Donny .. is that you on your new board ?!?!?! ...
t.

I believe it is his understudy, Tony.

I believe that one of the problems with demos like this is the tendency to always place the 'solo' or 'played' part SO much louder than everything else (plus the usual camcorder mic problems), that the arranger itself is barely heard...

You can hear the drums OK (and a nice groove it is, too), but that's about it. Everything else is so obscured by the piano part, it's basically moot. It's probably the commonest thing I hear in most arranger demos, the tendency to place OUR part so much higher than it would be if someone objective was mixing the thing.

Possibly one of the most useful HARDWARE things that could get added to arrangers is that the headphone outs could carry a slightly 'hotter' keyboard/acc ratio than the final outs. Maybe a knob to control the ratio, like Roland have for the live/ACC Parts that goes to the main outs. That way, we can hear ourselves well, and play to the 'more me' mix, but out front gets a slightly lower solo sound. Either use phones, or feed it to a monitor rig, but let the audience enjoy the arranger parts too, especially if they are as good as we THINK they are!

But this demo, well, I certainly couldn't make out virtually a single ACC part well enough to know whether it was tracking the chord input well, or not. Sorry...

Diki ... I thought the same thing when I was listening ... too bad we can't hear more of the 'arranger' ...
t.

Separate outs can achieve this...

Even with separae outputs, the results would have been the same. It's the lousy frequency response of the camcorder's shotgun mic. Even on the best camcorders, onces used by the larger news services, the audio quality leaves a lot to be desired. I would have liked to heard the same performance recorded directly from the standard outputs. I'm sure the results would have been excellent.

Gary

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Travlin' Easy

This is why you can't beat sliders a la Korg. On-the-fly balance. And I agree with Gary, camcorder mics are crap.

Camcorder mikes may be shitty, but that doesn't change how overbearing the lead piano sound is...

And Fran, other than your Mediastation (still got that?), there isn't anything out there that will put the keyboard sounds WITH THEIR EFFECTS through the aux outputs (aux outputs are dry ONLY). That's WAY too much of a compromise for just a little 'more me' in a monitor mix, IMO...

But our G70's have that nice little arr/keyboard 'balance' knob, which, if it could be routed to phones ONLY (and the regular 50/50 mix go to the main outputs) might solve all of this without denying us our effects...

The guy was obviously listening ONLY to what he was playing, and not really concerned about the balance.

The balance for the Style and Right 1 is easily accessible on the S900...one button.

Ian

All KB's should have sliders.....especially if they are quality built ones...
Ketron offers soem of the best ones on their products I have ever performed with....Midjay/SD-1. No side-way wobble at all quality made.....they sit & slide in a channel vs others that are just knobs.

I've never had a chance to try the Ketron...I hear good stuff about them.

Did you sell your Pa-800?

Ian

Actually, the S-900 and nearly all of the later model Yamaha keyboards have sliders. However, instead of the old mechanical sliders, they are electronic. The old sliders fit into a tiny track which was sealed with two thin strips of rubber, one on each side of the slider. The rubber strips were meant to prevent dust from entering the wire-wound potentiometer. After a few years, the rubber usually became dry and hardened, dust particles filtered into the inner workings, and eventually it had to be replaced. The new electronic sliders are very effecient, easy to use, have no moving parts other than the button and the buttons are hermitically sealed in a sterile environment.

Back to the camcorder mic. They were never intended for anything other than human speech. Their frequency response is pretty much mid range, lows are clipped, and highs sound tinny. And, they are called shotgun mics for a reason. They tend to only focus on a very narrow area, and they are highly directional. That's why newscasters love them. You don't pick up extraneous sounds outside the area where the mic is pointed, which is usually directly at a person's face during a news broadcast. And, the range of a shotgun mic is fairly short, often falling off as much as 50 percent in just 10 feet. When I worked for a local cable TV station several years ago we used shoulder mounted cameras that cost $40,000 or more, and they were fit with the best shotgun mics available at the time. If the reporter was more than 20 feet from the camera we had to hook up a hand-held mic for him or her to use because the shotgun couldn't pick up the voices. Nuff said!

Gary

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Travlin' Easy

I enjoyed the clip DNJ. Its nice to see arrangers getting away from cha cha cha and waltzes for a change. The guy was just jamming. It was never intended to be a serious recording. I think sometimes we overanalyze

Spalding you couldnt be more correct!!

So why comment at all...? If anything negative is OVER-analyzing, should we simply say, no matter HOW bad a demo is, 'Oh, that's nice!'?

Boring...

BTW, whether your arranger has a 'balance' knob or not (and I feel it should be on every arranger, cheap or TOTL), it still affects the final output. You can't monitor a 'more me' mix while letting the audience get the balanced mix (or the other way round if you need it).

Like I said earlier, probably the MAIN thing I hear in most demos posted here is that the lead instrument is WAY too loud. Obviously, we don't realize it at the time (or we would have not laid it down like that!), we WANT to hear ourselves loud and clear... But that isn't always the best mix for the audience, who need a balanced mix for the best result.

Hmmm..... a button? You mean two (up and down)? Or first select the parameter, THEN adjust the balance (with a slider or knob)? Not quite sure I got that...

Also, is there an overall 'balance' knob between ALL keyboard Parts and ALL Style or SMF Parts, or is it just Upper 1 only? For layered RH sounds, or just situations where you find yourself playing a bit more muscularly than usual (perhaps some cute MILFs at the front of the stage!), I would think that is the best solution...

Just curious. No big wup. Yada yada yada...

To be quite honest I agree with the fact the person is just enjoying themselves, and decided to post it, (The new version of showing your holiday snaps/films or hey look how my dog can push the ball) that’s what My Space and You Tube etc is all about, (The sound and video quality of the site playback systems is not good enough for demos) if you want to make a demo then do it on a site that is designed for it. (Or get it professionally done)
The Arranger keyboard is designed so that you can have fun playing at home, so just enjoy it.
If you’re a professional showing your work, then yes you are looking for constructive criticism, but then you wouldn’t be posting like a home player does.

Bill

I love the "Yada yada yada"...is it Irish? Mongolian? Makes me think of the little guy in Star Wars....what was his name? Yoka? Yoko? No, that was JL's wife.

A-ha! Now I have it....Yoda!

That old brain cell is still workin'.

Diki, my friend, I am disappointed that an enterprising young (relatively speaking) man like you, wouldn't have looked up the PSR-S900 manual at this site.

http://www.yamaha.co.jp/manual/english/result.php

But, all that aside, I have at least found the link at Yamaha's manual site for you.

Perusing the manual you will find (amongst other clever Yamaha implementations) that there is a BALANCE button...a real button.

Pressing it opens a screen that has 7 virtual sliders...usually the main screen displays this at default (very important), but if you were doing something else, besides looking at MILFs, the button allows quick access.

Using the up/down buttons under the relevant virtual sliders (see Gary Diamonds post above for the "virtues of virtual") the player can either raise the STYLE volume OR raise the volume of R1 (in this case)...it is also easy to press two buttons to raise R1 and R2....you get used them...like the drawbuttons on the Nord C1.

I hope this explanation satisfies your rabid (meant as a compliment) curiosity.

Ian

quote:
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Originally posted by spalding:
think sometimes we overanalyze
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So why comment at all...? If anything negative is OVER-analyzing, should we simply say, no matter HOW bad a demo is, 'Oh, that's nice!'?

Boring...


I didnt comment on whether there was any negative critiscism or not Dikki. You need to chill my friend !

Some people just post stuff up for fun Dikki. I sometimes post other peoples work up because i thought it was just cool, fun interesting. Thats preceisely what DNJ did.

Does anyone remember what that used to be like ? Just having fun ? Thats what this bloke in the clip was having.And i am sure thats why it was posted.

He didn't post it here. The 'Duke of URL' did.

Whether Donny had 'fun' in mind is sometimes hard to tell, these days. I know these aren't meant to be taken seriously, but here, an ARRANGER forum, putting it up DOESN'T invite comment?

All my remarks were meant as were a comment on how often I see others making the same mistake, on YouTube and here. Maybe, someone will think about it a little, and the next time they post something, maybe they'll take this into account. The only way you learn is by applied criticism. You might note I did not simply say this was terrible (in fact, it was FAR from it!) but a simple mistake that MANY of us make made it a far less effective recording (camcorder mikes can only do SO much damage!). And I am sure that is what many of us would like to do.

So this never WAS a criticism of the player, nor his having fun and posting it. Just a lesson in balance that we could learn from...

Perhaps we over-analyze... perhaps we don't analyze at all. I know what I'd rather be guiltier of..!