Looks like Keyfax is shipping the first of the new Yamaha PLG150-AP acoustic piano card to preorders, which I decided to be one of. Mmmm... anticipation! I'll get to try it with the 9000 Pro and compare it to the old piano card, the PLG150-PF in a few days. Looking forward to a different set of new sounds to play with on my keyboard. Of course I'll throw a couple of comparison mp3's on my website for sport.

Just listened to the demos....very cool. I wish I could afford it for my CS6x! I wonder how it compares to Rolands piano?

Carrie

Dunno, but the "piano shootout" page is still up that has several different piano emulations, including the Roland G1000, in a side-by-side comparison here:
http://www.svpworld.com/tyrospiano.htm

Once I get my PLG150-AP I'll add it to this shootout for comparison. It would be nice if someone with access to a Roland Fantom would participate in the shootout also.

Pro,

Just curious; do you know if there is a return policy for the board if you are not satisfied?

Thanks
Ed

No, actually I don't know what Keyfax's return policy is. I always figured I could sell the AP board or the PF board it could replace on eBay easily if I chose to. Actually I have all of the other boards except the PC (percussion) and the VH (harmonizer) boards anyway so if I didn't like the AP I had planned on just adding to my collection. I think I'm going to like it a lot though - the demos are impressive and I rely almost completely on having an expressive piano sound for my gigs.

Just got a UPS notice that it'll be here tomorrow (Friday, 4/5).

Ok, I've spent about an hour and a half with the PLG150-AP installed in my 9000 Pro and have been comparing it to a 9000 Pro with the older PLG150-PF installed and a Motif ES 8.

First - well I'm not as blown away with the sound as I expected; there are some flaws with the sample transitions in the critical lower midrange that are very disappointing.

Let me start by saying that the AP has a good piano sound; better than the Motif ES famed triple strike "Full Grand" by far (which I always disliked) and better than the 9000 Pro's "Live!Grand" by far, and even better than the PLG150-PF's pianos but not by as much of a margin as the first two instruments I mentioned. The immediate thing I noticed was the high end notes sound extremely realistic with all the overtones I often miss with other piano emulations. It really sounds like an expensive grand piano when you tickle those high notes. The lower midrange sounds a little dull to me, but so do many real grand pianos... I adjusted the velocity curve to "Soft1" and that brought out a little more tone. With the velocity curve on "Normal" you practically have to beat the keyboard to death to get any brightness at all... unless of course you select some of the brighter presets that seem better suited to rock. And the bass piano tones are great with lot of resonance. It's the midrange tones just below middle C where most chording occurs that I dislike, and there is an obvious sample change from G# to A below middle C that outright sucks. From that G# down to D# the samples suffer from sample-slowdown syndrome and they don't sound as realistic as the rest of the tones. It's obvious no matter what preset you try. The PLG150-PF by comparison doesn't have this problem at all, but it sticks out like a sore thumb on the PLG150-AP. This is the AP's biggest flaw IMHO. BTW: the AP piano sounds very "stretch-tuned" to me with no non-stretched variations available.

The PLG150-AP seemingly has one purpose in mind: solo piano playing. It's more expressive than anything I've compared it to from Yamaha so far but I don't have a P250 or the like to compare unfortunately. But that damn lower midrange really seems like a small tragedy for what is otherwise a very nice expansion card.

A quick mention about the other sounds: they are all variations of the acoustic piano, with more/less reverb and EQ and then some have some S/H trickery with questionable usefulness. Pretty much what you expect... no EP's or clavs, although there is an imitation dulcimer patch.

Oh - need I mention that as usual with Yamaha the documentation is POOR! Not one word of how to use this card with the 9000 Pro yet again (I had a lengthy debate with Mark Anderson about this in regards to the PLG150-DR and he told me that they would address this problem in the future - they didn't). And there are parameters that have no definition/description at all in the thin manual, such as "DSP Stage2 (slow/fast)". This means what?

Yamaha includes a CD but there's only 324k of data on it which would've easily fit on a floppy, including demos and plug-in voice data for the Motif, S90, etc.

Is the PLG150-AP worth the money? IMHO, just barely... it could've been better.

[This message has been edited by The Pro (edited 11-05-2004).]

Great review, Jim.
Clear, concise, and unbiased, since I know you wanted to like it more. Nice job.

Jim, thanks for your review; I know that you are planning to add the PLG150-AP to the piano shoot-out, so I wonder: why don't you add also the Motif ES triple strike piano? That would be really

Jim, Great review! But now I'm not sure if I will be satisfied with this is board?

Right now I'm just using a Tyros and a classic Motif. Just curious; do you think this would be a significant upgrade to satisfy my need for a better piano sound?

I know sound is subjective, but I always value the opinion of one such as yourself, that has played a much larger variety of keyboards than I have had the opportunity to do.
Ed

I suspect it would be too dull sounding live with bass and drums. It sounds like you are thinking that way too.



[This message has been edited by alfredo (edited 11-05-2004).]