Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum My strange opinion of piano with 'strings'. Am I alone?

I would suggest visiting a real orchestra a few times. After that I guess you can also tell the difference

But I have visited a real orchestra - many more than a few times...in many venues over many years...I've come to know and love that sound!

And I'm sure that if one were sitting in a theatre listening to a performance from a real, live string orchestra and then suddenly put on one's headphones and turned on one's Ipod recording of synthetic strings I'm also sure one could certainly tell the difference.

However, what I had specific reference to was the average (younger, less experienced) person trying to tell the difference between the two, both being mp3 recordings, say here on PW in one of the Recitals, for example...

I repeat my original question with the qualifications added thereto...

Wouter and Trapper you guys are both making perfect sense to me. Wouter from a technical perspective, which he is correct. You can certainly hear and 'feel' the difference. And Trapper in a more real word, realistic everyday ipod/earbud type of setting (i.e 99% + of the time).

Both are true.

I honestly think what makes me cringe when I hear the plastic strings sound is the mental association I have with that sound and the mall setting. Just like the popcorn/K-Mart association.

Also, even though you CAN tell the difference in sound (sound signature) between the plasto-strings and real violins, it doesn't mean that the sound being produced by synthetic sounds is bad or offensive.

Case in point, one of my favorite easy listening songs is Christopher Cross "Sailing" which has tons of syntho-strings throughout the entire piece. It's a very soothing and relaxing sound. He also performs this song at times with real strings and it also sounds nice. Probably even better, but I like 'em both.

Another tune that comes to mind is David Lanzs "Under the Waterfall" which seems to be all computer generated sound samples...i.e digital keyboard.

It sounds synthetic, but I still like it.

Wouter may be the 'purist' amongst us. I think his mind demands the real mcCoy and has conflict with sythetic turf. It just doesn't appeal to him which is fine.

I'm not an audiophile but my dad is. He 'searches' for tiny, granular level differences between audio samples not just audibly, but with sound/frequency measuring devices like an oscilloscope. Anything reproduced must be done to its fullest potential. No exceptions. This is why my recordings drive him nuts as he's focusing on the quality of the sound reproduction, not necessarily the nice melody of the tune. My mom on the other hand likes my music because she just hums along to the melodies and is happy instead of analyzing them.

Different strokes.

Are you absolutely certain that what you have heard in some (many) of those mall settings (or in elevators) has been that plastic (synthetic) string sound, and not a recording of actual, real strings? Maybe it's the "mall setting" that is "plastic"...

Ah sure, many younger less experienced persons have bad earplugs and only hear volume maxed out beats... Maybe they do not even know what a string orchestra is. Low quality mp3 entirely fits their bill.

But I suspect that the ears here on PW are quite a few notches above their level.



For piano sound, yes please a real piano with room acoustics and all. But it's not because I'm a purist, but because these DPs usually (almost always?) have bad, dead sounding sound, and over the top fake room acoustics.

But I like quite some pop music too, and I guess that's almost exclusively synthetic (though I like it if there's a real piano used in pop).