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Hi everyone, this will be my first topic in this great forum, and I have an interesting question for you.
How well do you think a midi controller + a piano software would compare to the digital pianos available today on the market?
What I have in mind is something like CME UF8 , the recently available midi controller that seems to grab a lot of attention specially to its weighted hammer action. Connect this controller to a Mac running Ivory . Total cost (without that of a Mac) would be $1130. That beats a lot of the top offerings from Roland and Yamaha with surpassed quality.
For home or studio use, which one do you think is a better choice?

Best.

Welcome C#minor.
Your proposed set-up will sound great. But, I don't know what you mean by it beating "top offerings from Roland and Yamaha". The CME is unproven at best. I wonder who makes their actions? Fatar? That wouldn't beat either Roland or Yamaha. Have you played it?

Sorry I wasn't clear. Pricewise is what I meant.

Thanks Steve in joining this discussion. To answer your question, no, I haven't played or tried the suggested combination. Actually, that is why I am posting this question to get answers from people who tried it or at least have an experience with the (midi controller + piano software plugin) setup.

Best.

As far as the sound quality, it is in my humble opinion, that Ivory is in a category by itself above many (if not all) commercially available digital pianos.
I have heard the samples they have on the company's website, but I think to listen to a fair comparison you could try Purgatory Creek digital piano shootout
Would still like to hear everyone's opinion and experience on the matter. Thanks.

Best.

C#minor:

Are you using to setup for home use or live gigs?
If it's the latter, I would worry about the robustness of such a system (especially if it's run on a PC).
Steve: I know you run Ivory on a G5 system, have you experienced any freeze-ups or crashes? I have always wondered about that. With the Ivory, do you have to store the samples on a separate hard-drive?

GC

I am talking about home practising/studio use only. I don't have the guts to take a computer for a gig

My whole point of this post is that I have the impression that although digital pianos have very small sample sizes in comparison with software, they have dedicated DSPs that make them very experessive still, e.g. the Roland RD 700sx with only a 64MB rom, Gem Promega 3...etc.

Would a piano plugin + a midi controller acheive the same degree of expression? Which midi controller would you recommend?

Hi C#minor,

I don't have any experience specifically with Ivory (waiting for a Windows version) but I have just about every Giga piano library going as well as several ROMplers to compare.

Here's what I've found:

When recording sequences, I'll use Gigastudio and one of the many piano samples. When I feel like playing around with voices other than piano, I'll almost always turn to a Yamaha Motif, but when I'm playing/practicing piano, I'll always go to the Yamaha CLP-170. I have another setup of a midi controller tied to a Roland XV-3080 with an SRX-02 piano sample board but I've found that the sound just doesn't compare to the Clavinova.

When I try to play the Giga samples live, there is a barely discernable delay (latency) and I can never quite get past the feeling that I'm playing a recording (albeit a VERY GOOD recording), that I don't get with the 170.

My 2 cents,

Rodney

Rodney is onto something here. I have many friends in the industry, and they tell me that this is THE reason that we're not seeing huge piano samples in hardware instruments (yet). There is a disconnect between the player and the sound when using virtual instruments -- particularly pianos. And in terms of an integrated digital piano with large samples, the streaming technology just isn't quite there yet to create the same kind of response and connection between player and instrument. When I use Ivory, I usually track with my favorite sound on my XV88 or FantomX8. I then assign the MIDI output to Ivory. I rarely perform on Ivory itself. It just doesn't feel right to me. I have very low latency on my system, yet I can still sense it. With other types of sounds (strings, organ, etc.), the latency is less of an issue. But perhaps my own standards as a player are higher on a piano sound? I'm not sure. I just don't like the feeling while performing.

Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate it.

Best.

Yes, Thanks Steve! A great explanation of something we have been dancing around about here for months (and probably years b4 I showed up)!

C#minor,

Two things: that controller almost certainly uses a Fatar keyboard. No way does a small manufacturer have the resources to develop their own.

Digital pianos' included sounds, especially from the Roland 700SX, are much better than they were even two years ago. Somewhere in Roland's menu system there's an option that turns on sympathetic resonance---could be One Touch. That's well worth exploring.

I still prefer controler+sampled piano. There's a depth to good samples that just jumps out at you. That said, latency is *the* issue. You need some CPU horsepower and a good soundcard. Most folks---of whom I'm one---won't sense the delay if it's 3 milliseconds or less. They will begin to sense it if it exceed 6 milliseconds. (I get 2.9.)

DavidH

Hi David,
The reason I mentioned the CME is that it seems to receive favorable reviews from many people. There was a review by Keyboard magazine not long ago, and they said it was quite nice. Thing also is that it started to ship, so I thought maybe more people have tried it.

If you don't mind David, could you tell us what is your setup that you use to acheive this remarkable 2.9 ms latency? I've read an article in Sound On Sound magazine and it mentioned that keeping the latency below 6 ms is not bad at all. Actually a guitar player playig on a big stage will experience a 10 ms delay if he is standing just 11ft. away from his stack. Just simple physics!

FYI: A MIDI connection adds at least 3ms of latency. That's before any added latency from your computer set-up.

Wow! 1st time to know about this, thanks Steve. Does the length of the midi cable play any role in this, or do you get this kind of latency anyway as long as you are using midi?
Also, would it make any difference to connect to the computer by a fast USB 2.0 cable, or firewire?

C#,

Re the reviews, last year it was the Doepfer! Reviews are great, but it's a good idea to keep in mind that publishers are in the business of, shall we say, headlines. New products generate interest. Only rarely do you see full fledged comparison tests. (You can locate them, but most reviews are single-product ones, which don't refer to other products, or refer to them only in passing.)

The latency figure I listed is the one that shows within Cubase SX. Your number uses a different yardstick. (And Steve Y knows his stuff.) For most people---of whom, again, I'm one---the sequencer's laency figure is a workable baseline. Your ears---and Steve's---may vary.

I have a dual Xeon box (got it used from an IBM tech guy for 1/3 retail) with 2 gigs of RAM and an RME 9632 soundcard. Latency in Cubase is 2.902ms.

The guy who set up my apps teaches computer-based recording. He says that 1 processor is enough for audio, and that dual processors don't become necessary until you're also doing video.

Personally I'd be happy with 1 P4, but the dual Xeon box was sitting there when I went to buy a flat panel monitor from the same guy, and since the price was right...

DavidH

My local music store just brought in a CME. I think it lists around CA$700 so it is a real bargoon. The guy told me it's made in China.
In the store, it was midi'ed to one of the Roland digital pianos (don't remember the model). I just was not too keen about the action (it felt kind of sloppy) but I only played on it for a few minutes.

On the issue with software pianos. I have no experience with the Ivory. My setup consists of Kontakt (software sampler) and the software piano is the Bardstown(sp?) Imperial Bosie. I do find a discernable latency while playing it(very subtle but it's there); I think the best way to describe it is the feel is not very "solid". I tend to concur with SteveY that current hard-disk streaming technology is still imperfect. Personally, I much prefer to play on a hardware based digital piano.

Just my 2 cents.

GC

Lots of good input here!!!

I do want to clarify (not sure if it's necessary) that I'm not down on virtual instruments. It should be obvious that I own several and use them all the time. It's entirely possible that others might find my exact set-up completely satisfying in terms of the player/instrument connection (that I find a little bit lacking). It's all very personal.

That said, I'm a bit two-faced on this anyway. I've played many, many gigs on horrible sounding keyboards with horrible sounding PA systems. I've played and toured with 61 or 76-key synths and played piano parts on them. Even though it's not optimum, most gigs aren't perfect situations. You make the best of it -- you try and be musical, and often, great things happen. But when I can, I buy the best. I obsess about finding the right microphones and preamps for any project I work on. I spent a boat-load of money on a high-end piano because I wanted to have the best sound possible.

So I guess what I'm saying is that if I'm looking for the perfect solution, virtual instruments aren't it. But if I'm looking for a great tool that gets the job done, virtual instruments are great!!! I think each person ultimately has to decide where their standards lie on these kinds of issues (latency, sonic character, etc.).

I use Ivory on a G4 with a CLP230 as MIDI controller and if I set the buffer on RAX to 128 (latency 3ms) or less then I do not sense any latency. This is the set up I use:

Apple G4 dual 1GHz, 1Gb RAM, Julia@ internal sound card, dedicated SATA HD for Ivory samples, Synthogy Ivory, RAX host, Speed Freak PCU accelerator (I have no idea if this gives me any benefits but I use it anyway), Behringer Eurorack UB1002 mixer, Yamaha CLP230 MIDI controller.

Cheers

Paul

Thanks Paul for sharing this information. If you don't mind me asking, what is a RAX host?

Best.