Fran, just one thing, if you are ever performing on a cruise ship and it starts to sink, DON'T try to save the Roland. You will sink and be eaten by fish.

DonM

Don, I would hope that it floats..that way it could save several people...

One thing for sure ..it has already saved my butt a few times..

Ok, we can accept that it's just for fun and demonstration I think. Not saying any one board is better than another.. Remember these are recordings from a midifile and as such only the GM voices will play from each of the synths / arrangers I used anyway.

I recorded them exactly as they played from each module ( all on one track ). I did do some very basic mastering ( compression, normalization and slight eq ) to each afterwards, using the exact same settings for each file.

So... here are my recordings from each of the following:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MHZLMHQO SGM180 ( software soundfont )
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=X4OQHUYH MZ2000
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RNDBY1S1 PA80
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1I4SY6AX Motif ES

Personally, my favorites in order of preference are: ( I rated them 2 ways )

I bet I get some that disagree.. Which is why we say sound is subjective in the first place.

For the best in the lead voices ( Guitars and Saxes ) :

1- SGM180
2- MZ2000
3- PA80
4- Motif ES

For overall instrument sound quality and cohesive mix:


1. PA80
2. SGM180
3. MZ2000
4. Motif ES


I did not change any of the voices. If I had, I'm sure the ES would have moved up to or near the top in both categories.

AJ



[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 05-15-2006).]

AJ, thanks for your efforts..

I agree with your first opinions SGM180 is the best..On your second opinion I am inclined to pick the SGM180 over the PA80..

I also tried the SGM180 , but I thought the G1000 was better...
The SGM180 was better than my other soft synths though..

Overall, I think the G1000 wins easily...The Tyros2, I would place after all but the Motif[I thought it was poor]..

BTW..your test also confirms "newer is not always better" .

A 6year old MZ2000
a 5 year old PA80


[This message has been edited by Fran Carango (edited 05-15-2006).]

Thanks for the listen Fran. Yeah I'm a bit surprised that the MZ gave such a decent account of itself. Really, mainly the drums drop it in quality vs the other two I put up. ( I'm not even considering the ES here because it is so bad for midifile playback that it really kinda belongs in a world of it's own ). The lead/panel and non drum GM voices on the MZ are pretty danged good for an "old" board. Of course I always knew that anyway. It's actually a better complement to the PA80 for playing live than the ES is, since it does do midifiles fairly well. It's some of the styles that kinda kill it as an arranger, mainly because some of the drumkits aren't up to par.


Just for the heck of it..and in order to make it a "fair" fight, I took the liberty of remastering both Donny's and your original MP3s using similar settings to the files I made..( hope u guys don't mind ).

After listening to them.. I'm thinking of ditching all of my current boards and finding a G1000.... LOL.. No wonder you like the way midifiles sound coming through it though. The Tyros actually sounded better than I had expected it to, at least a whole lot better than it's workstation counterpart, the Motif ES.

Here they are:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=O2KEXSFH Tyros 2

and
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AURKGAJN G1000

Enjoy

AJ



[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 05-15-2006).]

AJ, after listening to your mastering job..I am impressed...The Tyros2 sounds better, but the G1000 sounds SUPER..

I might just go buy another G1000...believe it or not I may still be able to pick up a factory fresh G1000..They closed out to dealers at $1,000...but I would need to bump up the price if I can still buy it..

AJ, I don't know why no one is interested in this old/new comparison MP3's...I find it very interesting..Maybe if I owned a Tyros I wouldn't be excited to hear anymore..Also , G70, Genesys,SD1 and PA1X people didn't respond to my offer of the sequence to try on these new boards..

I know I proved it to myself many times over with my own gear..
Thanks again for your input..

BTW,,AJ, what did you do in the mastering of the pre recorded MP3's?

Your welcome Fran. I simply used Sonitus fx compressor and equalizer, along with a couple of native effects inside of Cool Edit pro, including normalizing each track to approx - 0.1 db. I did a quick generic setup, not paying particular attention to the differences in each file.

This was all in good fun of course, yet it does kinda remind me of several things.

One.. other than being a very decent controller, my Motif Es is no longer relevant to my setup. It's awful at playback of midifiles, equally as bad as the sound module for One man Band, and even though it has very good lead sounds overall, there isn't a single voice group in it that can give me better sounds than one of my software samplers or modules can. Even the organs, which are very good, still can't compare to B4, and the Electric pianos are also very good, but not as good as Plugsounds kb module or Eve. Forgetting what the "big guns" like FLR are using, Colossus and the like.. I have nothing that even compares to that...

Two: Roland is very deserving of the praise I've seen heaped upon them when it comes to midifile playback inside of their hardware machines.

Three: I think the SGM180 is nearly as good as anything I've heard for SMF playback, and it cost nearly $2000 USd less than my ES did. In a pinch the MZ does a decent job as well.

Four: I actually do like the Tyros, and am considering replacing my ES with one. I'd also at least consider replacing my PA80 with a G1000, but either way I'm still ok with the PA80 and I still prefer it's styles. I just don't like many of it's lead voices, except for the organs, harmonicas, strings, and of course the synths, as the I think they are among the best and fattest rompler synth sounds I've heard to date. I'm not considering any more PSR's at this point however, even though many may tell me I'm wrong, but I won't ever put up with the slushy keys again.

AJ


[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 05-15-2006).]

AJ, While we are talking about SGM180..Using Live Pro Synth, What is the procedure for changing fonts within the GM map?

I like most of the fonts in SGM180, but I want to build my own GM map with particular better sounding fonts..

Fran,

I know you can load different soundfonts in LSP and assign a bank to each, but I'm not sure if you can remap in it. Perhaps Frank or Rikki know better.

I've been slowly but surely modifying the soundfont itself, by changing the actual samples for certain GM instruments . It's a long process but one I hope will pay good dividends in the end. I use Creative's Vienna
SF studio to do this.

AJ