Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Taking a break from VSTs

- Constant fiddling with settings trying to create the perfect sound
- Not enough technical knowledge to best arrange a basic audio path
- Lack of technical knowledge about how devices work at a basic level
- A significant remaining state of disorganized work/study space, however hard I tried to arrange and organize the equipment & cables
- (Un-ignorable) Technology overload
- Never ending search for the best sample libraries
- Thousands of dollars spent on equipment and software and yet having the unfinished feeling
- Above all: spending more time on everything other than learning
- ...


In went the Kawai VPC1 into its original packing box.

Out came my Yamaha P515 out of its box.


Returning to basics, well, at least trying to. I did make the first move.
Returning to learning.

But the animal in me lurks and I can feel it. I can't deny that I will stray and will seek more, not knowing that everything I need to learn (and in fact, more) is already there.

What a depressing post. Thx for reading anyway.

Wow.

Silence.

Well, not a depressing post, just 'an inconvenient truth'. I can so much feel with you on all of that.

Congratulations with a thorough decluttering. That takes courage. A lot of courage. Declutters the mind. Looks delicious. Spacious. Space for learning. Wonderful!

Cheers and happy learning,

HZ

Can’t comment on the VST thing without being biased.

But that P515 looks so beautiful in that room! Congrats.

The problem for many of us with the SOUND thing .... is that we have a pre-defined definition of what the SOUND should be and that pre-defined SOUND is not attainable in the real world.

Thus .... the endless search.

I've been (being) there, so I totally relate with you.

Looks like in your room (and amount of money available) you can get an acoustic. I suggest you explore that route (at the moment I have both acoustic and digital). Craigslist or rental if you want to start without a large investment.

Best of luck!

I use Garritan, have tuned a couple settings and tweaked the touch response on my sl88 grand (it's way too muffled out of the box), and I am pretty happy with it. I atleast don't feel the NEED to modify it anymore, because it is already much better than the yamaha clavinova I had.
Though the keyboard does have its quirks (weird build quality issues and inconsistent noise), but it is surprisingly good for the £640 I paid for it. I am a hobbyist so I am not that needy, but I know I could probably make it better. It's just that I didn't enjoy setting it up - so I sure ain't going to continue a neverending path of refining something that is already superior to most digital pianos.

Anyway I don't think I could go back to the digital sound of Yamaha's cfx engine, even if it does take a minute or so to load the massive samples of the garritan. It just took part of me whenever I wasn't in the mood and could ignore it; I learnt the sound intimately, and what came with it was the numerous uninteresting quirks, uninspiring notes, and a bloody headache if I didn't take a break after a while.

I guess I am just easy to please :P.

Increasing meaningful practicing improves sound on an acoustic but the more I practice on my N2, the better it sounds (as least in my mind.) Also, I guess, it's a lower bar on AG or any digital, than practicing on a B or a D, which would reveal my deficiencies (maybe that's a good thing.)

I wouldn’t think of this as depressing. If you are serious with this hobby I think you could be doing iterations like this the rest of your life. Switching between the focus being on improving your playing skills and using that experience in the next iteration to help guide your equipment and software decisions. Each iteration hopefully you will get a gradual step up in what you hear when you play. Of course with more experience your expectations will also get higher.

But for now you have recognised you need to focus on improving your skill with playing.

I was using mostly VST with my old Yamaha CLP150 (2002).

Now, with the N1X and a newer sound generator, I use mainly the integrated CFX sound.

In the end it is musical enjoyment that counts, nothing else. (Except income, for some, and technological tinkering, for others. )

And practicing sure helps much more towards enjoyment (and income) than tinkering

I can relate. Get yourself a nice sounding acoustic. I still mess around with Pianoteq and Garritan on the C3X, but it just isn't the same.

Wow!

What a difference in aesthetics. The Yamaha looks so elegant and clean compared to all the clutter in the first picture. For me, having a tidy and inviting environment to play in is important. I hate clutter. It's hard for me to function in clutter.

However, if you ever go back to the Kawai, get some of these.

Cable Ties

God Bless,
David

I agree with HZpiano, KevinM, and maurus, your post is not depressing. It shows you have not lost sight of the mission, despite all the distractions along the path.

If history shows us anything, it must surely show us that we crave beauty. And the pursuit of music merely reflects that fact. You are in pursuit of that which nature has programmed into all of us. You are being human. Don't beat yourself up over any decisions you have made along the way. This move is just one of many that will take you closer to your goal. No regrets!

I get it where you're coming from, mmathew. I've often wondered if I should simply get myself a new DP, with decent piano sounds, and forget about multigigabyte piano VSTs. What I've mostly been eyeing, is namely Yamaha P515, or Clavia Nord Piano 4.

Then again, I do (or plan to do) so much other stuff where I have to use a computer, that my PC will have to be wired up to the digital piano anyhow. I like using notation programs, making and editing MIDI files, from my own recordings or from elsewhere. I recently got a Toontrack piano hugely discounted, and then I added some MIDI files to play with.

So I don't think I would completely get rid of piano (or other) VSTs, even if I upgraded my Casio PX-5S to something sturdier. I would still be in VST slavery, if people like to call it that. My biggest problem though right now, is simply finding time to practise or fiddle around, with the always looming threat of not being able to finish my school assignments in time.

Thank you kind folks for taking the time to read and post.

I guess the depressing part of all this is the loss of time, and inefficient use of time. That is the one thing I'll never get back. I can earn the money back and I don't really spend on anything else, I don't drink/party, never been interested in watches or cars or clothes or other hobbies.

Anyways, looking back, although I felt so happy whenever I purchased and brought home new music gear, the times that I felt most happy (the feeling of having achieved something worth) were along the lines of:

- having learnt 4-5 difficult measures of Chopin and being able to play them without fear
- every time I moved on to the next Hanon exercise or a different key of the current
- etc.

I can confidently say that I will never attain that level happiness from gear.

Onward - I need more courage to stay on this path.

Wow...

HZ

Wow...

I wish you (and all of us) all the courage, inspiration and joy in real achievement and satisfaction you (and all of us) can muster.

Cheers,

HZ

The first picture looks like something one would see in an auto repair shop. The second picture looks like something one would see in an art gallery.

Whenever Kawai get around to the next generation VPC1 it would be nice if they offered an optional stand as Yamaha do with their slabs.

Although there are some decent VSTs that sound amazing, they're too much hassle to play with. If there is a VST that is reliably ready to play under 3 secs I'll give it a try!

It's interesting that you felt the need to remove the VPC1 from your "equation", even though its action is probably more acoustic-like than the P515.

As a rank beginner, I'm not unhappy with my P121, but I'm buying a VPC1 to get an action that is more like an acoustic. The fact that it also requires me to buy a VST I see as a bonus, since I think that the pianos I've tried in Pianoteq 7 sound better than the piano sounds of the P121.

But I have no intention of spending countless hours, mucking about with the various settings of the presets. At my level, that would certainly be a waste of time. It reminds me of my early days in film photography, where I would read magazine articles about people spending days, weeks even, testing film/developer combinations and plotting the results on graph paper. I read Ansel Adams' books, found out that he liked HC110 with Tri-X, and thought to myself, "If it's good enough for Ansel, it's good enough for me."

Well, if PTQ 7 with the default presets is good enough for Phil Best, I guess they're good enough for me!

Anyway, thanks for posting this. Enjoy the P515!