I agree that the MIDI style's drums are only as good as the person or persons who made it... but isn't that also true for the audio styles?

A poorly played loop, or a poorly miked kit, or too much or too little reverb (we'll get to that), and you have the same problems as the MIDI style... or do you?

It's a piece of cake to edit that poorly played MIDI drum loop. It's a piece of cake to edit velocities, to tame or add dynamics where needed. It's a doddle to alter the reverb and EQ per drum so you can wet up the snare without wetting up the kick, too. Want a hair more or less swing on the part? Easy with MIDI. Want to move the backbeats ahead or behind VERY slightly to create push or pull? MIDI drums can do this. Feel the drummer was a bit busy? Start erasing notes out.

If an audio loop is perfection, you are good to go. Mind you, perfection for one tune might be too busy or not busy enough for another. Perfection might only work with all the other parts, basted in the same type of reverb/room sound. Not easy to do with most arranger's built in effects... and you can end up with a style where the drums simply feel 'disconnected'. I've already heard that on some of the Yamaha drum loops.

And that's the bottom line... if perfection doesn't come OOTB, with MIDI and a bit of work, it's doable. With audio, you are done!

... and finally the new Style JAZZ FIRE (Drums and Bass, plus DRUM TEASER at the end).

For all these styles which have been uploaded, all the other tracks [Live guitars, Horns .. etc] have been mutted in order to comply with the request of this tread) .... and that's my contribution towards this segment.

... and Diki, you're right. That is why we try to catch 'perfection' up front -:)

There is something wrong here with the Tyros 4 recordings. They sound like they were recorded with a microphone in a cardboard box.

Listen to Donny's Bebop and then the T4 recording of the same style. Come on, the T4 should sound as good if not better. My Tyros 2 sounds better than these recordings.

I can't upload any recordings of my T4 because it's not here at this time. But I can tell you the Yamaha drums as far back as the PSR2000 never sounded that muffled and lifeless.

These are the worst represtentation I have ever heard of a recording of something like a shootout and I'm wondering why. Bad EQing or recording techinque?

Scott L

Scott,

She plays out several nights a week with it and might have it equed for her PA system or equivalent (I hope that's the case). Maybe someone else with access to a T4 equed with better settings can post similar? How are factory settings?

Donny, were your EQ settings factory or yours when you made your recordings?

Thanks

Aj.....My demos were all done with a Flat EQ.....directly from the S950 L/R outputs to my PC Mixcraft recording program & saved to Mp3.

http://www.synthzone.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/download/Number/1115/filename/bebop.mp3

AJ

I suspect it is the way it was EQ'd. I was a bit surprised when I heard this, as my T4 doesn't sound like this. And of course I have mine EQ'd.

I guess this brings up a point for the other recordings. These demos will sound different whether they were recorded flat or EQ'd and would affect the results. Donny of course had to record externally because the audio styles won't record onboard.

The other thing is,really, it would be nice to also hear these samples along with the other style parts. How all of this fits together is what's used in the real world.

For example, speaking as a drummer, the Ketron Romantic style sure isn't romantic sounding. All those explosions makes me wonder what the rest of the parts sound like because that drum line is anything but romantic

Scott,

Good point. I guess Darren will have to answer more on this and maybe modify the guidelines a little. I believe he was sticking to drums and bass ... for now, but the issue of out of the box (factory) versus user EQ settings BEFORE recording these takes is a good point. Also remember that some keyboards like the Ketrons have preset factory EQ settings too. My recommendation would be to keep all flat (like Donny did ... and I did same for the Ajamsonic demos above). But then, this may not be the way you play your keyboard in real life.

Too many variables ....

Hi



Thanks Diki.
Well said...

Regards
Jørgen

AJ

Yes a lot of variable to consider. Look at Donny's flat setting. This factory setting was set to make a keyboard with speakers built in sound good because most people will probably be playing with those speakers only. It also seems to me someone was saying how they need to tame down the 950's drums and bass when using external speakers unlike any other previous models.

I haven't had a chance really to listen to all the demos yet, but of yours even I noticed that yours sounded quite flat especially compared to the first Ketron demos in this thread which I noticed were from the Ketron UK site.

So, I don't know if we'll ever get this shootout worked out without any of these variables. My keyboard EQ'd sounds quite similar to Donny's flat. About the only solution I can see is if people use the settings that they think makes their drums sound better, but the only thing about that is the wide range of taste in sound.

I'm just hoping that if this continues that something that gives a fair representation of each keyboard happens as there are many lurkers out there (check the number of hits on this thread) and many will choose an instrument with info like this. If it's accurate this is great, if it's not people may end up not with the instrument that would satisfy them.

Just a couple ideas

My Audya recordings were all done on my Audya 5 at home. I recorded directly to the Hard Drive on the Audya with no external equipment. The Audya EQ is set to Factory.

In the interest of fairness I hoped everyone would do the same (or if there is no internal recorder to use an external one, also flat).

That is the only way you can get a true comparrison. (They are hosted on the Ketron UK site as I have access to it so made sense rather than uploading to a file share site or posting two at a time here)

Regarding use of other style parts, I suggested using the Bass line in some styles as this is a primary part of the Rhythm section of a band - but it needs to be kept quiet. The Bassline of Tyros ones AJ posted is so loud its hard to concentrate on the style (but I am glad one Tyros owner was brave enough to do it)