Topic: How can I create better piano sounds in PSR SX ?

[Fabiofop]

Hi all.
How can I create better piano sounds in PSR SX series using the resources and sounds from the keyboard itself?  Can anyone give me some tips? Thanks.

[EileenL]

Go into voice edit and just experiment until you find something that suits you.
  We all have our own idea's on how voices should sound.

[Graham UK]

Have a look through the VCE edited Voices on this site for Piano's

https://www.psrtutorial.com/sty/OF/index.html

[TiasDad]

A search of You Tube brings up many ideas for you to try ... https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=improve+the+sound+of+tyros+piano

[wibem]

Have a look through the VCE edited Voices on this site for Piano's

https://www.psrtutorial.com/sty/OF/index.html

How can I  load these voice files into my SX keyboard? The voices were created for older Yamaha keyboard. Do they work with the SX keyboards?

[BogdanH]

How can I  load these voice files into my SX keyboard? The voices were created for older Yamaha keyboard. Do they work with the SX keyboards?

It's most important to understand, that VCE files are not voices! VCE files are only settings (modifications) applied on actual existing voice samples.
1. You can put VCE files onto USB stick, which you then insert into keyboard. You can use VCE file directly from USB, or you copy desired VCE files into keyboard user memory -in his case USB stick isn't needed anymore.
2. VCE file work on every keyboard that "understands" VCE file. Result however, depends: if actual voice sample (for which VCE file was created) doesn't exist on your keyboard, then the resulting sound will greatly differ from original -in short: using such VCE is pointless.

Further explanation:
VCE files are not meant for sharing voices among different keyboards. Reason being (as said), to get desired sound by using particular settings (defined inside VCE), required voice sample needs to be present in keyboard.
It's like sharing the recipe (VCE) for omelet: if there are no eggs (voice sample) in the kitchen (keyboard), we will never get desired result.
Now comes the tricky part... If particular sound sample (required by VCE) doesn't exist, then keyboard will try to find the closest match. And the resulting sound can be anything between ok-ish all the way to trash.
The question remains: how do we know if what we hear, actually sounds as intended? That is, how can we know if needed voice sample exist in our keyboard? The only way is, to load VCE into some MIDI software and check for MSB, LSB & PC numbers. Having these numbers, we can then find out if such voice exists in our keyboard (list of all voices can be seen inside "Data List" of particular keyboard -provided by Yamaha).

Bogdan

[DerekA]

How can I  load these voice files into my SX keyboard? The voices were created for older Yamaha keyboard. Do they work with the SX keyboards?

Typically, vce created for older boards will work on newer ones. Yamaha tends to add to the wave sample memory rather than take away. So give them a try.

[dupakos]

Go into voice edit and just experiment until you find something that suits you.
  We all have our own idea's on how voices should sound.

Does SX 700 has voice edit ? I cannot find it ?!

[BogdanH]

Reference manual, page 46.

[Fabiofop]

Hi all. Thank you for all your comments.

But can anyone share their real experience on how have  improved the piano sounds by explaining in detail what combination of sounds and what editing parameters have used?

Thanks

Fábio

[GregB]

This is on an S950, but I think it should apply to the SX too.

My go-to "piano improvement" is to layer the main piano voice with a variation on SmoothTine which I saved as a user voice.  I have part octave 0, both touch sense and offset on SmoothTine set to 64, and I have the voice set EQ +5dB @ 630Hz and -5dB @ 3.6kHz.  The touch sense changes cause the tine to be slightly more prominent when playing quietly, allowing for a "darker" feel.  The EQ changes reduce the "chimey" sound from the tine and make the tine fuller in the lower notes without becoming dominant in the higher ones (the S950 does not have any pitch-dependent sound shaping other than EQ).  I reduced the overall volume of SmoothTine so that it gives the piano sound more body and effect while not being prominent enough to sound like I've layered a tine in there.

- Greg

[BogdanH]

hi Fábio,
I know that might sound philosophic, but it's impossible to "improve" (to make it "better") voice in arranger keyboard. By editing the voice we can only make it sound different than it is (softer, brighter, more/less sustain, etc.), so it better fits the song we wish to play.
I assume what you're looking for, is more "realistic" piano sound...
There are videos on Youtube showing comparison between $1000 el. keyboard and $100000 acoustic piano (plus some in between) and guess what: most people can't tell the difference -if a professional is playing on it!
Of course there are better piano sounds than those in SX and that's why el. pianos exist (i.e. Clavinova). But am I able to tell the difference? Probably not.
Acoustic piano is a "loud" instrument and to sound "realistic" (on SX), keyboard should be connected to good amplifier/speaker system (I mean speakers, not headphones). Only in this case you will get the "brilliance & power" that you're probably looking for. What I'm saying is, pianos on SX actually aren't that bad -F.Chopin would probably disagree on that 

Bogdan

[travlin-easy]

   Bogdan, I disagree with your statement that you cannot improve the sound and make it better. Adding depth, delay, echo and other effects, obviously make the instrument voice sound better. Maybe you cannot hear the difference, but most players hear a significant difference in the overall sound and consider it an improvement in the sound quality of that particular voice/instrument. Additionally, our audiences can hear the difference as well, they tend to enjoy piano performances when they hear the enhanced sounds, thereby, it is an improvement in sound.

Now, I do agree with you about using a high quality PA system, which is why I went with the Bose L1 PAS, and later a pair of Bose L1 Compacts. I, personally, have tried more than a dozen PA systems in every conceivable venue, indoor and outdoor, with small and large audiences, and while I am not a Peabody trained musician, I manage to plink on those keys with sufficient accuracy to keep those audiences entertained. My saving grace, however, has always been my vocals, therefore, I guess I can be a mediocre musician and get away with it.

Just my .02 cents worth,

Gary

[BogdanH]

Hi Gary,
I think it's semantic that makes our disagreement about sound "improving".. In sound, it's many times hard to find right words to describe what we mean.

...Adding depth, delay, echo and other effects, obviously make the instrument voice sound better. Maybe you cannot hear the difference...

I can hear the difference and that's exactly what you say: it can sound better (for particular song/music) -which is why we edit voices. But here we don't "improve" quality of the sound, we only add effects.. we only reshape envelope of existing sound to our liking. For example, no matter how much echo we add, it will still be the same piano (sounding like in "bigger room" even). The sound itself is defined inside wav sample (by amount of harmonics and their levels) and we can't change that on arranger -we need different voice sample (or synthesizer keyboard).
Actually I'm sure we agree.. we just didn't have the same thing in mind

Bogdan

[Amwilburn]

   Bogdan, I disagree with your statement that you cannot improve the sound and make it better. Adding depth, delay, echo and other effects, obviously make the instrument voice sound better.
*snip*

You're both right... Inherently the sample is the sample, and you can't do anything to improve the 'fullness' of the built-in sample. But you can add effects (and I promise you Bogdan can hear them), but to some of us adding an effect doesn't change the 'quality' of the sound. Adding more reverb masks a ton of flaws, and that's what a lot of demos used to do. But what Greg B has suggested sort of does what both of you are suggesting: by layering another sound with a different velocity curve, you can 'enunciate' accents better, and it's not simply by adding an effect, while simultaneously not adding an external sample.

Similar to what pjd is describing with the Montage pianos, where each sample is only 4 or 5 velocity switches, but by switching the piano voice itself at different velocities and layering them, you can create a *really* dynamic piano with the on-board sounds

Greg is spot on.

The thing is, I don't think YRM allows for more than 8 data points (if I'm wrong please let me know, I'm not 100% sure here) but if I've understood correctly, you can either sample 8 notes at once velocity across the entire keybed, or 4 notes across 2 velocity switches (meaning there's going to be a lot of pitch shifting going on). Or you can sample only 2 notes, with 4 layers each (it might be more sample data points, but in the end the limitation is you can't put in as many sample data points in YEM as the manufacturer can). Meaning any downloaded/created piano simply isn't going to contain as much data as the existing on-board sound.

Mark

[mikf]

Bogdan is right. You can certainly change the piano sound, and make it different, but whether it is then better is a matter of opinion.

Yamaha are the biggest piano company in the history of the world, and certainly more than capable of optimizing the PSR sample, which I think they have done quite well on the PSRs I have played.

Many people like to make changes, because, as I said in previous posts they may not be using the piano voice in conventional two handed piano playing, and for them some of the altered voices will sound better  - for their particular use. By all means, try some of those voices. If that is how you play, you might love them.
But I have tried many of those 'improved' voices and when played as a conventional full keyboard piano they invariably sound much worse than the original. Usually because they have been 'thickened up' to make them sound fuller and more satisfying when played just as a rh melody. But because of that they invariably sound fuzzy in the lh, or when big chords are played. As I said, Yamaha are not amateurs when optimizing the piano voice, and most people will not do it better than them.

I have been playing piano for over 70 years, and have literally played hundreds of pianos, acoustic and digital. Own of our forum members (dalekwars) is a very high quality player and earned his living for many years as a Classical concert pianist. For a long time he played the SX900 as a piano and thought it sounded just fine using the pre-set voice, - as did I. Listen to some of those recordings and tell me if the piano doesn't sound 100% authentic. Or listen to recordings by Baartmans.
Now the quality of the sound system is of course important, but you can generally eliminate that as the issue by listening on headphones.

Mike
 

[YvonP]

One thing I don’t like with most piano samples is that they are almost monophonic ( the worse is the CFX! ) I did a little tweak to make them sound wider on my Genos: I divided the keybed in three even zones with Lower, Up1 and Up3 using the same piano sound for the 3 zones, and a different piano for each of the ten registrations that I called « pianos wide ».

The trick is in the pan adjustment of the three zones: Lower is L30, Up1 is 0 and Up3 is R30.

I adjusted to taste each possible sound parameter for all 30 zones: damper resonance, reverb, equalizer, release time ( too short on Yamaha samples, too long on Francesco Massa’s Gran Coda samples, wich by the way are my preferred piano sounds! ), etc.

It’s not totally perfect, because the transition between zones is noticeable and those registrations don’t work well when using OTS.

The purpose is to have a more immersive piano sound like when I play on an acoustic piano, the sound of each note is coming from its position on the keybed: a C1 is not only more bass than a C6, it also comes from the left side of the instrument while the C6 is from the right side ( from the player position, at least ).

It’s all about my desire to enjoy my piano sound when I use headphones.

It works fine with AI full keyboard chord recognition with styles as a solo pianist with a backup band, not OTS as mentioned before.

And for the too perfect to be true sounds like the CFX, I add some chorus to make it sound a little bit out of tune: it’s more realistic because an acoustic piano goes naturally out of tune as soon as the piano tech leaves!

Just my two cents…

[BogdanH]

Many of us don't have a chance to "try" real piano and so it's always interesting to get opinions from those who have (or had) it. I did have a pleasure to listen to real piano few times and it made a BIG impression on me. That was when I realized that piano is a "loud" instrument (has enormous dynamic). I mean, it can sound quietly if playing gently, but even then it has a lot of "presence". And that's why I suggested good speakers with enough power for live performance (or to "test" piano sound quality).

...The trick is in the pan adjustment of the three zones: Lower is L30, Up1 is 0 and Up3 is R30...

-that gives only the player a feeling sitting behind real piano. But in live performance, audience is never in that position: audience can't hear "left/right" piano strings, because they're always listening from the side and at certain distance.
I think, depending on distance between L and R speaker on stage, this can be actually disturbing. That could (and probably does) sound like there are two/three pianos playing on stage: lower keys on left side and high keys on right side. I mean, piano is a single instrument and should "appear" as single (mono) on stage. I think, to add more "volume" to piano (to make it "wide" on stage), it's better to slightly increase Reverb Depth.
-Is just my personal opinion.

Bogdan

[YvonP]

I agree, I don’t do live performances, this setting is for my own pleasure only and is even counter productive for any other use than making piano sounds a bit more realistic.

I think most people visiting this forum are not professional musicians that may find my wide piano registrations useful.

In fact, for my own pleasure again, on black Friday I bought the stage version of Pianoteq at 25% discount and that makes any Yamaha piano samples interesting only for cutting through the mix of arrangers setups.

And I agree that everyone has a different perception of what a synthetic piano should sound like.

Also, many professional musicians will use a single mono amp on stage anyway.

[p$manK32]

and a different piano for each of the ten registrations that I called « pianos wide »......I adjusted to taste each possible sound parameter for all 30 zones: damper resonance, reverb, equalizer, release time ( too short on Yamaha samples, too long on Francesco Massa’s Gran Coda samples, wich by the way are my preferred piano sounds! ), etc.

I was understanding the panning of the 3 zones, one for each voice layer, but I think you lost me at the ‘10 registrations’, ‘30 zones’ part of your explanation. Also what are Francesco Massa grand coda samples??

[mikf]

Ten registrations each with 3 zones is 30 zones. Francesco posted some piano samples here a while back.

Yvonne, your approach to the piano sound is very individual. In all the years of playing piano I have never thought of the sound being that directional. While it’s true that the individual strings are left right and center, the sound board is a single piece, and all the strings resonate to some extent to provide harmonics.
Mike

[p$manK32]

Ten registrations each with 3 zones is 30 zones.

I get that 10x3=30. What’s beyond my understanding here is the mention of 30 registrations to get to a refined piano sound. I guess I  don’t know enough yet about SX zones and registrations, other than there can be 3 layers of voices that can be individually edited and then saved as one registration. I guess I’ll just stay ignorant of this strategy for now

[mikf]

I’m not sure where you get 30 from.  I read it that he says 10 registrations, ie 10 different piano sounds. Each one is a combination of three voices, made by splitting the keyboard into three. You can have three separate zones on some keyboards by splitting. He has left split (bass notes) panned way left, right split. (treble)  panned way right and middle split neutral. Then saves the three settings into a single registration, along with whatever other effect changes he makes to alter the voices.
It’s not complicated, but have I’ve never seen someone say they did this before. Maybe he can post the registrations for others to try.
Mike

[p$manK32]

Mike,
Yes, I meant 30 zones, not 30 registrations in my comment.

It’s not important for my needs right now, but I still don’t understand the concept he is proposing and not sure other fellow newbies here do either. I get the zones and splits programming part of it, but still baffled at the “10 registrations, 10 piano sounds” part of this idea, like I said I must be missing something. Anyone care to explain further? Let’s start from the beginning. On SX we have 3 voice layers (exluding LH) to alter parameters for a piano sound, then can save the new piano voice as a single registration. What’s this 10 registrations, 10 piano sounds about? We can’t combine registrations can we? Do you understand my question?

Thanks

Rich

[YvonP]

I’m sorry if I created so much confusion.

The Genos has 10 registrations buttons, not just 8, so I thought I could tweak 10 different piano sounds to give them the illusion of being wider.

I used the CFX, the C7 studio grand, the PopUpright, in Legacy the ConcertGrand and some other grand piano sounds and 3 of Francesco Massa’s « FM_NewYearPack_21 » samples of a Steinway ( player, ancient and upright ), which are more natural sounding than any Yamaha sample on the GENOS because they have some tuning stretch and some imperfections, making the tweaked SteinwayPlayer my favorite piano sound on-board.

10 registrations buttons using a different piano sound in three keyboard zones each makes 30 settings with specific parameters ( resonance, equalizer, touch sensitivity , etc. ) in a bank entitled « pianos wide ».

At first, the side zones pan setting were L40 and R40. That didn’t sound good so I reduced them all to L30 and R30.

This setup is not perfect but I use it to enjoy as much as possible the arranger Genos as a solo digital piano or with the arranger as a backup band.

If I select the OTS, the split zones separate Up3 from the others and give other bad results.

It’s late now, so I will post soon an example of my tweaks if it can help anyone and would appreciate some feedback.

Yvon

[p$manK32]

I’m sorry if I created so much confusion.

The Genos has 10 registrations buttons, not just 8, so I thought I could tweak 10 different piano sounds to give them the illusion of being wider.

Yvon, No need to apologize for offering up some creative solutions here. But I think my basic question still remains unanswered. How are you actually playing 10 different piano sounds? Are you playing one registration and then switching to another registration while playing to acheive the effect you want?

[mikf]

P$manK32 - you are reading into this something much more complicated than it is. You seem to imagine that somehow he is  blending 10 different piano sounds into one performance,  but that’s not what I read. He has created 10 completely different modified piano voices, and stores one per registration. That’s a completely normal thing. The only unusual thing is how he is modifying them ie by layering three heavily panned voices. He will select them same as you would select any voices stored in registrations ie when you want a different voice. He might use R1 on some songs, R2 on others and so on.
Mike

PS - please use a name or nickname  on your posts, no-one wants to type p$manK32 to respond to you. We all add a name to the post.

[p$manK32]

Mike,

I will use a nickname in the future. In my earlier response to you I had done that but was not consistent in other posts.

I certainly did overcomplicate my understanding of it   The explanation involved use of multiple registrations which I interpreted as they were somehow part of his sound design process. I was just trying to clarify my understanding, but now I get it.

Rich

[kiplis]

Hi.

Francesco Massa’s « FM_NewYearPack_21 » samples of a Steinway ( player, ancient and upright ), which are more natural sounding than any Yamaha sample on the GENOS 

Are these sounds still available somewhere?

thanks

-Kiplis-

[overover]

... Are these sounds still available somewhere?

thanks

-Kiplis-

Hi Kiplis,

Yes, you can still download Francesco Massa’s "FM_NewYearPack_21" by clicking the following link (.ppf size = 448 MB):
>>> https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1GLjpm6yquYmbXTEeHf4c17lbD7hWLz4a&export=download

For the contents of this pack, please see the attached screenshot.


Best regards,
Chris