Piano vs Keyboard

[Ludwig]

But synths have their own value, when they are not trying to impersonate another instrument and this is where I think they belong.

I could not agree more. Back in the days of the Juno, DX7 and Polysix instrument makers prided themselves in developing sounds that had never been heard before.

Then came sample playback and all the manufacturers worry about is how good the guitar sounds, how realistic the piano sounds, does the violin sound authentic. I already have a guitar dang it; I don't need a keyboard for that.

Then comes general midi. Oh boy, a new keyboard with 128 sounds just like the other general midi keyboards by the other companies. "Hey, our 128 sounds are better than your 128 of the same sounds!"

I want my synths to play sounds no one has ever heard before, just like it used to be. Sorry for the diatribe.

[fingerpikingood]

you can make your own sounds any way you want using Frequency modulation just like the DX7 did, except nowadays you have even more freedom with it and you can add more effects to it, using a program such as FM8. really cool program. you can make any giant number of sounds you've never heard before.

you can even load in some DX7 presets and then edit themto your liking.

the DX7 was really quite simple in how it worked, and the possibilities for sounds you could create were not incredibly varied, i mean you could make distinctive sounds with it, but still you were quite limited. FM8 has many more features, i think more frequencies you can modulate, more precise ways in which to modulate them, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

if this is the kind of thing you like, then I really think you should go out and buy this. it comes with a bunch of presets of course. but the ability to make your own sounds from scratch is huge.

the learning curve is a little steep at first though. they use complicated words like frequency modulation, and stuff like that, and everything looks so technical in the editing pane, with graphs and buttons and stuff, but once you kind of know what everything does it gets much easier and is in fact not as complicated as it seems when you first look at it.

you could probably find videos on youtube for it, as well as some tutorial stuff for it. it comes with helpful ressources too like tutorials and stuff. as i remember, i haven't used it in a little while from the sound producing point of view, but i seem to recall a tutorial of sorts that showed you how to make an instrument from scratch.


not only does it play sounds you've never heard before, it plays sounds nobody's ever heard before.

you can do cool stuff like making 2 sounds from scratch and then blending them together to get some of the character from one you like and some from the other. this program is really cool if DX7 style (frequyency modulated) synth sounds are your bag.

as for me, ya i like those, but i also like midi drumkits that sounds incredibly real, and pianos that sound incredibly real, and cellos and violins and trumpets and saxes. because i can't learn that many instruments. and i don't have enough money to buy all of those, nor hire an orchestra to play for me.

in the DX7 days though you were basically stuck with frequency modulated sounds for midi, so you had to use those cheap imitations of the real thing. and i found DX7 sounds actually quite boring. you can make much more exciting instruments with FM8.

also there's a bunch of other digital instrument software that comes in the komplete bundles. i think they're at 6 now.

you get FM8 a bunch of other different but electronic or digital typed sound making and tweaking devices. you get kontakt for real instruments, you get akoustic pianos for some pianos, you get guitar rig which is like having a whole collection of amps and effects for your guitar, you get battery also which is for drums and percussions.

so idk, if all that stuff interests you then that's something to look into as well.

the guitar rig stuff is really cool too, you can get a pedal for it too where you can map functions to it, and use it as your wawa. there's a bunch of presets that famous people used in certain songs, like jimi hendrix's little wing setup. a whole bunch of stuff like that. really cool, you basically instantly can make your guitar sound like anything you want.

of course there is the limitation of your guitar, like you won't get your strat to sound exactly like a les paul, but you can put your strat through amps and cabinets, choosing your mic distance and reverb and limiting and compression in kinds of setups similar to what they might have used on some songs you liked where they played a les paul. and all though you won't get all the way there, you can still get pretty close. 80s shreddingm, clean jazz, jimi hendrix, U2 style delayish stuff, pretty much anything you could think of

(this post was brought to you by native instruments) lol

[Marlinark]

Wow, very technical software as you said.

Is this compatible with most amps?
Do you need a type of midi hookup?

[fingerpikingood]

Originally Posted by Marlinark

Wow, very technical software as you said.

Is this compatible with most amps?
Do you need a type of midi hookup?

well really what you'd want in most cases for this is an audio interface. a box that plugs into your computer usb or firewire and in there you can plug your midi so you can control it with a piano keyboard, and also it's good for recording guitar or vocals. i got an edirol ua-25ex second hand almost new for 150$ CA roughly 70quid two inputs for 1.4 inch or phantom power xlr mics. also with midi in the back.

there's a headphones jack on the one i have, not sure how that would work through an amp, but also there are outputs on the back that are stereo either digital spdif or RCA or also 1/4 inch.

so you could feed that for sure into your amp.

trhe other advantage of such hardware is that it allows for low latency recording. iow you could feed your guitar through your guitar rig software, and then use equalizers on it, and compressors limiters, reverb and all that good stuff, and hear your sound with all those effects on it, with a track playing in the background, without any delay between your playing and your hearing what you're playing.

of course for this, a powerful computer is also pretty key.


if you don't get an audio interface though, then you won't really be able to feed it out through an amp unless you get a cable that switches from small headphone jack into 1/4 inch, which would be ok i guess.

and also you'd want a midi input for playing the sounds with your keyboard.

the thing that's important though is that your soundcard is compatible with asio drivers.

this is what audio interfaces are designed to do, but you can also get what's called ASIO4ALL which is a free driver download that is supposed to give ASIO support to regular soundcards. but this is hit or miss. i think audigy soundblaster cards support ASIO.

but if you have that, then ya, any usb midi plug should work i think.

if your card doesn't work with ASIO4ALL or come with its own ASIO drivers, then you'd need to upgrade it because you'll get a delay on your keyboard.

even a small delay is impossible to play with. well technically there will always be a small delay, and even in real like there is the delay of the time it takes the sound to leave your instrument and go inside your ears and your brain process it. but if you go less than 10 milliseconds of delay that's passable. if you can get i'd say less that 6 or 7 then you're real good. without ASIO you're looking at like 40.