Vidal - new midi controller being developed

Vidal just announced a design re-vamp:

https://playvidal.com/blogs/news/february-2024-update

"Today we're announcing a new name for the instrument: the Vidal Piano Controller.

Based on feedback, we’ve shifted our design focus to making the best-feeling piano action ever in a digital keyboard. We’ve rethought every facet of the design to create an instrument that fully captures the tactile experience of playing a concert grand piano. Our biggest design change was to remove the springs and switch to a fully inertial action. This new design has large steel weights at the front and back of the keys, creating the same feeling of inertia as in a grand piano."

Vidal Piano Controller - if they team up with kawai - then it will be VPC2.

SouthPark would we then have to wait 13+ years for it to come out? Personally, I am rooting for them to be a success so we’re not at the mercy of the bigger companies who don’t seem interested in catering to this niche market and only want to offer their best actions in their higher end (aka more expensive) pianos.

[deleted] replied here LINK

SouthPark

Interesting, how “Vidal Piano Controller” spells VPC (or the other way around), and not lost in translation is also the fact that they’re calling it the best controller/digital ever; something Kawai claims the “VPC” to be.

It would be nice if they kicked Kawai’s ass….

Can you believe that the VPC-1 went from $1,800 to $2,400 just ‘cause?

Actually, I’m hoping Vidal Piano controller (VPC) sweeps the floor with the other VPC(1)!

P.S.

Yes, I did find the original Vidal hideous (a desk with keys), but I hope that their recent “improvements” don’t end at the action, and they find themselves a more modern-yet-practical design before it ships…(ditch the “desk-with-keys,” but keep the flat top).

Good luck!

Pete14 Can you believe that the VPC-1 went from $1,800 to $2,400 just ‘cause?

I didn't know that before Pete! Just picking my jaw up right now after seeing that.

Pete14 desk with keys

hehehe …. the 'what were we thinking?' sort of thing. For marketing … end of line item, it most likely should be in a form that is much better than the jiffy box look. For marketing. But also based on the price of the vidal.

Hello,

Thanks for posting the update, @[deleted] .

I read the update of affairs info on their website with interest. I do hope they involved seasoned pianists in this endeavor -- because they promise quite a lot and I've got a hunch/feeling of uncertainty whether they already fully understand all the dynamics/variables at play to fulfill what they're saying. Some of their sentences/statements are just plain incorrect.

Let's watch them closely and see what comes out of these rigorous course corrections*). I do hope they'll succeed and come up with something remarkably pleasantly playable and piano-like. For the moment, intuitively, I'm a little afraid they're overshooting their emphasis on inertia, and are not getting their geometry right just yet.

As said, these are hunches/gut feelings, no more, no less.

Cheers and happy endeavor-watching,

HZ

*) I've flown two-seater airplanes for a spell and quickly learned to use the tiniest steering inputs on the four axes of control to keep everything nice and under control, and to not end up in someone else's potato crops.

Starting off with springs and then switching mid course to actual weights to emulate inertia, at the suggestion of Internet users, means zero credibility to me and screams of lack of even basic understanding of physics. YMMV 🙂

P.S. Let me guess what their next update will be in 6 months: based on feedback, we’re making a slight change to our design, we’re not having a steel weight at the back of the keys anymore but decided to create a separate hammer 😀 Then welcome to the main game of hammer actions where some big names have been doing stuff for 30 years and still refining it.

On the other hand, it's just their credibility against your credibility. So it's even. It's good that they're having a go too.

[deleted] Vidal just announced a design re-vamp:

I can see those video demos of the key mechanism. But has anybody ever seen somebody actually playing their prototypes with sound and music etc coming out? If people were to just see at least somebody playing the instrument - regardless of what they're playing, then that would be good for marketing.

Let us not be Debbie Downer(s).….

Now, that being said, would I be an early adopter? No, but I wouldn’t mind letting others try first…….

What if they have other -engineering- stuff hidden under the sleeve that they’re not sharing with the rest of us?

I’m just trying to give them the benefit of the doubt (but not my hard-earned money)…..😉

CyberGene wow, you really seem to hate these guys for no apparent reason. I’m rooting for them and hope they come up with a cool product. It’s too pricey for me but I think it’s cool that they’re giving it a go and I’m very interested to see how it develops.

SouthPark they have videos of people playing the last version but sounds like this new one is still a work in progress. I would imagine the people who put in pre-orders might be a bit concerned at this stage but they do seem earnest in trying to make something good. We’ll just have to see how it all shakes out.

[deleted] they have videos of people playing the last version but sounds like this new one is still a work in progress. I would imagine the people who put in pre-orders might be a bit concerned at this stage but they do seem earnest in trying to make something good. We’ll just have to see how it all shakes out.

I also wish them well and hope it works out, however if I had placed a preorder for one of these, reading that latest update would not instill a whole lot of confidence in me. The whole thing has major "rediscovering the wheel" vibes.

True. I'm usually a post-order sort (as in after the goods have rolled out, and seen/heard the reviews etc.). I commend guinea pigs though, as they take one for the team. Thanks to them for taking one for the team.

[deleted] wow, you really seem to hate these guys for no apparent reason.

I don’t hate them. It just annoys me that since the very beginning they advertised it as the best piano action in the world but relied on springs, which many people pointed out was not gonna work. Now, there’s some “small” update to the working principle but at least they retained what’s most important: it’s still the best action in the world. Do you not smell the BS?

Well - they did make one boo-boo (mistake) when they wrote (at LINK) this --

We design and make keyboard instruments that capture the magic of playing a real piano.

They meant - 'acoustic' piano. Because I already mentioned that both acoustic pianos and digital pianos fall under the 'piano' umbrella. The other thing is - they probably haven't experienced the magic of playing a digital piano because they are 'them' - and they are not 'us' (or me). They might not be able to do what we do. When we know what we're doing adequately - up to a point - we can make music magic with pretty much any 'piano'. And -- no -- most 'complex' classical music and fancy foot/finger work is not 'holy grail' of music. And this is from a big fan of classical music (me). It's only just mentioning it - as a teaching reminder.

But 'having wrote all that' ( <-- cliche) - I too hope these fellas succeed. Good on them for having a crack. In history - we know that at least sometimes, some progress - or significant progress - can actually be made from people continuing to have a go, and trying, whether it be a combination of trial and error, stroke of luck, or help from others, own thinking, engineering etc.

For the vidal team - maybe one suggestion for the marketing side of things is -- if you're going to be taking orders in advance, then put up a heap of vids on the internet - so that when somebody googles 'vidal piano', then the expectation will be that they find vids where somebody is using the product, generating music from that product (or future product). Don't just have videos of somebody pushing the keys - without any musical notes/sounds. At the moment, when I google 'vidal piano', I find zero vid links of somebody playing music with the vidal midi controller (now known as vidal piano controller).

CyberGene It just annoys me that since the very beginning they advertised it as the best piano action in the world but relied on springs, which many people pointed out was not gonna work. Now, there’s some “small” update to the working principle but at least they retained what’s most important: it’s still the best action in the world. Do you not smell the BS?

Yes, the overconfident marketing spin is a bit off putting. I found it amusing that at one point they claim to have ditched having an adjustable touch (which now merely "sounds good on paper") due to customer feedback and "now ship every keyboard with the perfect feel right out of the box."

Never mind that in reality they have yet to produce or ship a single unit, and that what constitutes "perfect touch" is going to differ from user to user, but it seems much more likely that the actual reason they ditched it is because it wasn't working well and they couldn't figure out how to implement it adequately.

The whole thing comes off very amateurish.

they probably realized that tuning the feel with springs isn't so simple, especially at scale. Springs themselves have a tolerance, and using "inertia" just means they have to keep the part weights and balances consistent. Just guessing.

Calibration - and reliability - and just having the system working properly for relatively long periods of time, without deviating 'too much' from its calibrated state -- is what we're after. People can't even get acoustic pianos mechanisms to stop deviating from 'calibrated' state. So people either have to get a tuner person to come along every once in a while to sort something out, or they have to - if they can - do it themselves.

These people here at the vidal team obviously encounter challenges - that haven't been solved. Most likely including performance consistency over time. Making mistakes and failing/stumbling etc -- is a part of life. But taking money/orders and having only still images of the team members playing their piano, with little to no examples of the music generated - even from a prototype. Well -- that's probably a no-no.