Wouldn't it be nice....

[preth]

Hello Fusioneers! Wouldn't it be a nice idea to create a downloadmap on this site with acoustic piano's only, programmed in rom by Fusion owners? I am still looking for the right acoustic piano. Tried to program one or two myself but still not satisfied: when using the sustainpedal (Roland DP) something noisy comes with the pianosound. Love my Fusion, except for the acoustic piano's... For example listen to the Roland Juno DI or Korg M50 mp3 The Path Of Truth by Jordan Rudess!

[froggy54]

I agree with you, acoustic pianos are correct but not more. Compared to other synths, the Fusion is a bit weak on this side.
The Hollow sun or KPR piano libraries are not bad but (at least for me) you don't get the "piano" feel with it.
Electric pianos are not as good as those from other manufacturers also.
I've never been able to get really good pianos and that's why I completed my rig with a GEM RP-X piano module wich is more than great for 350 €.
Of course, GEM is out of business but this incredible piano module can still be found in Germany (Music Store) and it's for me the perfect complement to the Fusion. Great acoustic (the Fazioli is beautiful) and electric pianos (Rhodes, Wurli, FM, CP80) and other less useful sounds for 350 €, those who can afford it should check it out.

[lizardking]

Feb 3, 2010 20:12:54 GMT froggy54 said:

I agree with you, acoustic pianos are correct but not more. Compared to other synths, the Fusion is a bit weak on this side.

Go to the Kurzweil user boards. Kurzweil has one of the best pianos in the business and they still have thread after thread after thread complaining about the piano.

The fusion piano is certainly good enough for anything I'll ever ask it to do. And I haven't even downloaded the Hollow Sun grand piano yet.

[froggy54]

Though I really love my Fusion and wouldn't sell it for anything (well, ... maybe for a whole lot of money ! lol), I think the comparison between the holy grail piano from the Fusion and the Pianos from a PC2/PC3 or even the MicroEnsemble is clearly at the advantage of the Kurzweil.
Kurzweil users, as far as I know, don't complain that much about their pianos. As I said before, the pianos from the fusion can do it "drowned in a mix" but I can tell you that I get a huge difference when performing live a song with a piano as the main instrument.
The Fusion is the main keyboard of my rig, synth sounds are great, organs are Ok and the polyphony/polytimbrality combined with the song mode are just priceless live.
But it's just WEAK compared to the Gem RP-X when the piano+voice ballad time comes !

Of course it would be unfair to compare the Fusion with an expensive stage piano (Korg SV-1, Roland V-Piano, ..) but I think this 350 € piano module sounds and plays way better than the sampled Fusion pianos. Check it !

[Hollow Sun]

Mar 1, 2010 19:18:07 GMT froggy54 said:

But it's just WEAK compared to the Gem RP-X when the piano+voice ballad time comes !

Amazing little module.

That uses modeled piano sounds rather than samples though and seems to be derived from the wonderful (and, like Fusion, very underrated) Promega.

[froggy54]

You're right Steve, the Promega 3 (and 2) were precursors !
kind of a Korg SV-1 but 7 years before.
a good review here www.soundonsound.com/sos/May03/articles/gempromega3.asp
the main cons : really heavy (remind me the Fusion).
It seems that Rick Wakeman used it on stage.
The GEM RP-X is a small module with the same great sound and can be used as a preset machine though you can tweak effects and a couple of parameters with the included software.
Notice that up to 16 sounds can be layered or splitted (a real shame that a Korg SV-1 can't do that !)
otherwise 64 to 80 notes poyphony (manual is not clear)
only 8 reverb + 8 modulation (tremolo, wha, ...) + eq

[kpr]

Everything what's possible with the HG Piano in the Fusion is already done, no chance for a further improvement. On the other hand the HG is not bad at all and it is limited in a way like any other workstation Grand Piano. The Motif, M50 etc. pianos are not better, they are different and limited in other points too. The only chance is to load another multisample into the Fusion and here starts another problem: The limited RAM. As the internal HG is compressed a RAM loaded GP is not. This is not all, most important is the general sound character and a Steinway multisample is different than a Bösendorfer and even within the manufacturer's instruments range there are so many differences. If someone is really interested in getting a piano into the Fusion, and it depends on the personal taste and approach what that might be, then he simply can do it. I know that it is inconvenient, a lot of work and even the result might still not that what is expected. Everything else is wasted time and chat but no meat.

[markone]

One thing that intrigues me about the HG piano, is that the FF samples are (I think) reused in the Bright Jazz Piano, and they sound georgous in the upper registers, but in the HG piano, the upper register FF samples are quite heavily filtered. I suspect because otherwise there would be a big jump in tonality going from the MF samples.

But I just can't help thinking that I'd prefer that - I like a nice bright piano! And to me the big issue with the HG piano is that while when you dig in and play hard the lower register gets that nice FF growl, the higher register just doesn't seem to get bright enough (again for me - these things are so subjective) The much revered Kurzweill triple strike piano definitely has that bite in the higher registers when you play FF.

For my recording needs I tend to go to the NI Akoustik bosendorfer model, but live I mostly have ended up on the bright jazz piano, because it cuts through nicely.

[froggy54]

True ! A good piano is something subjective and changing with the song you play or the way you feel or the weather or the price of oil or ...
As said Klaus, the holy grail or any other piano sampled in a few Mb can't compete with Gb software monsters. It's just a personnal opinion but I think you can find decent but not breathtaking pianos in nearly every workstations (even 10 years old workstations) but the playablility (the way the sound respond to the touch) is better with physical modeling. I'm no Piano Virtuoso but I find the sound more "predictable" when I play physical modeled piano. No sample or velocity switch surprise, it's natural, fun and easy to play !

About physical modeling, this demo sounds good ! www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5YuCSaQ8vo&feature=related and www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABAyHApFjH8&feature=related

At home, I spend hours playing the CP80 and others !
Still our sampled pianos (I mean hardware pianos) are quite usable !
I never tried a monster soft piano but I just can't play live and rely on a 200 Gb piano + laptop + audio interface + 2 mn loading time though I'm sure they sound great.

[kpr]

I'm with you froggy and Grand Piano V-Switches is not that great unless there are many. I did those single dynamic GPs two years ago where I tried to simulate the dynamic response with the filter cutoff. It's this kind of old school sound design, but frankly it failed in a way, so I even took the collection off and although I shared this for free it is a discontinued product now. We discuss the GP issue frequently and there is still no "everybody's darling" result on the horizon. Surely I could try to make a GP with let's say 5 or 6 V-Switches, create everything in Awave, and move it to an RAM expanded Fusion just to see what happens. But I am very sure that perhaps it will satisfy me, but anyone else? It will be risky and I don't have the time for risks at this moment. I had this great Roland V-Piano here for a few weeks to write the article for Amazona and really, I wanted to keep it just because it delivers this incredible dynamic range. On the other hand huge sample-based GPs like the Steinberg The Grand are offering something different and also very good timbre, dynamics, etc. But both are not movable into the Fusion, so I guess that the GP issue will be one what we simply can skip when it comes to the Fusion. The ones that are available are nice alternatives to the internal HG, inexpensive and ready-to-use too, but actually that's nearly the end of any GP venture for the Fusion. Perhaps psionic will do the C7 conversion including the big big work to reduce the size and number of samples to fit it into the Fusion. This might demonstrate if there is any more help or not. In the meanwhile I prefer to use the enhanced HG with this special EQ setting instead of those from the ROM.

[Jesse]

Have you tried these settings with the HG piano
fusioneer.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=usersounds&action=display&thread=1832

[christianrock]

I actually quite like your Grand Piano sound package, Klaus I mean, just the Yamaha samples, everything else really isn't useful.
And I've tweaked the presets a bit for my use. But after I got it, I sold my Roland SRX-11 (and the Fantom I used it in, too), I did some side by side comparisons and the sound quality of your samples really came ahead, and they were quite playable even though they were not multi-velocity samples.