will meen absolutely nothing with out proper playing techniques. Not to say your playing technique is bad, but remember, for example, you will never get a good Cello recreation playing like you would normally play piano sounds.
Unfortunately this is where most keyboards fall short (and Software usually excels), is in the emulation of the styles (Even if the samples are stellar).
It is by far easier to record rough approximations of what you want (with your favorite MIDI sequencer, or the keyboards own internal sequencer), and then fine edit the performance afterwards. Using MIDI CC's etc.
There are plenty of good tutorials on the web. Such as this one http://www.iaekm.org/0401_fe_3.html and there are many that are more precise as well. Check the websites of some of the big music publications, as they often have links to such tutorials. Or do a search for something like "Orchestra Playing with MIDI" (Which I used to find this link as an example). Well I wish you luck in your search
 
Hey! Are you following me from forum to forum??? ;)

I just made another post in the thread on the DPS24 board.

Another thing to consider regarding realism, trying to play a realistic sounding violin on a keyboard, even with magnificent samples is very difficult. A good portion of the character of a given instrument is defined by how the performer interacts with the instrument. There is something inherently problematic with trying to play instruments whose sounds are produced in a completely different manner on a keyboard no matter how skillful you are.

Ted
 
Last edited:
other controllers?

Are there other midi contorlers out there that allow you to play or articulate those kinds of things you mentioned?
 
There are a number of alternative MIDI controllers out there. There are MIDI Guitars, MIDI Violins, MIDI Wind controllers and other completely different kinds of controllers. Google "alternative midi controllers".

Ted
 
Who's following who? What? I'm confused!?!?! (nothing new there>>>LOL!!!:)

Tedluk is right too.

As far as controllers go check this site http://www.synthzone.com/ctrlr.htm
It has almost every controller you could ever want. Be sure to check out the Zeta site Electric/MIDI violins. Also check the Yamaha website, as they have a wind controller (I think it is model# WX5).

Also of worthy note:
Be sure to study up on the real instruments, that you wish to emulate. It pays to know their limitations (i.e. Wind intruments can't play multiple notes simultaneously, and you will never hear a Picollo flute playing a C#1 as example). Try to learn (at least basically), how the players play their instruments (How they attack strings with a bow to achieve different sounds). If possible try fiddling (No pun intended) around with the actual instruments. I'm not saying you need to learn how to play all these instruments like a pro (But hey, the more you can the better), but any experience you can get, will reward you with many benefits, and will surely give you better perspective in your compositional endeavours.
 
what i do is simpel and cheap:

i got a junky Roland E38 keyboard, which i only use for Midi (since the built in sounds are .....cough...junk)
so i connect this keyboard to my Creative Extigy, and i load: SOUNDFONTS

no expensive software or complicated samplers, no hassle with latency and those vst instruments

whats so cool about it? i build my own soundfonts,
i record some sounds, lets say a guitar,
i record each string in a few different ways: played REAL hard, soft, with plectrum, without

then i can put several different samples (of one string) on one keyboard key,
if i hit the key soft, you'll hear a soft guitar-string-sample,
if i hit a little harder, you'll hear another sample, a little louder,
and if i hit real hard, i can choose to hear that same guitar string but when its being hit by a hammer,

i can add another nice thing; if you got a keybaord with aftertouch you can mess with that too,,,,put some modulation on the aftertouch and sometimes this makes your samples sound a bit more realistic

it might sound like a hassle doing all this, but once you know how it works its Big Fun, and you can achieve some nice realistic results

but if you just download Soundfonts,,,mhhh, then most of the time you got crap, one-layered soundfonts aren't that cool

the cost of all this?

emhhhhhhh i started doing this stuff with a creative 5.1 card,
costed me like $30 or something,

its a little more work than just buying a $2000 keyboard,
but its awesome

:D
 
Soundfonts are a viable alternative. Especially since most good samplers (kontakt, EXS24, etc.) can convert soundfonts to their native format. So you can start with what you have, and when your ready to take the samples to the next level (and funds are available), get your-self one of these higher-end soft samplers, that will afford you more control over your samples. Sorry, I know this is bit of subject. You could convert them into other hardware formats as well S1000. I personally recommend Awave Studio 9.1 http://www.fmjsoft.com/ It reads 240 formats (Synth, Software, etc.), and writes 120 formats. A little pricey, but if you have a lot of different hardware/software formats, it makes integration of your samples so much easier than programming multiple times, and justifies its price.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top