G4 note - Yamaha P-515

SouthPark

I noticed on the P-515 (and KFB knows too now hehe) that the G4 note for the P-515 has a decay that is quite different from all the surrounding notes (and probably all other notes).

Will be interesting to see if other Yamahas has this 'thing' too. It doesn't worry me though. I only discovered it by accident. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have known for quite a while yet. But would have eventually noticed it all the same I reckon. Eventually. For sure - the acoustic grand piano - from which the samples etc came from - can have their behaviours for certain strings.

I recently made a recording of G4 testing. And I play the F4 and A4 for comparison. Notice the G4 decay behaviour. The volume of it drops off in a different way than the other notes.

I play F4 first a few times, then G4 a few times, then A4 a few times. And then I play F4 once, then G4 once, and A4 once.

G4_Test

SouthPark

Forgot to mention. This is for the CFX sound set. Will check it out for the Bosey sound set … not expecting same behaviour for the Bosey ……. we will see.

[deleted]

Interesting - I did this test on my P515 using a VST and the g4 also seems to have a shorter decay. I have not yet tried it using the onboard CFX sample. Seems like the higher registers have shorter decay. I wonder if this is true on an acoustic piano. I can’t test as I know longer have access to one

SouthPark

[deleted] danno …. thanks for letting me know about that. That is indeed interesting. Maybe there is some hope if that can be sorted in firmware. I could try reporting this to yamaha and see if they do anything. At the moment, I don't think they fixed up an issue I reported a couple of years ago, recording the one-push recording on the P-515. For one push (record priming, waiting for first note before recording begins) recording --- I notice clearly that while the actual recording is fine, the issue is that the very first note that we play (while the P-515 is primed and waiting) will be noticeably audibly delayed - while all subsequent notes will be just fine -- timing-wise. So - to get around that, I've just been using the unconditional recording mode, where the P-515 even records the silence before play. I know that many digital instruments do the unconditional recording anyway, which is fine. Although, the one-push recording does have a glitch, which yamaha hasn't fixed.

I also keep forgetting to try G4 with the bosendorfer sample set. I'll try that. Will check it out, and get back to you and everybody. Thanks for mentioning the same behaviour for VST too. Very interesting.

[deleted]

SouthPark I think you’ll find that on an acoustic piano the higher register notes have shorter decay times. I did a Google search and confirmed this. So this is not a P515 defect:

“Therefore, if you impart the same energy to two different strings (or to the same string with different lengths), the string that vibrates at a higher frequency will dissipate the energy faster (higher frequency requires more energy) while the same energy on a lower frequency string will dissipate less energy in the same amount of time, and therefore the sound will last longer.

In other words, the total amount of energy dissipated will be the same, but a higher pitched string will dissipate it faster (and therefore last a shorter time) while a lower pitched string will dissipate its energy more slowly and therefore last a longer time.”

SouthPark

Danno … true. One good question we can have for yamaha and others is. If we know that the G4 decay profile is different from all other notes. And there is some sort of consistency for other notes, except for G4 which is the odd one out, then is there a way for them to compensate for that … as in retune the actual acoustic piano that G4 came from? Or if it's not a sample problem …. then tweak the software decay profile.

I'm about to check out the bosendorfer G4. Will get back to everybody very shortly.

SouthPark

Back again! I just did some thorough testing and find that the bosendorfer G4 has not got that issue. Just sitting at the instrument right now. The profile is 'normal' …. same as surrounding notes for the bosey sound set. Bosey G4 gets the green light from me. Thumbs up.

The CFX G4 does a very noticeable slippery slide drop off after a short time …. very different to surrounding notes. The Bosey G4 is 'normal' … similar behaviour as compared with surrounding notes.

kawafanboi

maybe not all strings being the same is part of capturing the quirks of the piano.

SouthPark

kawafanboi

I agree with that KFB. This may be what happened. Or an example. I reckon that if Yamaha etc had been on the ball with this one - and they probably will be now if they ever get a read of this -- they will probably get their team members to included these tests during their rigorous testing stage. Otherwise, we'll just take this particular G4 case as part of the P-515 character hehe …. the CFX part that is. The Bosey side is normal.

If it really is/was physical tuning related - associated with the actual CFX piano that it all came from, then that will be something for the tuners to think about as well. That's if it matters to them. It's ok for me though. I wouldn't have found out so soon if I had not just pushed that key while just thinking of what to play hehe. But I can say that when I pushed that key, the particular slippery slide decay stood out like a …… better choose a word … a rock hehe

That's why I pushed again - to see what was going on hehe. And again, and again. And confirmed the behaviour on the other P-515.

kawafanboi

when they sample a piano, and decide on the piano, the DAY OF, it's probably a situation of take it or leave it, they can't optimize all aspects of it, and just roll with what happens, lesser sustain g4 and all.😗

acoustic pianos are never ever remotely close to uniform/ perfect. Only Pianoteq can do that. 😜

SouthPark

Exactly! One interesting thing that I would just love pianoteq and roland to do maybe - if not already done - one day - is to just take their time to generate their very very best 'physical' or 'acoustic' model. Then get their programmer to set up some code to automatically generate a whole bunch of samples - at eg. 255 different velocity for each note. Or they could start with 127 different velocity if they want. And give those samples to their own sample playback crew, or some other crew (eg. yamaha) to do some more stuff -- eg. string resonance etc. Sample playback of physical-model generated samples could lead to some cool stuff. This is regardless of cost/feasibility. Would be interesting.

kawafanboi

when we frame the process of generating a "best" anything , it's problematic because best is a grey area.

we can only empirically say, well, piano as an instrument has stood the test of time, and remain relatively popular over the years, so the totality of its composition, Faults and All, represents a verified desirable sound signature to humans.

this is similar to the french term, jolie laide, meaning beautiful homely (ugly) woman. it's used to reference people who are outwardly not iconically beautiful, but for "some" compositional reason, illicit desire.

because human senses are imperfect as is our cognition, we only mentally ever approximate reality.

we try our best to climb, but it is with good likelihood that despite our best efforts we're in a turkey paradox. doesn't mean we shouldn't try to peck the farmer to death though. 😗

SouthPark

That is a really great way of thinking KFB - on your side. For roland and/or pianoteq, 'best' will just refer to 'improve' whatever it is that they're trying to improve at the moment, and then just use their current 'best' model of some particular 'piano' that they're aiming for. So if somebody happens to be looking for a set of notes that doesn't have the odd-one-out thing (which could be important or matter for some situations), then the physical/acoustic-model-generated-samples could be one ticket. Or one approach. Can see which direction that takes.

At the moment - if computing power or speed etc is limiting pianoteq/roland, then will be interesting to see where acoustic model-generated-samples can lead to. Using samples generated by the physical/acoustic modeling folks, and the sample-playback folks can add their string resonance effects etc.

I'm all for 'character' - and own character etc. I'll play whatever instrument that I know how to. Will play it anyway - if allowed hehe