Quote:

Guess maybe the piano doesn't have the edge for today's country rock. Whereas I can hear where the Hammond might - edginess, power.

Ian



Ian:

The only instrument I play is the piano, but I haven't played an acoustic piano for some time - just digital. So I'll make a few comments as to why I think the piano isn't used and what might rectify it.

1) For a group to use a piano, they likely need a regular pianist, and most groups do some traveling.

2) Many (most) venues don't have a suitable acoustic piano (the real kind); the venues often tend to be arenas. In fact I've never seen a piano in an arena anywhere near where I live.

3) Traveling with an acoustic piano is close to impossible for a mobile group - it's heavy and the constant moving requires constant tuning which means a technician is required on a regular basis. This isn't going to happen.

4) The remaining option is a digital piano, and frankly the onboard sounds of a digital are not where it's at to use an old-fashioned term. They not only don't sound realistic at all, it's very difficult to get a piano sound that will cut through the mix without being too loud.

On Monday last, we went out for family birthday dinner, and there was a pretty good singer accompanied by a pretty darn good jazz pianist. Sadly the poor sucker was using a keyboard with Roland's famous thin artificial sound (insert Yamaha, Korg, whatever as you wish - I happen to have a Roland). I gave up on the onboard sounds of digital piano several years ago and use a physically modeled piano. At my disposal are so many sounds that it would make a digital piano run away in shame; and the sounds kick butt. The next version is going to turn some heads and make conversions (it's due out soon).

A frequent question is "how can I get the piano to cut through the mix?" In a few minutes, I can tweak a sound that will cut through a steel door and then save it as a drop-down preset. There are also dozens of ready-to-go presets including electrics, marimba, vibes, etc. (all percussion).

Every preset is available with one mouse click, and any two presets are visible and available onscreen.

The setup for traveling requires a reasonably good laptop, and any decent keyboard. Today's upper end laptops are being used extensively for gigs (you all know this), and appear to be quite stable (not going to start a Windows/Apple debate here - they both work).

The footprint on my seven year old dual core HDD is 24.81 MB (not GB as in samples), and it will easily keep up with only 7 ms of latency. Since the program resides in RAM, HDD speed isn't a factor.

I can't say for sure why piano isn't used more in modern country, but lack of knowledge about the options that are now available may be part of it. In the past, the "standard" for computer piano sounds has been recorded samples, (the latest Ivory II requires 77 GB just to contain the samples and requires a fast HDD). Also, one can't tweak the sound very much with samples. With my "piano", I can change tunings in an instant for example.

If you have a midi file you would like to hear rendered to a particular sound, let me know. I can convert it to a wave track in a few minutes and post it on my box.net account.

Glenn