Hi Rory. Not sure if you consider me one of "the honorable" here or not, but I definitely qualify as one of the veteran (long standing wise) SZ members, and noticed "RIGHT OFF" that Donny's songs were all in MONO , not stereo.

I concur that comparing Donny's mono version to everyone else's stereo versions an UNFAIR comparison. Lastly, but certainly not least, Donny's T2 songs are seriously lacking DSP/EFFECTS (reverb, chorus, etc), which puts them at a tremendously unfair disadvantage. I'm convinced that a T2 'stereo' version (including panning) and proper reverb effect& levels added, of which the other KB versions already appear to include, will raise the sound quality of the Tyros2 version to SURPASS the others. How's that for an 'attitude adjustment'?

- Scott

[This message has been edited by Scottyee (edited 05-16-2006).]

Scott, I am sending you the SMF.
Please record it for us..Please tweak it and do what ever you can to make it the best..
Then prove it to us by posting the link.
I am not as optimistic as you about the results..

Oh Boy ....maybe I made a mistake and unknowingly recorded in Mono/ its possible that in haste I used the wrong L/R T2 outputs?.........I will when I have time do some more demos & see whats the cuplprit...as far as any tweaking on the demos there was NONE.....out of the box styles & sounds.....Its also posible the signal got Summmed into mono in the LT?

Scott what outputs are you using to record out of the T2?

Ok.., if Donny would like to rerecord it in stereo, I'll happily remaster it again and repost. The settings I used for each task were fairly generic, and I saved them in one of my original files, so it won't be a problem on my end.

Or.. I can redo the file and with panning and some very light spatial effects I can produce a stereo effect. The downside is that you wouldn't get the original nuances from playing each original stereo voice and effect as it truly is when it is coming from the Tyros. OTOH, I highly doubt that with Yamaha's GM patches that it would matter that much anyway.

Still, in the end it's only going to tell us what the GM patches in each module sound like.

AJ

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 05-16-2006).]

Hi Fran,
unless you have a creative soundcard you can't use Vienna. I can use it because I have a usb Audigy nx2 soundcard for my laptop as well as the software setup to run soundfonts (Forte, midiyoke etc etc)

Soundfaction alive does a great job if you want to build up a font of your own, or just replace the odd sound. You can just mix n match to your hearts content.
Bear in mind, bigger is not neccesarily better. The commercially sold ones don't always sound better than the freebies either.
I was auditioning about 8 different piano's from various gm fonts the other day for one of the biab midifiles. Surprisingly to my ears, the 2 that sounded the best was the 30+ mb piano from sgm180 and a 1 mb piano from one of the other freebie fonts. The ones from my commercial gm fonts , sounded lousy with that particular tune.
Beauty of the soundfont system is, I could create a font that can incorporate all 8 piano's into various banks or just ditch the ones I don't like.

I'm even considering recording my sd1 drums as a font.

The font system may be a bit old hat, but it sure is versatile.

AJ, I came across rather an interesting font the other day on ebay. One of your posts you mentioned something about Korg. Must admit at times I miss the amazing sounds of the Wavestation. You mentioned you had it and others in some sort of a softsynth?? I remember looking it up, but the price here, floored me.
Anyway I found a 650mb soundfont full of pads, bells, spooky etheral sounds etc. Wavestation it's not , but it's interesting.
I have to break it up as my current laptop can't play a 650mb font. For $24 and 8 hours of download time, I figure I didn't have anything to lose.
He's done some early model synths as well.

best wishes
Rikki

Guys, especially Fran,
sorry for the wait, but Bandstand was acting up on me last night. I even tried the "render to wav" function and the results had cracks in the sound etc.
I sincerely hope I will have them for you tomorrow around this hour, don't forget we have a great time difference, and I just started work now, it is 9.51am now here.

Don't expect miracles though, as Diki said, Roland seems to have an edge in SMF playback. I have found that when playing back midifiles I got off the net, they sound better in Hypercanvasn ot as individual instruments but as a whole.

Scott,

The Motif ES only allows for DSP fx on 8 of it's midi channels, ( in the default mode channels 1-8, and though this can be changed I didn't .. I let it ride ) and SGM180 has no built in effects at all other than some very simple reverb and chorus. There are no "master" settings on it.

It hardly matters anyway, as one thing should become apparent from a demonstration like this... that the Midi standard is anything but.. standard.

Rikki,

The Legacy edition is expensive compared to most other vst modules. In fact, off the top of my head, I will say it is the most expensive VST I've ever purchased, but I just had to have it. It includes versions of the MS20, Wavestation, Polysix, and M1. I had the latter two in their heydays. The Polysix was my first analogue synth, and it worked like a charm. My M1 however, was buggy. When it worked, it was a good board, but when the eeprom went bad in it, it cost big bucks to have it reprogrammed.

The Legacy is such a faithful reproduction of the originals, that I doubt anyone could ever tell the difference. The added benefit is that this "M1" fires up and works right every time I use it.

I have from time to time seen some similar soundfonts that you describe too. I have my doubts about whether I could use a 650 mb soundfont either though, but as you indicated, the price is right for the samples you get.

Regards

AJ


[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 05-17-2006).]

So the essence of this thread is 'I'm too lazy to tweak my SMFs, what keyboard sounds best out of the box?'.........

Re-read my earlier post........ this is what is really important.

Diki and others..
The stereo / mono issue can be a real problem..

I too with every chance I get prefer and play in stereo..Fortunately my keyboards sound good in mono and better in stereo.

There are situations[venues] we play that we have no choice but to play in mono..As an example..The AC casinos have very elaborate sound systems[$250,000]...because of the facility design, the system is designed basically as a mono system.

I play several clubs with great systems that only allow the audiences to hear mono...Hence lies the problem, especially Yamaha, which I believe relies heavily on stereo effects to give it's sounds character..Possibly Korg may have the same problem..they also rely on effects to broaden their sound. Maybe not as noticeable as the Yamaha line..

I think even the Roland stereo samples[as my DisCover5 and all the new Rolands], may suffer in mono also, but the sample wavs seem not to rely on the effects to make the voices sound great..

As I have mentioned several times I am not knocking any one instrument..just trying to point out situations where a great sounding board may not work in the real world because of "modern" technology.

LOL... Yep.. I surely resemble that remark Diki.. that definitely would be me ... too "lazy" to tweak all of the ( however many hundreds or even thousands ) midifiles I have.. for each Kb and soft setup that I have. This reply made me chuckle a bit if nothing else..

It probably takes me 10 minutes easily to fix one to sound "just right" on the Motif ES, by the time I tweak the mixer, voice and DSP settings, and decide which of the eight channels should get DSP fx at all..

Fortunately, I have an alternative that works just fine for me called SGM180. Notwithstanding that it's a freeware soundfont, it also sounds pretty right to me each and every time.

Participating in this discussion was educational for me in that it helped reiterate to me what I had already suspected. That SGM180 is currently among the best options I have, and since I don't really have the luxury of time to tweak each file I possess, with the spare time I do have, I'm instead trying to tweak SGM180 itself so that once I'm done I'm done.. I won't have to tweak every new midifile I get... at least that's the theory behind it.

Why ? I have a thing called a life, and like so many others in this world, mine is more than a bit busy. Trying to keep up with it and do it just a little more than half @$$ed right is what's most important to me... and while I'm somewhat passionate with this music stuff and I find it fun to debate over a little, it sure as heck ain't life and death.

AJ


[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 05-17-2006).]