Originally posted by Ensnareyou:
I wish I knew what people meant when they say that Yamaha arrangers sound "CD" like. Being a professional recording engineer and producer for over 25 years I have never once recorded anything on CD that sounds like what I've heard on Yamaha's arrangers. Thank God! Even their TOTL arrangers with the exception of a few SA instruments aren't even close in sound to live instrumentation that I've recorded. Yamaha's weak drum sounds have already been talked about here ad nauseam so certainly Yamaha hasn't seemed to hit the mark in that department either which is a shame given their excellent Custom Series Drum sets they manufacture.
To me a great "CD sound" is one that has been well engineered, has incredible dynamic range, and sounds organic, open, and airy. Good examples of such CD's are most anything released by GRP Records or recorded by George Massenburg. To me when someone says something has a polished sound I think of works by Trevor Horn, not the anemic over compressed sound of a Yamaha arranger. Trevor Horn's sounds is certainly a polished sound one would never achieve using factory sounds from any Yamaha arranger.
Of course you wouldn't nor would any from the perspective of someone who spends their life dealing with minutia in the recording process on a recording using the best gear available. Average Joes like me can view it as polished and CD as well as many players in this and other forums. The sound is considered too "CD like" too "slick"m "machine like". That's not a compliment for many and a stated detriment to using the Tyros. For others it's exactly what they want!
Ordinary people just don't listen with the same "ears" as those who deal with this stuff in a very high detailed level everyday.
Besides that, most of what is coming out of major studios today is very highly compressed with little dynamic range to make them loud and in one's face for 3.5 minutes. Something akin to what the Waves L2 would do to a track.
I would add most people do not actually "listen" to music. They "hear" it as a back ground soundtrack to whatever else they are doing at the moment.
In that regard we are really splitting hairs when comparing Arranger keyboard tracks. One thing I have learned about record producers/engineers at every level. They don't agree or use the same processes and/or gear. They are all critics. That's why I focus solely on the average Joe Plumber when painting my musical canvases. It's amazing what people don't hear and what passes off as real. We get to use that to our advantage.
The gear is out there to make great sounding CD's at home. The demise of commercial Recording Studios are proof of that. Between that and regular folks lack of listening skills, we are fortunate our work is considered worthy at all. Who cares if Trevor Horn or David Foster likes it? Really? They are not our market. Joe and Joan Sixpack are and they are easy to please.
[This message has been edited by Kingfrog (edited 10-26-2008).]
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