http://www.thejazzpage.de/index1.html

Scroll towards the bottom of the page.

Downloads>Soundfonts

Then towards the top of the Soundfont page this guy sampled his Gibson L-5 guitar, listen to the MP3 of Sweet Georgia Brown. Don't listen to the midi for the sound comparison for this.

That, to me, is what a jazz guitar sounds like as compared to what I have heard on any arranger keyboard, or workstation as far as that goes.

Can anyone here even come close to getting that sound on their keyboard? As good as they all are, including the Tyros 2, which is too fat of a sound, unrealistic IMHO, this free soundfont beats them all.

This is one reason I have chosen to use a laptop on it's side for fake book lead sheets rather than the MusicPad Pro. I will be using the free VirMus program and/or pdf format.

Among all the other normal things you can do on a laptop, you can easily have softsynth solo voices in addition to the great sounds that are already on our keyboards.

Check out truepianos.com to hear what I think is the most realistic piano out there with quick load time and 128 polyphony.

Scott
http://ScottLMusic.com

Scott,

The MP3 page was closed so I couldn't access it. If you recorded the song, please post a small segment so we call hear what it sounds like. I have tuned lots of keyboard voices using the PSR-3000's onboard Sound Creator program--it's not difficult and the results are outstanding.

Cheers,

Gary

------------------
Travlin' Easy

Hi Gary

I'm thinking you may have ended up in the wrong place.
http://www.thejazzpage.de/index1.html

Scroll down the right side of the page titled Sitemap.

Towards the bottom you will see Downloads>Soundfonts.

On the Soundfont page right near the top after a write-up on the Gibson L5 guitar you will see midi and mp3 downloads of 3 songs, Stella By Starlight, Sweet Georgia Brown and Sushi. Check out Sweet Georgia Brown mp3.

Otherwise, I have no clue how to post the mp3.

I will be absolutely astonished if you can even come close to the sound of the soundfont on the Jazz Guitar as well as if you could tweak the piano on your keyboard to sound identical thoughout the entire range of the piano as heard on truepianos.com, otherwise I think Yamaha would have had this piano sound availabe on their keyboard and the only arranger keyboard that anyone would purchase would be the Yamaha The video at the bottom of this page is very interesting along with the mp3s.
http://www.truepianos.com/demos.php

It would be interesting to hear your or anyone elses tweaked sound posted using the midi of Sweet Georgia Brown. I can't believe it's possible to make it sound identical unless one is using similar technology.

Otherwise, this could interesting

Scott

Scott ... that is truly a great sound ... I also wonder how much the 'technique' of the player has to do with it ...
t.

Scott,

It's not the guitar--it's the player. The guitar itself sounds just like other jazz guitar I've heard and played--nothing special. The player, on the other hand, is outstanding and his fingering techniques are incredibly accurate. No slides over the frets into the notes. Very clear, concise and well played. Almost as good as DonM when he's fired up on the PSR-S900.

Cheers,

Gary

------------------
Travlin' Easy

Well, certainly and obviously a lot has got to do with the player and this would sound good with almost any voice that would be appropriate, any rhythm section chording voice should sound great on even the cheapest of keyboards.

BUT STILL, the voice itself is incredibly life like and I have not heard this kind of depth, realism and warmth on any keyboard.

So, reading between the lines here, what I think I'm seeing is, so far, nobody thinks they really can duplicate this sound on their arranger.

Would like to hear some more input on this idea.

Thanx

Scott

I would like to hear anyone's mp3 recordings on their keyboard who think the above statement is accurate. Not just that it sounds like a jazz guitar, but to be able to get an IDENTICAL sound to this.

The midi of Sweet Georgia Brown is on the site free for the downloading.

This could turn out to be kind of a Purgatory Creek comparison of jazz guitar. Just as the true pianos, Tyros 2 and PSR3000 don't sound exactly the same.



Scott

Scott,

Another thing to keep in mind is that jazz guitar is amped, through an amp that has effects, reverb, echo, delay, EQ, etc. And, the song was likely recorded with a digital recorder and edited using recording software features to enhance the sound quality. All of this has a bearing on the final product. The same is true with the sounds that are produced by your keyboard, especially guitar sounds.

If you recall, there is a PSR-Tutorial member named Julio who using a PSR-2000 could produce some of the best guitar music anyone has ever heard. And, when he provided some of his earlier midi files there were folks that questioned whether he was using a midi guitar and not the keyboard. His playing techniques, especially while emulating the guitar sounds, are the best I've ever heard.

While there are some keyboard voices that probably will never sound exactly like the true instrument, some of those voices can be edited to where they sound better. It's all a matter of personal preference.

Cheers,

Gary

------------------
Travlin' Easy

Scott, I think that, unless you are capable of performing the sound at least as well as this player, worrying about the quality of jazz guitar sound is moot. And if you CAN perform as well as this, well, firstly, I would LOVE to hear some of your work, and secondly, you probably aren't worried about your current jazz guitar sound in the least!

As with most imitative synthesis, a better sound can only be a help to the better player. If you are not phrasing and playing idiomatically as well as this performance, all a better sound does is accentuate the shortcomings. You play a T2 still, right? Some of the SA tricks can help you sound MUCH more idiomatic (by switching the legato/staccato and fret-slides in and out based on your phrasing). The Sound-font format does not have this ability, and correct me if I am wrong, but you can't make your own sample-based SA User Tone, can you?

Basically, though, yes, it's a great sound, but unless you can perform it as well as this guy, you are going to be as unimpressed with it in your own hands as much as any other guitar sound you have.

.

[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 01-19-2008).]

Playing like a guitarist is just one of those things... You either can, or you can't. Guitarists have all kinds of weird voicings and techniques that are utterly alien to keyboard players, and you have to study them pretty hard (helps if you already play guitar well) to learn what NOT to play, primarily...!

Get that part right, and you are well on your way...

(BTW, guitar synthesis is NOT my forte, so I stick to using the real thing whenever possible!)

Hi Tony

I agree, great sound and good playing or sequencing.

Gary, Don, Diki:

Thanx for your replies, but you know your answers are not answering my question really. You talked about everything except what this thread was all about. This was not about my playing ability or anybody elses, this was about a guitar sound that I think is exceptional and if anyone can actually reproduce this EXACT sound on their keyboard. Thanx for the attempt though.

The right sound can inpspire a player and cause him to play better because of that. What comes to mind on this at the moment is the clarinet and vibes sound on my old KN1000. Those were excptional sounds, and inspired me to emulate Benny Goodman, Pete Fountain and Lionel Hampton. I won't use the clarinet sound on my Tyros 2 because it doesn't have the sound I like and doesn't inpire me except in a negative way. I sparingly use some vibes on the T2, but really it's a pretty thin sound and I tend to play it differently than I would on the KN1000.

Anyway, I actually would be interested yet in some replies pertaining directly to my question.

Scott

Scott,
the Tyros 2 has to my ears the best jazz guitar sound among all the arranger keyboards currently on the market. I own also a Fantom ES rack and a Motif XR and was unable to find a jazz guitar sound that comes close to the Tyros, not even on the Motif, and this goes to prove that they don't share the same sound set.
That said, I had a listen to the MP3 of Sweet Georgia Brown and, while I have to agree with others that a lot of the final result depends on the voicings used to play those chords, I think that it would be possible to work on the Tyros' Jazz Guitar and make it close to the sound you mentioned.
To do this, however, I am afraid that you would need a keyboard with greater sound editing possibilities, compared with the Tyros, because the following steps would be involved:
1- Close the hi-pass filter or, with a graphic equalizer, mute almost all the frequencies above 4000 Hz.
2- Mute all the low frequencies as well (let your ears be the judge here, but I would consider 500 Hz as a good cutoff point).
3- Boost the mid frequencies substantially (the amount depends on what kind of sound you are after; when I had a Gibson ES 175 and a Fender Super Reverb I used to set the mid level to "8", to get the Joe Pass sound... and I nailed it!)
4- On the Tyros 2 use one of the amp simulator effects, because this will add a lot of authenticity to your sound. The sound I hear on the MP3 is mono and no jazz guitar is good played in stereo (we are not talking Pat Metheny here!)
5- Keep the reverb level to the minimum and use one of the Room algorhythms (jazz guitars tend to sound bad in large halls and in fact you tipically hear them in a small environment, or at least that's the way they are supposed to sound...)

Let me know what you come up with...

[This message has been edited by Dreamer (edited 01-14-2008).]

Thanx Dreamer

Good response. Some good ideas to try. I pretty much agree with what you have to say. The jazz guitar is quite good on the T2, it's just a little fatter than I've heard guitars players that I like use.

I'm thinking a lot of tweaking and experimenting can get things close to what I or anyone else might be looking for, but I also tend to think it would be pretty hard to make that one identical.

I had hoped that the use of sampled sounds on the T2 was going to be more than what it has turned out to be ,which is basically nothing. Yamaha really let the ball drop on this issue. Nobody seems to know much if anything about it. I would have thought they would have produced some great new sounds by now. I think the reason I don't see anyone complain about this is that what is on the T2 is all quite outstanding to begin with.

I wonder if the sound I like could be sampled and used in those banks. Thing is I have no clue on what to do about that. If that could be done, I'd also lift the vibes and clarinet sound off the KN1000 which my father-in-law bought from me, and other sounds that I prefer according to my style and touch of playing.

Scott,
you have the Soundfonts file to begin with, don't you? So you could convert that file to .wav format and try to import it into the Tyros RAM.
There is a program called "Extreme Sample Converter" that can do the job in a matter of seconds.

Link to the program website here

Thanx for the info Dreamer. This is actually the first post I have come across on any forum that had any info like this to make use of sampled sounds on the T2.

Have you or anyone else you know done anything like this yet? I'm thinking if I understand what I'm seeing that I could get the good sounds off my old KN1000 along with others.

I wonder if there are any freeware versions of this type of thing out there.

Scott

If you have the playing ability, then you can play the sound 100% accurately on a Wersi OAS instrument. (The advantage of an open system)

Bill

Thanx for the input Bill. But, again, if any person played, let's say a C note, or a C chord with this sound, and played the same notes in the chord, I don't think it will sound any different regardless if they are a beginner or a pro

Scott,
yes, actually I have done what I wrote already and it works! Of course you have to have good samples to start with...

Hi Dreamer

I am wondering if I have the wav file if I still would need a sampler like this or not.

Also, wondering if you can give me any direction as to where I can find out more about this on the T2.

This is really interesting news to me. I attempted several times to get a knowledgeable thread going on different appropriate forums and nobody seemed to have a clue and the only thing I seemed to get out of it that it was more problem than it was worth. Even people like Michael Bedesem was in about the same spot as all of us. I basically just gave up checking into it. So it's great to hear some good tips on this.

Scott

Just happened to think, what about the load time issue that I had heard about. Any comments on that?

Thanx

Scott,
of course if you have the .wav files already you don't need any conversions.
The only place I can suggest you to look into for more info is actually the Tyros 2 user manual, where the whole procedure of loading samples is explained in detail.
Actually I think that this is a greatly overlooked feature in the Tyros 2. I have also tried commercial samples, like those from Pelmo, only to find out that their quality is definitely not on par with the T2 own internal samples. Anyway, since I have a lot of samples from my old Akai S2800, I am now in the process of converting and then loading them inside the Tyros (I have 512 Mb of RAM, which is more than adequate).
Speaking of loading time, even if the Tyros cannot compete with dedicated samplers hooked to an hard disk or the new Korg PA2X Pro (which has the fastest loading time among all the arrangers and maybe also the workstations, like the Motif ES), it depends of course on the sample size, so my advice would be: forget about loading a 50 Mb grand piano that you are not going to use much anyway and concentrate on small samples (like the jazz guitar, for example) that you can later process with the T2 internal effects and thus come up with a great sound.
A good example that comes to my mind are vocal samples, an area where the T2 is somehow lacking: they don't take up much memory (unless you are going to sample a whole choir ) and therefore can be loaded in a matter of 1-2 minutes.
If you could listen (like I did) to the raw waveforms of famous synthesizers of the past, like the Roland D-50 or the Korg M1, you would be surprised to find out how little memory they take: the secret of their overall sound lies in the power of the DSP section more than the samples themselves!

The player makes so much difference. The rough Don posted for me a while back had some jazz guitar in it, but no attempt was made to make the structure something that was actually possible on a real guitar, or to mix the sound to be like, say, a Polytone with specific effects, a Super Reverb, etc. . On the final, I used a real guitar and always do, so I have no need to try to use a keyboard to sound exactly like a jazz guitar on a recording.

If you want to see how not to do it, just take another listen to my rough. It just "ain't happening". At that stage, the focus was on structure, not sound.

What Scott found is excellent.

Russ

An instrument is not one note, nor even one chord. Sure, you get the best available jazz guitar samples, and play one note, or one well voiced chord, and you are in nirvana! But a performance is a vast series of these notes and chords, all needing to be played and voiced perfectly to fool the ears of the listener.

And they aren't fooled (especially those who play or listen to a lot of guitar) by a good sound. They are fooled by impeccable accuracy in voicing and technique. No doubt any of us could find a jazz guitar demo done on a DX7 or old Emulator by a REALLY skilled player that could fool us. But this sound-font, in the hands of any lesser player, would sound no more convincing than the same player on a DX7.

Scott, we DID try to answer your question (we all thought the sound-font was great), but we were just trying to inject a little reality... Without chops that ALREADY fool guitarists, this sound is going to be no better than what you have. It's a tough question to ask ourselves, but it should be asked; If the sound you already have doesn't satisfy, is it REALLY the fault of the sound, or is it more the fault of the player?

BTW, this is in NO WAY a criticism of you, Scott. I ask myself this every time I hear something not convincing coming from my own fingers, too! As much as we would LIKE to believe that the arranger is all-important, the truth is that the player is still 99% of the equation. OK, 95%!

As I said, if you are not already fooling guitarists with what you already have, this sound, even if it DOES inspire you, is not going to fool anyone (probably including yourself!) any better.

Maybe I missed it somewhere, even though I scoured the site. How do know that this mp3 wasn't done with a guitar controller? I didn't see anywhere where it said a keyboard controller was used to produce that mp3. A guitar controller would make one heck of a difference in the outcome, capturing, as it would, all the nuances of a real guitar performance.

This whole post is going to sound pretty stupid if I happened to have missed the part where it said it was done on keyboard.

Of course, there's one way to tell. Download the SF and see if you can reproduce that clip.

chas

Chas, a great point..In fact I am going to record exactly that using the G70 guitar patch.....when my guitar buddy brings his midi guitar over...

That’s what makes the Yamaha Mega Voices so good. They are Midi loops that have been recorded using a Midi controller suitable for the instrument, (Guitar Mega voice = Guitar controller) with additional effects controllable by velocity and out of range notes.
This is also why style conversion software cannot make a good conversion with a Mega voice style to any other keyboard.

Bill

I did want to thank those who gave very good, positive and constructive responses here and who's post's remain, (one in the same).

I guess I just thought that everyone here knew me well enough to know that I was totally aware of the players influence on this sound in the first place and so I was much more interested in the actual question I posed.

I will admit I was totally insulted primarily by the poster who's post was deleted, as my playing ability was being questioned and I felt like I was being talked to like I just fell off the turnip truck.

I usually won't respond directly to that type of thing believing those posts are always taken care of for the better, one way or the other with a little time. This is not an exception.

Sorry duplicate post
John

[This message has been edited by jwyvern (edited 01-22-2008).]

Scott,

I didn't mean to insult you, and if I did I sincerely appologize. My point was the individual guitar sounds of the jazz guitars currently found on most mid and high end arranger keyboards are superb. I have played a jazz guitar, I performed with several outstanding jazz guitarists, and those that were capable of similar fingering technichs sounded very similar to the MP3 link you posted. I only know of two or three arranger keyboard players that can duplicate the fingering technique, and yes, they can make a jazz guitar sound just like the MP3. I, on the other hand, do not have that talent, and for the most part do not have the time or patience achieve that skill level. I applaud those, such as Julio, that do have achieved this level of skill. They are indeed rare individuals.

Cheers,

Gary

------------------
Travlin' Easy

Hi John

That's a nice piano sound. Is that a T2 tweaked voice? If so I'd like to try that on my kb. Where did you find that?

Hi Gary

Thanx for your reply. It was very thourogh as always. Maybe it's because I've had the bug for several days and am a bit foggy, but it seems that I have been misread or misunderstood on this post more than once.

No, I was not refering to you, you did not insult me. That post is now gone.

I was fully aware of the excellent ability of the player and or sequencer before I posted. There are many good jazz guitar sounds on all of the keyboards at this time. I just happened to like the sound and effect of this particular sound and thought it worth checking into to see if anyone could make their jazz guitar sound like the mp3.

And yes, I do believe that the right sound(s) that really feel good when played will inspire anyone, especially someone who improvises a lot to play in a better, more inspired manner.

For example, when I played concerts on some of the top of the line Lowrey organs, I always avoided the piano sound. I was the worst clunkiest sound you could imagine. There are a number of good piano voices on all the keyboards that sound good to my touch.

I think I'll read this all again when the fever is gone to see if I missed anything in the translation

Scott

Here is a simple short demo of the Sonic Cell Jazz Guitar. I used my Tyros as the controller. Note! This is NOT demonstrating any technique it is just demonstrating the "tone" of the Jazz Guitar on the Sonic Cell. I listened to the georgia brown clip and I think the tone from the Sonic Cell jazz guitar is somewhat similar. Have a listen and see what you think. PS: It's a .wav file to capture more of the true tone.

Sonic Cell Preset Jazz Guitar

This second file is a song from the web site i.e. "Sushi". At about 55 seconds into the song there is a Jazz guitar part and I arranged a different guitar patch from the Sonic Cell called the DynoJazz Guitar for the part. >>Is it real or is it sampled? PS: This one is also a .wav file and to those thinking about downloading it - I hope you have broadband... If not, you might as well fuhgeddaboudit!! Unless of course you don't mind the wait.

Sushi

Best,
Mike

Mike,
Why post an ultra big wav file? even a 192Kbps mp3 would do the job

I didn't find it Scott, I made it & played it

It's a custom voice (.tvn) using the preset LiveGrand as a basis but with any luck you won't recognise it.

Available, with instructions here:
http://www.yamahapkowner.com/forum/index.php?topic=9645.0

John


[This message has been edited by jwyvern (edited 01-23-2008).]

Hi Trident
192kbps is a bare minimum for mp3, however even a 320kbps mp3 cannot produce anywhere near the quality of sound that a modern arranger/organ can produce. (Even CDs are left wanting when comparing the sound to the live keyboard, also remember that a lot of modern keyboards use greater then the 16bit, 44 kHz limits of CD)

Bill

I apologize to everyone. Since a vast amount of people in the U.S. have broadband and those numbers are growing by leaps and bounds year after year I was hoping the .wav file wouldn't impose too much of a hinderance but you are right trident I should have been more cognizant of our other fellow members who may still be on dial-up and that a 30+ MB file can take well over an hour to download and depending on the speed of a given dial-up connection it can take possibly several hours to do so. I wanted to try and preserve the quality as much as possible but for the sake of our dial-up members I will post the following .mp3 file of "Sushi". Again, the quality suffers some but hopefully you will get a pretty good idea of the Sonic Cell's DynoJazz Guitar patch at around 55 seconds into the song. Although it is different (more so) from the other jazz guitar sound I posted when comparing it to the Sonic implant "Sweet Georgia Brown" jazz guitar sound that Scott liked.

Here you go:

Sushi in .mp3 format

Note: It's about 5 1/2 Megabytes and was encoded with Sony Sound Forge 7.0 using the highest quality variable bit rate. If that means anything.

Also, I wanted to mention that I didn't pay much attention to optimizing the piano sound just the Jazz Guitar and Drums mostly.

Best,
Mike



[This message has been edited by keybplayer (edited 01-24-2008).]

HI MIke

Thanx, this is more along the lines again of what I was really asking in this thread. BUT, for some reason the 2 in the first post don't play. Up comes Microsoft Audio Pro Wave Editor, for some reason, I've never noticed it before. But anyway, it's like it's froze and won't play. Any clue on this?

The next post, the piano sounds pretty good, but, for some reason the guitar track is real quite so it's kind of hard to hear the guitar voice.

Scott

Hi John

Thanx on the piano mp3 and link. This is the kind of stuff I'd love to see more of here. This may be a good way for me (us) to check into when we get the new toy bug. And we all get that notion. To spend time on the board you've got improving on it. I look forward to try out the piano voice as it is very nice. That and some of the ideas of using a wav to sample conversion interests me. I am going to try to get a little versed in that and see if I can lift some of my favorite sounds off my old KN1000, which my father-in-law bought from me. There were many great sounds on it. The vibes are the best I've ever heard. I worked for a Technics dealer when the KN800 came out. Lionel Hampton endorsed Technics at that time and for good reason, I think. The clarinet is really smooth. Some of the organ sounds were very good also.

Hi Scott,
For Ty2 you need to load the .tvn file which will give the best results.
If you play full piano it should give you the capability for much more expression, a wider stereo effect since trebles come progressively more to the right & vice versa and a more "civilised" tone adjustable to taste using the mod wheel.

John

Hi Scott,

I re-recorded "Sushi" and gave the DynoJazz Guitar a boost in volume to let you hear it better in the mix. Now it stands out quite a bit more. I was thinking of re-recording it anyway because I too noticed the volume was kinda low. I had actually given it a little volume boost on the original recording over the songs default volume. But this new recording brings it up where it should be in the mix. Thanks for the 'nudge' to get me to record it again Scott. I think you'll be pleased with this one.

Sushi with better DynoJazz Guitar volume

PS: As far as not being able to play the .wav files in the first post I'm not sure exactly what the problem might be. I can download and open them just fine on my system. Have you tried right clicking the file and choosing Save As to see if that works? It could just be the media player you are using too perhaps. I'm playing them in the newest version of Winamp free edition and they play just fine.

Anyway, I hope the new .mp3 recording of Sushi is more to your liking Scott.

Best,
Mike



[This message has been edited by keybplayer (edited 01-25-2008).]

Hi Mike

Thanx again for this. That DynoJazz Guitar does sound about like the mp3, maybe even a bit better.

As for the other 2 songs, I did download them, and it always brings up that other player and then it won't play. Maybe a codec thing. I'll have to see if I can figure it out. Videos on my Yahoo homepage haven't been working either. If anyone has any ideas on this, please let me know.

Scott

Hi Mike

I was able to solve my playback issue, so had a chance to listen to the first two recordings. That DynoJazzGuitar is very good, especially on the midi with all the guitar type effects. Really does make you wonder how that midi was recorded. What do you think, midi guitar or keyboard modulation wheels etc, sequencer or what. I'm leaning towards midi guitar or someone who really can work the effects of their keyboard very convincingly.

Thanx for your efforts Mike. Another great experiment towards us finding our ideal sounds that really fit us personally rather than the mass market sounds only. (Which are really pretty good these days of course on all TOTL keyboards).

So, we've got more choices to enjoy our keyboards. Do we update by getting new keyboards, or by trying variations of the sounds we've got, besides all the other combinations

Scott

Scott, if you have Firefox your Yahoo video should work in Firefox. If you want to continue using Internet Explorer here is a fix to get the Yahoo Video working again in IE.

Note: You may want to back up your registry before performing the fix. In Windows XP click Start/Run and type in "regedit" without the quotes, click ok, and when the Registry Editor comes up make sure the 'My Computer' is highlighted then click File/Export, give the backup a name in the File Name box, and then save the registry backup to a folder.

After backing up (if you decide to do a back up that is ) then depending on your configuration, go to the following registry key in either:

"HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent." Under User Agent or Post Platform OR IN

"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\User Agent\Post Platform" If the "Mozilla ... SV1" entry is found, delete it; and then you should have your Yahoo Video back to working in Internet Explorer Scott!

Best,
Mike

PS: I wanted to give you a thorough description since I'm not sure how familiar you are with getting into the Windows Registry Editor and backing it up, etc. For all I know you could be a certified "brain" with computers and if that's the case I'm sorry for being trifle.

Also be aware that under User Agent or Post Platform depending which string its under, that you may have to highlight the values in the right panel to make sure the the "Mozilla ... SV1" is there or not Scott.

[This message has been edited by keybplayer (edited 01-26-2008).]

Scott,

I've always said we have more undiscovered features in our keyboards than anyone can imagine. A few days ago I was talking on the phone with someone that has owned a Tyros2 since they became available in our area. He was totally unaware that all of the sound efffect, GM and XG voices were also in his keyboard. He called me back the next day and said he spent four hours just playing all those newly discovered voices. He was really flabergasted when I told him how to modify those voices using the keyboard's onboard Sound Creator program. This brings me to the point of why I have not updated to either the T2 or S-900. Each time I come across some newly created or modified styles it's just like getting a new keyboard.

Cheers,

Gary

------------------
Travlin' Easy

Scott, I wanted to also say that if you're a little leery about modifying the system registry let me assure you that it's a simple fix and the only reason you should consider backing up the registry is only in the case where you happened to delete a wrong key etc. My computer was having the same problem a while back where I wasn't able to view my Yahoo news videos either and when I implemented the fix I didn't even do a registry backup. There is no need to reboot the computer either. Just start watching!

From what I've gathered about the problem it seems to be on Yahoo's end and apparently they are well aware of it and trying to sort things out. Instead of waiting for them to drag their feet I decided to get instant results.

Best,
Mike

And just a quick word about MP3's...

Not all software reads VBR (variable bit rate) MP3's, especially some browser plug-ins. I might suggest that a fixed rate of at least 192 kbps will be more than adequate.

While some obsess over the lossy nature, from 192 kbps upwards is, IMO, MORE than enough to demonstrate our keyboards well. It is FAR more important to get a solid (but not clipped) recording level, and then a little mild limiting (3-6db) to bring overall levels up. I prefer to record at 44/24 .wav, do any limiting or compression while still .wav, THEN convert to MP3, but some of you may be using built-in MP3 recorders...

If so, I recommend after recording to AT LEAST 'normalize' the file, or limit (if you can) to help raise the overall level. MP3's are a 'lossy' codec, so if you record too low, when you normalize or limit, you are raising the noise floor and accentuating the inherent 'smear' that MP3 puts on the sound. Hence, making sure that you record at as high a level as you can before clipping, and you will minimize the difference between what YOU hear, and what gets onto the MP3.

Unfortunately, I am a Mac guy, so can't recommend any specific MP3 editing software, but I have used a cross-platform program called Audacity, which has these tools included. Perhaps other, more Windows savvy members could suggest what programs do the best (hopefully free!) job at this.

To be honest, without the aid of some seriously good monitors, most of us here would probably have a hard time distinguishing between a 16/44 .wav and a 256 kbps mp3 of the same file, AS LONG AS IT WAS RECORDED WELL IN THE FIRST PLACE (our ears aren't as young as they used to be!). But make your levels too low, fail to normalize and limit a little, and it gets a lot easier!

I hope this helps...

it's great to try and get sounds as realisticas possible but from a strictly musical point of view, it may or may not be worth the effort unless it's essential to the musicality.

guitar sounds voiced by a keyboardist can be as great musically as those voiced by a true guitar, even if they are not authentic as guitar imitations. remember that the Rhodes came out as a way to have a portable piano, but what most pianists at the time considered a pathetic compromise turned out to have a life of its own and a signature jazz sound.

the irony is that now we try to emulate an
"authentic' Rhodes sound. possibly the Wurly
was a compromise at trying for piano or even Rhodes, and now that has become its own signature sound.

so if u play a guitar sound that's not quite a real guitar sound, and voice like a piano, not guitar, there is no rule that says u cant
make wonderful listenable music that way, and if your name is Charlie Schmidlapp, maybe some day guys will be busting their hump trying to get that Schmidlapp Guitar sound/voicing just right.


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Miami Mo

Good points Mo.

Gary

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Travlin' Easy