making the piano sound good ... ?

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Bansaw
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making the piano sound good ... ?

Post by Bansaw »

I just got MOTU Symphonic and I read a few reviews about it knowing it had issues but they mentioned a pretty good piano sample set.

Anyway, I loaded it up and finally got it working in Sonar...
I find that the piano sounds (eg: German) around middle C (up to an octave below and octave above that) are not to my liking. In fact, they sound a bit like a toy piano. Maybe it's my speaker or something(?), but I'm just not happy with them.
Outside that range, the lower end and high end they sound really nice, but its just that mid range where it sounds a bit muddy and toyish.

Even, I like the Cakewalk-TTS1 that came free with Sonar better at this point in time!!

Is there anything I can tweak that would make it sound better?

Sorry if this sounds a bit newbie, but I'm learning...

ps: I have found out in the course of playing it more that if I am more gentle with the keys, then the MSI sounds better.
I can't quite hit them in the same was as with Cakewalk TTS1.
Also, it sounds better through my headphones than my speaker.
Maybe that frequencey range my speaker is not the best at reproducing?

Anything I can tweak inside the Instrument itself ?

thanks,,
Sonar Home 6 XL, Toshiba Sat L500, Win7, 4GB, 500GB, MOTU Ethno, Studiologic 990Xp, UM-1EX MIDI interface, UA-1EX usb sound card
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rodger1811
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Re: making the piano sound good ... ?

Post by rodger1811 »

I own Symphonic and I don't have a problem at all with the Piano's. Of course how you're hearing them will be influenced by your monitors and definitely by your listening environment. You can always eq to taste but I suspect that your issue is your monitors/listening environment.

One of the MOST important things you must do is to make sure that your listening environment is appropriate for listening. Your room may, and likely needs some help with PROPER treatment. Not appropriately treating your listening area is in my opinion the biggest mistake that most of us make when we're getting started. I can tell you with certainty that it needs to be VERY close to the top of your list of priorities. Your ability to make accurate decisions with regard to how things sound will depend on it.

Look at the different velocity curves on the Symphonic screen. That might also help with the sensitivity of your keyboard controller as well.
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Bansaw
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Re: making the piano sound good ... ?

Post by Bansaw »

Yes, I do think my monitors have something to do with it.
When I wear headphones it does sound slightly better.

I am learning that I've got to be more gentle with the keys / velocity. If its too hard then it distorts a little bit.

Another thing I have though is a bit of a sound card issue.
I mix the piano with strings and I'm getting some pops and clicks every few minutes. I guess its a bit unstable.

I use the Edirol UM-1EX usb sound card and have had no problems with it in the past. I have quite a powerful set up and 4gb ram.

If I'm using MSI as a VST plugin in Sonar, does MSI pass over completely the Audio settings into the hands of Sonar, or is there some tweaking I can do in MSI itself?

thanks,,
Sonar Home 6 XL, Toshiba Sat L500, Win7, 4GB, 500GB, MOTU Ethno, Studiologic 990Xp, UM-1EX MIDI interface, UA-1EX usb sound card
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FMiguelez
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Re: making the piano sound good ... ?

Post by FMiguelez »

Bansaw wrote:
I am learning that I've got to be more gentle with the keys / velocity. If its too hard then it distorts a little bit.
There you go... if it's distorting you are obviously doing something wrong.

Lower your gain until you can pretty much bang on it and you don't clip.
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edwins123
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Re: making the piano sound good ... ?

Post by edwins123 »

There square measure many realistic sampled instruments offered, however obtaining a convincing performance out of them will need some programming power. We'll use a piano here for demonstration, however several of those principles may also be applied to different instruments. the nice news is that you just do not essentially have to be compelled to rewrite your MIDI components, however rather refine them.
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