With the considerable interest in the recent piano shootout, I was wondering if there is any interest in putting up an extended instrumental shootout? I am prepared to organise and host the mp3's, as before, and prepare suitable midi files for users of various boards to prepare mp3 samples. For example we could have strings, sax, trumpet, brass sections, guitars, whatever you fancy!
Of course it won't work unless I get some dedicated assistance from several different boards. So... what's the verdict? Is this worth doing?

Simon



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Simon G.K. Williams
simon@svpworld.com
Creative Music & Multimedia
http://www.svpworld.com
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Simon, I think that the comparison could work, but only for a few instruments. For example, we could easily compare acoustic guitars; comparing saxophones could be a bit trickier: are we talking tenor saxophones softly blowing a ballad or honking away a rhytm and blues solo?
I think that the most difficult thing of all would be to compare strings: most of times these are used to play a background pad, but how do you compare two pads? It's too subjective...
Maybe it would be better to narrow the comparison to solo instruments with a well defined personality (e.g., speaking of strings, a solo violin or a cello)
Hmmm?

I'll go along with whatever you need from my Genesys.
What we have to consider is that now with the new keyboards we have a wide selection of instruments that sound so real, take for one the SAX what would it be alto, tenor, solo tener, Growl, see there so many to choose from. but anything you decide I'm behind you.

Tony.

I agree dreamer, there would have to be a well defined and restricted set of instruments. Solo should be ok, we could compare 3 saxes (tenor, alto, soprano) where possible, flute, oboe, harmonica, steel string guitar, nylon string guitar, etc... It would be impossible (or difficult) to compare say electric pianos, synth pads, synth brass and other loosely defined ensemble sounds. Strings would be interesting though, say pads... though I think this would be the only one that would work.

Simon


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________________________
Simon G.K. Williams
simon@svpworld.com
Creative Music & Multimedia
http://www.svpworld.com
________________________

Simon,
I think the concept is cool....but agree with Andrea and Tony, that the problem would come in as to which instrument to choose. It was somewhat easier and a fairer comparison with the pianos....the sax for instance...."sweet soprano" on the Yammy's to my ear there is just no more of a realisitc great sounding sax than that and so me bringing that baggage to the table, a comparison would be useless.

I think the other thing to be considered is this......the point of it. I think originally this was just kind of a big boys peeing contest...."my piano's better than your piano." Frankly, I doubt the comparison of them changed anyone's mind from what they thought was their favorite to begin with. I know mine didn't change.

We've heard tons of the demos and stuff now and everyone always says...."it's much better in person" which is no doubt true and I think any of us following all the boards have heard pretty much every board there is by now and unless we're doing it just for the heck of it......

jam on,
Terry

I agree that it's difficult to change one's mind and that we are all biased, in a way or another.....unless the next contest is organized as a blind one: in other words you don't know which sample you are listening to. You just vote and only later we would be told which is which.
What do you think?

Interesting concept indeed.
I don't think there's a webplace like that.
I also agree with Andrea though, as an example; for the arrangers the piano might be easy to choose, on a K2600 it is not as there are lots of piano's even in the internal rom. So I just took patch nr. 1.

Anyway I have no problem to support this as it only takes a few minutes.

Fred

Andrea,
If you look back to the original post about this whole thing....I suggested it be a blinded piano shootout....that went over like a lead balloon I guess.
Terry

I like Terry's idea of a "blinded" sample. Post the results and after a few weeks of evaluation and trying to figure out which sample goes with which synth, announce the owners of the sampled sounds. That will create much contraversy, I'm sure.

For me personally, I'd love to see a comparison of Hammond B3 sounds. Some synths have drawbars, others claim to have the best leslie effects, etc. I would love to see a shoot out on this sound.

Just my 2 cents.

Al G

I like Terry's idea of a "blinded" sample. Post the results and after a few weeks of evaluation and trying to figure out which sample goes with which synth, announce the owners of the sampled sounds. That will create much contraversy, I'm sure.

For me personally, I'd love to see a comparison of Hammond B3 sounds. Some synths have drawbars, others claim to have the best leslie effects, etc. I would love to see a shoot out on this sound.

Just my 2 cents.

Al G

Well as I am putting together a "fuller" tyros review with voice samples, it's not going to "break the bank" to link some of these on another page within a table comparison of other boards. It appears that quite a few of you are interested, as long as we can get a few boards then even if the voice differences are somewhat diverse between different machines, it might prove interesting. This isn't so much "my sax is better than yours", but something for those who are after a particular "sound" when choosing a new machine. We have already seen that everyones opinion on what is regarded as a good piano differs, so its a personal thing. This isnt a competition, more of a neat way to give prospective customers of different boards an idea of how different "key" instruments sound on different boards. This would be extended to percussion too, a simple drum pattern could be easily replicated on different machines. We could compare a simple piano/bass/drums set, etc....

Anyway I'll put together the tyros end of things and we can see where it goes from there. Don't send me anything yet, I'll post you all if and when I intend to go ahead with this idea. Generally it seems a worthwhile project, as long as it doesnt get out of hand and take up all my webspace!

Rgards
Simon



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________________________
Simon G.K. Williams
simon@svpworld.com
Creative Music & Multimedia
http://www.svpworld.com
________________________