Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Casio PX-850 D4 Flat?

Hi. I have a Casio PX-850. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it. However, it seems to have a weird issue - D4 seems slightly flat.

What's odd is that D4 seem flat whether I play it using the 850's native sounds or through the Galaxy D VST. This implies that it's may be some sort of MIDI issue.

Has anyone else seen this? Any resolution?

Thanks,

Dan.

Hello
I know that in pianotech, you can see live the midi value sent by the keyboard
There is a free pianotech version, you can try to analyze what is going on
Otherwise, there are probably others tools for performing this test

I don't think MIDI can transmit "slightly flat D4" ... well, the pitch bend messages should stand out like a sore thumb if so.

Sounds a little strange. Try using MIDI-OX or something similar.

www.midiox.com/‎

If you have any smartphone, download a "tuner" or "guitar tuner" app. There are free ones on the Google marketplace for Android.

Then, find out if the note -really is- flat, or if your ears are playing tricks. My bet is that they're playing tricks.

. Charles

I had a similar problem with a key on my DP, which sounded flat, I checked with a Korg electronic tuner, it was perfectly in tune. I finally solved the problem by concentrating on playing music rather than looking for faults in the piano.

But pitch bend is global, no? All notes playing would go flat.

This almost certainly isn't a MIDI issue. If the note is indeed flat, it could be a bad value in some look-up table or an algorithm issue in the pitch generator software. Notes are played back at various pitches for stretching purposes, and to give the various "scales" (Equal, Pythagorean, Werckmeister, etc.).

You must have sharp ears.

Thanks for the feedback.

I'm using the progression C, D, and E to compare the sound. D3 in C3, D3, and E3 sounds fine. D5 in C5, D5, and E5 also sounds fine. It's just D4 that sounds flat.

What is weird is that D4 sounds flat using the 850's internal sounds and also using Galaxy Instruments Vintage D virtual piano software. Straight out of the piano vs midi. Very odd.

I doesn't sound like this is a known issue. I'll try some of your suggestions to track down the cause.

Regards,

Dan.

Hi, is there any way to post a recording? I am an aural piano tuner and can tell you right away if the D4 it is flat, sharp, or correct. I need to hear it in context with other test-notes though. For example:

Play A3 and D4 together (perfect 4th below).
Next play D4 and A4 together (perfect 5th above).
Next play Bb3 and D4 together (Major 3rd below). as well as D4 and F#4 (Major 3rd above).
Finally play F3 and D4 together (Major 6th below).
Play each a couple of times and all test notes should last about a whole note at around 120 tempo so I have time to hear the inner beats.

If the D4 was recorded out-of-tune or is being algorithmic-ally stretched an incorrect amount, one of the above aural tests will sound noticeably out of place.

I did measurements a number of sampled SW DP's (Galaxies, Sampletekk, PMI) with tuning, with a a number of leading SW Tuning SW. I would recommend to try with this shareware program:

AP Tuner shareware

The only "precise" instrument seemed Pianoteq and my CA51, all the others seemed to have anomalies of about 2-3 cents with some notes. But I am not sure that this was really bad, the piano tuner could have overruled his tuning instrument suggestion...

If you have separately sampled una corda samples, you should try this also, because tuning SW not always good at tuning slightly different tuned parallel strings. (In the normal tuning process is only one single string have to be tuned at one time.)

I also tend to believe, that some resonances from sampled instruments are stressing out or mixing in some harmonic additions which could lead your perception that that base tone itself is out of tune. Pitch perception is a heavy psychologigal process. (We have to learn to adapt to compensate for a lot of things, among them stretching and pythagorean imperfections of all scale tuning - even a-capella vocal singing is not prune of this.)

Maybe the note is in tune, but some other aspect is out of kilter with the others, such as dynamic, attack, timbre, decay, sustain, etc. Doesn't help I know. That you hear it with another sample also suggest some resonance or interaction in the room, or your ears!

Did you play around with transpose?

W/w.o. stretch

UNA Corda and Sustain pedal samples might also produce different pitch the acoustic original might even have been re-tuned between sampling sessions.)

How are you using the Galaxy - are you feeding back the sound to the PX-850?

Gentlemen / Ladies,

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. I'll try that software.

Regarding transpose... Yes, I played around with that, but not to test for this issue. I'll test using transpose to see if it makes a difference.

Regarding tuning, it doesn't appear that there's any way to turn it off. I.e. you can just change it to a different tuning. I did try changing to a different tuning. I didn't notice much difference in the overall sounds of the Vintage D and it did not seem to make any difference with the D4 issue.

Please remember that I'm very much a beginner with pianos and DPs, and have only had Vintage D for a couple weeks. There could be some setting that I'm missing.

Regarding feeding sound back into the 850... No, not intentionally.

OTOH, it occurs to me that the other components of my sound system may be affecting this. Here is my configuration:

PX-850 --> Laptop via USB MIDI. Laptop is Lenovo - Core i5 / 8GB memory / 7200 rpm system hard drive / Samsung 840 SSD for VSTs

Kontakt 5 on Laptop --> Vintage D virtual piano

Vintage D audio --> Steinberg 28M via USB

28M Headphone audio out --> EbTech Hum Eliminator

EbTech --> Behringer headphone Micro Amp

Micro Amp --> BeyerDynamic 770 Pro headphones.

Yes, that's a long "food chain". Each component was added to resolve issues - eliminate hum, increase volume, etc. I can understand if one of these components causes sound quality degredation, but I'd be surprised if it affected just one key. That said...

One my first steps will be to start removing components from the chain to see if they are causing the problem. Also, I still have a Presonus AudioBox audio interface. (I replaced it with the Steinberg AI after having lots of problems with it.) I'll also try reinstalling that.

Again, many thanks for the feedback.

Dan.

Meanwhile I could find some of my pitch measurements tables about the Galaxy VD, but I didn't see any amomalies with D4.

But there was a too sharp D2! (3-4 cents, I even reported this to the manufacturer some 2-3 years ago.)

1. Our (my) octave numbering D3/D4 could have had a shift.
2. Is it possible that compared to this the octave seems to be flat by the same amount?
3. it is rather improbable to have both VintageD and PX-850 the same anomaly on the same key.

Temperament,

Interesting points. I agree about the VintageD and PX-850 - that seems improbable. I'm assuming that it's something else that I haven't identified yet.

Regards,

Dan.

Elves do have good hearing, especially when augmented.