Dear friends,
thank you for your comments: a lot of wisdom there (no kidding...) and I am glad that my effort has been scrutinized by such a competent audience (again, no kidding...
)
Yes, your comments are all competent and the diversity among them shows once again that the beauty lies in the eye (ear?) of the beholder.
I agree that the comparison is not very meaningful, and for a lot of reasons; to mention just a few:
- the style of course is not the same
- the recording technique was not the same, essentially because the two keyboards are currently in two different rooms of my house and I could not move my digital recorder, so to record the G-70 I used my laptop running Adobe Audition 2.0, with a Tascam US-144 as audio/midi interface.
- the sounds chosen were not similar, but this makes sense because I used the sounds I like more in both keyboards (Jazz Guitar layered with a vocal sound and Harmonica layered with strings on the T2 and Blowed Alto Sax and Grand Piano X on the G-70). Now, since I recorded the T2 version first, to make the comparison more meaningful I should have chosen similar sounds on the G-70, but the fact is that I don't like the G-70 Jazz Guitar, and speaking of the Harmonica... yes, is good, but not to the point of playing, all exposed, a lead line in a song like this.
On the other hand, the G-70 enabled me to choose for the first time a piano sound, which I was never able to use on the Tyros, because to my ears is too dry and the decay is too fast (so to me the overall result is that it lacks "body"). Of course these are personal preferences, but since I was the one that had to play, the question is: how can you record a decent song if you are using a sound that doesn't inspire you?
So I agree that it wasn't a real test, but my goal was to show you what these keyboards have to offer... and it's a lot!
Now, to address a few specific points:
- it's true that the sound of the Tyros can change dramatically "messing" with the compressor (even more than the equalizer)
- a big plus of the T2 are the multipads (Diki, the percussions you hear at the beginning were added through multipads; I use this technique to beef up a style and also to add tension as the song goes on); the "weird" tambourine is actually a pandeiro: combined with the little acoustic guitar that kicks in a few bars after (a very good emulation of the brazilan "cavaquinho": kudos to the programmer!
), it gives this song a very brazilian feeling. I know that the beat sounds strange, but in Brazil you hear a lot of stuff like this, with that "faltering" groove.
- Roel, the style is custom made: you have a good ear...
and, speaking of frequency response, I use a system by Syrincs that YOU recommended a lot of time ago (do you remember?) Since this system has a (powerful) active subwoofer, it's likely that I tend to reduce the bass frequencies of my T2 a bit, especially with the compressor, hence (maybe) the lack of deep bass when a song is played through other speakers
- Donny, I use the Midjay more as a backing unit; to tell you the truth, the small display and the user interface make it a bit of a nightmare programming things like registrations; I have to admit, however, that both the Tyros 2 and the G-70 have more to offer, sonic-wise.
And... to answer the final remark by Arno, I am currently working on another song, to be recorded again with both keyboards; this time I will try to choose similar instruments (but not to the expense of a lack of inspiration, of course...) and will also try to tweak the global settings on my Tyros 2, so I HOPE that it will sound at least a bit like yours...