Pianos, Blind taste test

[Hanon_CTS]

Hello All,
I thought I'd challenge you to a blind taste test.
I recorded a MIDI sequence then played it back, recording the audio of
5 different choices of piano sounds.

In random order, I used the Korg M3 "Stereo Pro Piano" , Yamaha Motif "Power Grand", Nord Grand Lady D, Nord Bosendorfer, Nord Bright Yamaha Grand.

The Nord samples are the Large versions.

Which one sounds better?

• (Steinway Grand Lady D LRG 5.3 )Piano_Demo_1.mp3

• (Korg M3-88 Stereo Pro) Piano_Demo_2.mp3

• (Yamaha Motif Power Grand) Piano_Demo_3.mp3

• (Bright Grand YaS4 LRG 5.3)Piano_Demo_4.mp3

• (Grand Imperial Bdorf LRG 5.3)Piano_Demo_5.mp3

If you'd like, you may use this one as a palette cleanser. This might have gotten confused for a real piano in 1983, but there's no fooling us now This is the Kurzweil K250 in all of it's 12 voice glory.

• Piano_Demo_K250.mp3

I almost wish that had used this one instead of the M3, now just another palette cleanser...
Roland XV-88 patch # PA:004 "Nice Piano"

• Piano_Demo_XV-88.mp3

I'll post the results in a couple of weeks.

(edit: Added the Results)
21 people voted for Piano 1 (Steinway) 36%
17 people voted for Piano 4 (Bright Grand) 29%
11 people voted for Piano 5 (Grand Imperial Bdorf) 19%
7 people voted for Piano 3 (Motif Power Grand) 12%
2 people voted for Piano 2 (Korg M3-88) 3%
1 person voted for none of the above

I'd like to thank everyone for playing

[Cbas]

Hi Hanon.

Excellent idea ;) And very nice playing. It will be fun to see what people will like the most.
I think I got all the pianos figured out (maybe not 100% sure, but almost). I personally felt that the 3 nords were definitly of higher quality than the 2 others. But it was hard to choose between the nords. I feel they all have different qualities that apeal to me in different ways. But I think I like the Bösendorfer the most if I would have to choose.

What about yourself?

[Johannes]

Indeed great idea Hanon! And nice playing!!
Tough choice, even more on crappy speakers so will have to listen tonite with decent speakers/headphones. But I have a guess of most of the pianos, not sure though.

I think the Grand Lady would be my favorite in this setting, will see if I picked it...

BTW, just got my copy of Keyboard Magazine with a great review of the Nord Stage 2 and they say great things also about the uprights, maybe I should give up one Grand for e.g., the Black Upright, but in this contest it would be easy to spot right?? Plus, a Kurz Triple Strik Piano would be also interesting to compare with.
Anyway, great initiative!! Johannes

[qwert]

I wonder which piano is played in the second demo... in my opinion it's the worst of all and it sounds synthetic and unnatural... It seems almost an electric piano!!!

[Nordfan]

I'm sorry but I don't get it.

What do you want us to choose from? Do I have to pick the best piano sample (no.1-5) or do you want us to pick the best patch (no. 1-5).
The poll shows Piano 1, piano 2 etc etc. But those patches are already visible at the top. I guess you mean which sample sounds the best?? So maybe you should give the options sample 1, sample 2 etc etc???

I haven't listened to them yet. I'll do that when I get back home in 6-7 hours.

[Johannes]

@NordFan: Sorry for the confusion, my fault!! I thought it would be nice to separate the two questions
(1) Which piano do you prefer? ==> Just answer the poll question
(2) Which demo do you think was recorded using which keyboard or patch ==> for that I created the small survey where you can choose which sample you think uses which sample/keyboard in order to see if people are more or less unanimous about which sound comes from which keyboard or Nord sample.

Sorry for the confusion!

[ozio01]

Hanon,
great idea!
Really curious about the result.

Maybe samples a little bit too long (difficult to compare) but I found that you can pause them where you want, so no problem in hearing them playing "in parallel".

[Hanon_CTS]

I wonder which piano is played in the second demo... in my opinion it's the worst of all and it sounds synthetic and unnatural... It seems almost an electric piano!!!

hmmm...
Out of my list, which company has the worst reputation for pianos?
That one's in there almost as a palette cleanser ;)

Cheers, Hanon

[Hanon_CTS]

Hanon,
great idea!
Really curious about the result.

Maybe samples a little bit too long (difficult to compare) but I found that you can pause them where you want, so no problem in hearing them playing "in parallel".

Hello,
I had thought that as well.
I wanted to try and have a wide frequency, dynamics, and contextual range for the pianos.
It was spur of the moment, I hit the the record button and just played some stuff.
The next ones, for the Uprights, and Rhodes will be better planned, or possibly I'll enlist the help of other forum members..."a better idea!"

[Johannes]

Yeah, I like the K250 one, good to compare those Synth Beauties with modern Pianos!!!
12 voices, 2MB ROM, 10Mhz Processor working hard.
Still, state of the art back then (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurzweil_M ... ynthesizer:)

(The K250) was considered to be the first really successful attempt to emulate the complex sound of a grand piano. This instrument was inspired by a bet between Ray Kurzweil and musician Stevie Wonder over whether a synthesizer could sound like a real piano.