Nord User Forum

Dear,

Some of us like the Yamaha, the other lady, discussed GRANDPIANO x UPRIGHT hand so on ... But what parameters we could compare the sounds of pianos? How to set the sounds for each one, each has a unique, have similar, and so on (stuffy, dry, wet, sharp, shiny, metallic, spacious are some terms that I hear ...). I realize that the majority of opinions is related to equalization, but that's not all ...

Do you know any study, any suggestions or something similar? I think it would be cool to create a table comparing various pianos NORD ...

When I play jazz I want the warmest piano I can get, but one that "sings" also. The Fazioli XL is the choice for that. In a rock and blues setting I now use the Grand Upright. Really cuts through in a guitar based band situation. I slighty change my EQ depending on the room.

romelio wrote:Dear,

Some of us like the Yamaha, the other lady, discussed GRANDPIANO x UPRIGHT hand so on ... But what parameters we could compare the sounds of pianos? How to set the sounds for each one, each has a unique, have similar, and so on (stuffy, dry, wet, sharp, shiny, metallic, spacious are some terms that I hear ...). I realize that the majority of opinions is related to equalization, but that's not all ...

Do you know any study, any suggestions or something similar? I think it would be cool to create a table comparing various pianos NORD ...

The simple answer is that any such attempt to rate piano sounds comparatively on more than a few rating scales is doomed to failure due to inconsistency between different people, and our inability to isolate each scale and use it independently. The complex answer:

It would be relatively easy to apply some analyses in, say, Matlab and generate various acoustic properties for each piano. However these would not be the timbral adjectives you use above, but objective qualities such as spectral centroid and its fall-off up the keyboard range, ratios of different groups of harmonic strengths, level and attack period of non-harmonic components etc. In other words, they would tell us everything and nothing about the sound from a human perspective.

If we then move to the kind of qualitative analyses you suggest above, you would quickly find that outside of a few broad categories (brightness, overall amplitude envelope, and probably one or two piano-specific timbral rating scales), most of those descriptions (and any descriptions used by accomplished pianists, piano repairers etc.) would prove either meaningless (i.e. no consistency of use) or correlate extremely highly with those three or four rating scales I mentioned earlier. And as for gaining consistency of meaning from one language to another, or even from UK English to US English, forget it.

We think that we have a vast number of different qualities we can determine about timbre. The reality is that the differences between them are so slight, and our usage of them is collective (a simple example: a brighter sound is usually also harsher), and our interpretations are so individual, that it is impossible to create consistent, universally applied timbral rating scales in more than a handful (3-4) of dimensions in addition to the easily-agreed properties of pitch and amplitude envelope.

However if a synthesizer was to give us a number of scales (e.g. nasality, harshness, fatness, richness etc.) or indeed a simulated piano was to add such controls (brilliance, metallic, body, resonance etc.) as master controls that then mapped onto various parameters of the simulation, we would rapidly assimilate those relationships/mappings and be able to use the controls artistically.

Can you tell that I spent over twelve years in academia studying this area?

Al

Play the one you enjoy the most.