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"Piano is a DYING industry"

What about China? Google China piano sales!

"According to Music Trades magazine, published in Englewood, N.J., an estimated 40 million children in China take piano lessons, and 50 million study the violin. Piano sales in China - the strongest in the world - amount to 200,000 a year, and could double by 2012."

Acoustic piano sales are booming over there. Maybe in a few more years the digital pianos will catch on in China with us being the benefactors.

LOL only if a startup comes along that builds them with robots in the US.

I don't think anyone actually said such a piano should be $999. Only that it should be built. I'd happily pay $3,000 for the kind of sound engine dewster is talking about. $999 sounds like great value for what Casio is putting out.

And there's me thinking it was one of my more rational assertions . But OK, you've securely put the tin lid on my arguments, since your rebuttal seems perfectly sensible. Even so, I would not be surprised if it didn't suit all parties (minus Casio, perhaps) to go at less than full acceleration in their R&D as you might have to do in other product areas or industries.

Yeah, I see how tantalizing that looks. But getting back to what "average" consumers notice, I would not be surprised if more of the people who walk into Guitar Center will be more tempted to buy the 360 with all its bells and whistles over a comparably priced Yamaha than they would be if the "only" advantage the Casio had over the comparably priced Yamaha was a fully sampled DP sound. Yamaha is still the name. Casio's challenge is to make someone want to buy their model over the Yamaha that is next to it. The 360 is full of "sexy" features that will show well on the floor. Fully sampled piano sound? Maybe not so much.


Casio still offers others models that lack the screen. These more fully-featured models do have enough non-piano-specific capabilities that an improved operational interface is beneficial. (Plus, as I said, it looks good on the floor. ;-) )

This also brings back to mind an earlier post of yours...


He said "original price" -- the 350 was $799 at introduction, the 360 will be $899. Yes, the older model has now been reduced, presumably to clear them out in anticipation of the replacement model, which skews the comparison temporarily.


But Casio's market is not simply members of the PW forum. Casio does make models that are more purely pianos, if that's all someone wants. It doesn't mean that's all they should make.

So getting back to the current post, it's not just "a color touch screen and a price hike." For the $100 "true" price increase, it's the color touch screen, plus also all those other sounds, and some piano enhancements as well (i.e. release velocity, string resonance), better speakers, expression pedal support... really, I think Casio remains as good a value as ever.

1. Arguments based on how market forces supposedly work in a vacuum are sooo academic.

2. Looping is the 500 lb gorilla in the room, anyone with half an ear who tries a decent external sampled library or a decent sim (Pianoteq) never goes back if they can help it.

3. Consumers are not above being educated.

4. It's incredibly obviously we could have a fully-sampled DP for ~$1k at this point, I can't believe anyone not living in a cave and raised by wolves wouldn't at least have an inkling of this, much less would argue strenuously against it. Of course it's easier for me to assert this than to actually do something about it, but it's even easier for others criticize my assertions than to disprove them in a substantive manner.

5. We have extremely capable processors, large fast Flash, large fast DRAM, free RTOS's, etc. So what must be missing is the expertise or the will. Engineers not keeping up with things can limit expertise. Bean counters can limit the will.

[Aside: was at slashdot the other day, they were discussing interconnected FPGAs with Flash hanging off them. Was floored by the almost complete lack of nerd-fu - no one seemed to have the slightest clue as to what they were talking about. Much faith was lost.]

You're funny, Dewster.



This is a highly geeky forum. Surely even you know this is fallacy. Most people can't hear a difference, in fact easily confused by A/B tests. It's us, who obsess on these things that hear a difference.



Consumers continue to consume processed sugary foods and refuse to go on walks or take up a sport as a hobby. Sub $199 keyboards sell like Tostitos at a marijuana convention. You're being irrational.



Please list the components that would be used and offer a brief description of its design and functionality. What would it cost to produce and what would it's projected price point be if $1k is not achieved, which is more than likely. But you know better, so continue by all means.


See response to #4

Someone here is living in a cave and being raised by wolves but it's not me, Dewster. Tsk. Tsk. Not very nice!

Why have you ignored every question that has been posed to you?. If you're too busy with work today. I understand. But sheesh, you have very selective reading syndrome.

I've demonstrated stretching and looping to noobs, they hear it right away when it's pointed out to them, and none are very happy knowing about it. Very often people know their DP isn't up to snuff but don't have the technical chops to narrow down the why.

Digital camera fora are 1000% geekier that PW, we're not exactly plumbing the depths here.


I keep doing this and keep being told more is needed because something something. Buy one of the Odroid boards or similar. Buy a 32GB eMMC module if the microSD doen't work right. DP companies already have keys, cabinets, speakers, etc. If you can't get a 4 core 1.2 GHz processor to play back sounds don't blame the processor or the OS, look in the mirror.

The guys building DPs back in the 80's would have killed to have the inexpensive, high performance hardware we take for granted today.

OTOH, lots of people try a loopless Roland SN piano, and still choose to buy something else that they think sounds better overall. So I wouldn't call looping the 500 lb gorilla, but merely one among a number of hefty primates.


If someone proposes something that doesn't exist, I think it is normal for the onus to be on them to prove that it can, rather than on others to prove that it cannot. It is hard to prove a negative, so the comfort of your position is that it is nearly impossible for someone to conclusively prove that you're wrong. So all you're likely to see in that regard are suggestions as to why you might be wrong, which you've gotten. Does it mean you *are* wrong? No. But it doesn't mean you're right, either.

I'm reminded of this post I made back in 2012 in the other thread I referenced (http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1976749/4.html) where I replied to one of your posts with...


That question went unanswered, and it gets right back to your recent assertion that $5 worth of flash and a fast processor is all you need to create a multi-gigabyte DP. I still have not seen any product of any type that indicates that this is a viable approach. You know I'm an empiricist... I think I sent you more DPBSD samples than anyone! But I just don't see any empirical evidence of this technology. And you don't just postulate it, you put it forth as if anyone who can't see it as obvious (which apparently includes everyone who designs keyboards for a living) is clueless. (Meaning also that Nord and Yamaha are completely wasting their money on expensive NOR flash, as is Korg in using pricey SSDs. They obviously don't know they could do the same thing with much cheaper components.)


With computers continuously getting cheaper and more powerful, you might be there already, or at least close. There are some pretty cheap laptops that can run a streaming piano VST. Laptop + interface + software + the cheapest 88s might about get you there. That doesn't necessarily mean a MI manufacturer could supply the whole package for that price. As I said, "instrument companies can't build computers as cheaply as computer companies can, and the specialty instrument market can't survive on the lower profit margins of commodity/high volume products." $100 worth of components in a Dell probably equates to $130-$150 to the consumer. $100 worth of components in a Korg probably equates to $400-$500 to the consumer.

I think SN would have been much better received had the "Studio" voice been the default stuck into every Roland that didn't move fast enough.

I based what I said in that 2012 thread on Flash device datasheet information, for a device that had been around some time before 2012. I don't know how much more explicit, empirical, and concrete one can get than to reference the technical data of a real live part that you can buy at DigiKey. Though I largely agree with your economics regarding niche computing-based products.

No one should be taking any of this to heart, we're just discussing reality here.

+1, it is not hard to hear with the Casio samples at all when it kicks in. Not been playing long an it is something I noticed very quickly when I got my Casio, Did it bother me to stop playing, sure, no, it is not the be all and end all for me, and mostly keys are not down that long for it to matter much, but when they are I hear it straight away, on my Casio anyway.

Not long, I don't recall exactly how long when I stared start looking at software sounds to solve that as an alternative, but already I detected some that regular periodicity in sound trails before I ever came across this forum pointing it out, then when I started visiting here more often I came across your tests, and it hammered home what I was hearing was really true, so thanks for that

When I listen to the beautiful decay trails of a modelled piano, or something like ivory with long samples, especially in combination with a very subtle bit of detuning that you can do in pianoteq as well, the difference it makes is marked ( for me anyway ), it sounds much more natural and pleasing to me.

If there was a link to a data sheet or a digikey part in that thread, I couldn't find it. I might not understand it anyway ;-) but if you still have any such reference to a device that addresses cheap NAND flash as if it were DDR RAM, I'd be really curious to see it.

the small advances in DP tech remind me of e-ink readers such as Amazon's kindle. A few years ago the screen was pretty much gray, with small contrast. Today it's still gray, but lighter but they found a way around it: by spilling led light from the sides, you can make the screen look a lot "whiter". And thus, almost every year we're offered a new kindle edition, with slightly "whiter" screen. It's never quite there and still hasn't got as much contrast as real paper, even cheap, grayish-yellow paper. But it's good enough and I wonder once they get there, up to 100% white, what advancement they'll market next?

it's about the same with such cheap DPs as the PX350 from that performance: it allows a virtuoso to nicely display Chopin, but it's still not quite there for Prokofiev or John Cage or whatever... the watermark is always moving...

How do you know it's not there for these other composers? Purely your power of assertion? Or are there videos of people who've attempted such pieces, but have been let down by these nebulous, supposed inadequacies?

And FWIW, I still regularly use my Kindle keyboard / 3, which came out before all these supposed, improved, whiter screens. And it works just fine, and is readable in bright sunlight.

I don't, I was emulating the other complainers.

Sounded great to me, even with stretched loops and no sympathetic string resonance (which is there in the newer model and in PX-5S and PX850)

Just to illustrate the strange opinions that reveal themselves when subjective listening is involved.

In an A/B test of the Casio Privia PX-5S vs Clavia Nord Stage 2
29% of listeners prefer the sound of the PX-5S compared to 71% preferring the Stage 2. Some users couldn't tell which was which, others knew right away. Most preferred the sound of the Stage 2, and yet almost a third preferred the sound of PX-5S.




Not a scientific test obviously, but the poll was done at the Keyboard Corner, the place is frequented by folks as picky as this lot, and yet almost a third said... the sound of the PX-5S is for me! Go figure.

A/B of the PX-5S and Stage 2

Is the Nord's cabinet 100% red? It seems like there might be a dash of pink somewhere in there. This is unacceptable from a company that claims to make the reddest piano out there!

I prefer the piano no1. If anyonw know for 100% which one is that, can you please tell me the PM? I don't want to destroy the fun for others. However I do think I know which is which, but I can be wrong as well.

Link. It was a technical note, not a datasheet, my mistake, but the note has technical data in it from datasheets. I believe I was working off of both the technical note and the datasheet of one of the parts talked about in it.

That link doesn't support your position, it supports mine!

i.e.

"NAND Flash is very similar to a hard-disk drive. It is sector-based (page-based) and well suited for storage of sequential data such as pictures, video, audio, or PC data. Although random access can be accomplished at the system level by shadowing the data to RAM, doing so requires additional RAM storage. "

We're back to NOT being able to use the flash as if it were DDR RAM, but instead having to first copy the data into real RAM, exactly the situation we're trying to avoid. This is the reason NOR flash is used for these purposes... but it ain't $5.

(Similarly, the link goes on to say "NOR Flash advantages are its random-access and byte-write capabilities. Random access gives NOR Flash its execute-in-place (XiP) functionality.")

I think maybe you were confused by this part: "An increasing number of processors include a direct NAND Flash interface and can boot directly from the NAND Flash device (without NOR Flash)" -- but that is not a way of saying the NAND flash can behave more the way RAM does... rather it's a way of saying it can behave even more the way a hard drive does, i.e., you can boot from it. (Which, of course, is something you can do with NOR flash as well.)

( For those interested, there are also numerous variations of NAND and NOR...
https://www.micron.com/~/media/documents/products/product-flyer/flyer_nor_nand_flash_guide.pdf )

Anyway, it sounds like we're back where we've always been. As far as anything I've ever seen, for piano samples, you either need ROM (like most DPs), pricey NOR flash (which acts as rewritable ROM, used by Nord and Yamaha), or a bunch of RAM into which you can load the entire piano at once (and some media to load it from), or reasonably high speed storage and an OS that supports streaming (fast swaps of stored data in and out of RAM), as can be done by Kronos/Mac/PC... I still see no evidence of being able to play the samples directly from cheap NAND flash.