>A digital piano is a Xerox > >I tire very easily of the sound, and being a jazz player, I find that my >improvising is more interesting, to me, on a piano than a keyboard. I tend >to push the envelope on the real thing, whereas, on a keyboard I play it >safe....boring! > >Cheers >Mark Bolsius >Bolsius Piano Services >Canberra Australia Great analogy Mark. You are right because speakers produce only 2D sound. Even stereo offers only right and left channel. Even with "positional audio" utilizing digital signal algorithms (ie A3D, AC3, Pro-Logic, THX or other dolby special effects), if you're not in the "sweet spot" center, then all digital 3D simulation is lost to the listener. Real sound (i.e. acoustic pianos) are in a 3D world, and they produce a 3D sound. Close your eyes and you can position a real piano's distance, and direction in your mind. A digital sample is simply a 2D "xerox" of the real thing. It lacks ANY position in 3D space. It's as flat as that piece of xerox paper is. Also note that digital samples are only a single sound, but with greater or lesser amplitude (volume). Unlike an acoustic piano whose tone-color on a given pitch is quite variable, the sampled tone on a digital instrument can only be made louder or softer. What about that "ictus" mentioned earlier? This sharpening in pitch relative to the attack volume is not present in digital instruments. This lack of "color" and depth makes digital instrument capable of producing 1 color of tone, just in greater or lesser volume. (Yawn... Yes, overall tone is adjustable with an equalizer control on most digital pianos, but individual pitches cannot produce independent tone colors). Even the dampers contribute to the color on an acoustic piano. A sharp staccato is half attack, half damper on a real piano! On a digital, it's all the same, on or off. (Yes there is an attack and a pre-programmed decay, but it's always the same formula. Just louder or softer. The damping is always just an "off" switch to the sound.) There's also no pedal shading available. You can't half-pedal on a digital piano. What about una corde? On a real piano this is variable, but on a digital its either on or off. What about touch?. Some high end digital pianos now have aftertouch, and checking sensations. But the engineers that added these new features apparently forgot that bass hammers repeat (i.e. trill) much more slowly and check much heavier than treble hammers do, because the simulated aftertouch and checking sensations are identical from top to bottom on digital pianos. (Argh! So close, yet so far!) What about the appearance? We don't even need to go there. What about personality? Can you really tell a difference comparing two identical models of digital pianos? NO. Are all Steinways identical. NO. That's part of their appeal. Yes, you won't have to tune a digital piano, but it doesn't have a soul, or personality either. No wonder your improvisation suffers on a digital. What's there to inspire you? Still, you made a great analogy. Cheers, Brian Henselman, RPT Austin, TX musicmasters@att.net
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