On 3/11/2014 5:48 PM, Sam Kanter wrote:
George, thanks for the excellent article on the history of the disklavier - very informative. I recommend that everyone hear reads it - much better than the Wikipedia article.
I was particularly interested to the Mark II to Mark II XG upgrade you mentioned. I wonder if there is still any possibility of that being available, and significantly less expensive than the DKC-850? At this point I cannot see a justification for upgrading to the DKC-850 with the limited improvement it would provide with the Mk II DKV I have, especially since I use it with a computer, not floppy. In general my Mark II unit performs beautifully, but always a few bugs and glitches to iron out. Still trying to sync MIDI playback with a virtual synth in my computer, difficult as I have to delay each MID sequence by 500ms. I do have a Yamaha MU-50, might be easier setting that up.
I will have to do some testing to see how much compression my piano is recording. I suppose a good test would be doing a record playback test with a MIDI monitor. I assume I could fix some of the compression using one of Spence's volume utilities?
Thanks for your help...
On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 4:40 PM, George Frederick Litterst <PianoBench@...> wrote:
Good afternoon, everyone.
Sam, the Mark II was a big step up from the earlier instruments. However, there is some compression of the dynamic range on playback. You can easily do a recording and compare the playback.
The first Disklavier that captured a huge range was the Mark IIXG PRO.
For anyone who is interested in the history of the Disklavier, you might enjoy this article that I wrote for the Disklavier Education Network:
For those who are uncertain as to which model they have, you can figure it out from this chart that I created:
For those interested in upgrading to a DKC-850, there is another chart here:
Regards,PianoBench
On Mar 11, 2014, at 2:06 PM, Sam Kanter wrote:
George, can I assume my Mark II does not have the compressed volume issues of the earlier models?
Sam
*(Sent from phone - please excuse brevity and typos.)Good afternoon, everyone.
Steno Jazz, here is a more complete explanation of several distinct issues that affect your MX100A (and similarly, other early model Disklaviers):
MIDI OutThe choices are Keyboard Out and Delay Out:
Keyboard Out sends out MIDI data that you play on the keys yourself. The Delay Out setting causes MIDI data that is being played from floppy disk to be sent out.
MIDI InThere are two MIDI In settings: Delay In and Real Time. You should almost always use Delay In.
The basic issue is this: When you send MIDI data over a MIDI cable (such as from a computer to your piano), you expect the tone generator that received the data to respond immediately. In the case of a digital piano, you'll hear the MIDI data instantly.
The Disklavier, however, is a mechanical device. If it is set to Real Time response, it will respond to incoming MIDI data by immediately starting to move the keys. However, you will not hear the notes instantly because it takes time for the keys to set the hammers in motion and for the hammers to strike the strings.
How much delay will there be between the time that the Disklavier starts to move a key and the moment when you hear the hammer hit the string? The answer depends upon how loud the note is. Loud notes are produced by hammers moving relatively fast whereas soft notes are produced by hammers moving relatively slowly.
In order to have a good listening experience, you want to hear the hammers impact the strings with correct relative timing. If your Disklavier is set to Real Time input, you will experience sloppy timing. (I hasten to add that this Real Time setting only affects playback from an external source, not playback from the floppy drive.)
To compensate for this mechanical issue, the Disklavier engineers built in a 1/2 second (500ms) delay option for playback of external MIDI data. This so-called Delay In option results in the incoming MIDI data being buffered long enough for the Disklavier to figure out when to start moving each key so that every hammer strikes the strings with accurate relative timing.
There is another oddity about Real Time input. If the Disklavier receives rapidly repeated notes, such as trills and tremolos, some note-off messages may come in before the affected keys have finished their complete down-stroke. The result can be an interruption in the key movement that sends the hammer toward the string. Some hammers may strike more slowly (and therefore later than they should and at a softer volume) and some hammers may never reach the strings at all, resulting in dropped notes.
Phantom Notes During PlaybackRegardles s as to whether playback is from the floppy drive or an external source, the early model Disklaviers played back with a somewhat compressed dynamic range. Chords that were originally thunderous would play back somewhat more softly and very quiet notes would play back more loudly.
Given the limitations of those early playback systems and the likelihood that many Disklavier owners would not have their instruments regulated or calibrated regularly, the Disklavier engineers appear to have made a design decision to insure that soft notes would not drop out on playback by raising their volume to a minimum threshold, somewhere around MIDI velocity 35 for MX100A&B and MX80 and around MIDI velocity 25 for the Wagon Grand.
The result is that I have seen situations in which a pianist brushed keys during a recording. At the time of the recording, those brushed notes were inaudible, having been masked by the loudness of the surroundin g notes. On playback at a minimum velocity of 25 or 35, those brushed notes became audible.
I hope this explains a few things.
Regards,PianoBench
On Mar 11, 2014, at 3:21 AM, Steno wrote:
I think i am using it without delay. I never used the midi features too much yet in this piano...is that the difference between "delay" and "kbdout"The notes played randomly are played even without anything connected to midi connector . Is it the phenomenon of "brushed notes"? What is the minimum delay i should use without such brushed notes?Thanks!
Good evening, everyone.
Steno Jazz, are you using your piano with MIDI In set to Delay or Real Time? In general, you should use the former. In Real Time mode, any Disklavier can drop notes if the note-off messages come in before the mechanical action has completed the keystroke that was initiated by the note-on message.
As far as random notes are concerned, are we talking about pieces that you have recorded with the instrument? The earlier Disklaviers played back very soft notes with an effective minimum velocity of about 35. This means that if you brushed a key and recorded a note that was inaudible or barely audible, it would become quite audible on playback.
Regards,PianoBench
On Mar 10, 2014, at 8:04 PM, steno jazz <stenojazz@...> wrote:
< blockquote type="c ite">
Hello Adrian Thomas Music Service,thanks for your replies. Is there such ROM upgrade for mx100a too (fixing problems with midi)? I have some problems when i am connecting my mx100a to external midi devices...sometimes some notes are lost and sometimes there are keys of piano that randomly play a note. If there is such ROM upgrade, do you know the part number of it? Thanks!
About adapting disklavier mark3 module to mx100a it may be great but i guess it will require a lot of time to understand the signals (even with the service manuals).
Thanks!
2014-03-11 0:53 GMT+01:00 <mangez@...>:
There was a ROM update which dealt with the piano sound dropping out when connected to an external device via MIDI. If you have the old version (V1.20d), you can get a replacement ROM from Yamaha: Part No. XH260F00 (IC ROM V1.4f)
Adrian Thomas Music Services
On Mar 8 2014, George Frederick Litterst wrote:
Good evening, everyone.
Ed, I am a consultan t to Yamaha and head up the Disklavier Education Network (DEN) initiative. We have a resources page on the new DEN website that has PDF versions of all of the Disklavier user manuals:
http://yamahaden.com/resources-2/item/280-mx80-series-manual
Locate the MX80 series manual and that page and then proceed to page 31. That page (Message over 64 KB, truncated)