Demos with Bright Grand

We just mixed a little bit further my two songs and I used new Bright Grand with both. Check My Music to hear them. In my own opinion Bright Grand performs well in this type music.

New Bright Grand on a gig

Yesterday I tested this new grand in real life, which unfortunately quite often means bad acoustics and bad sound system. Last nights gig was both. To be honest, I was little disappointed about performance of new grand. Ok, I don't know how did it sound to audience - I only had one monitor; normally I have two to make it stereo - but to myself sound was little metallic, thin and lacking body. The last complaint has been common with earlier Nord piano sounds: sounds can sound realistic in good studio acoustics but on stage they lack body. Perhaps this is the reason why Rolands and Yamahas sound like they do. They aren't the most realistic in natural sense but they give a quite good compromise over playability, power and natural sound. In general I have feeling that the most realistic sound can maybe be the most difficult on stage.

Anyway I have been very satisfied with resent development of Clavia's piano palette: Lady D (Steinway) was the first easy-to-work-with-on-stage -piano. It certainly have this body which was lacking with its predecessors. Also, Grand Imperial (Bosendorfer) has been same class giving more brightness and power than Lady. Let's make further tests with new Bright Grand, if it finds its place on my stage setup. I know very well from past experiences that new pianos need time to play with to make a final judgement. That was case with Grand Imperial too; now it's my first choise piano on stage...

"Bright Grand" added to Nord Piano Library!

Clavia gave us again a nice surprise. They have released a freely downloadable brand new piano sound for Nord Piano, Nord Stage and Electro 3 owners: "Bright Grand" which is obviously sampled Yamaha S4 grand piano. New Grand comes in four sizes from small (44MB) to XL (196MB). I already ran a test with XL-version with my Nord Piano and I must say I am quite impressed. This piano sound is a very nice addition to Clavias new (5.3) high quality piano library which already had Steinway ("Lady D") and Bosendorfer ("Grand Imperial").


To sum it, "Bright Grand" is what it is supposed to be: a modern piano with very bright sound. Now Nord owners have three different options. Softest and perhaps most classical is the Lady D (Steinway). The most punchy and brightest one is obviously this new Bright Grand (Yamaha). Somewhere between those two is the Grand Imperial (Bosendorfer) which is also very bright.

If I had to say something critical about new Bright Grand, maybe it's about the sound you get with lowest velocities. I don't know about the original instrument, but in my opinion sound might be softer with low velocities. This tone color is the most problematic if you try to play soft chords. In other words piano is lacking some expressive power which you have with Lady D or with Grand Imperial. This is probably not that noticeable to rock piano players whose playing is mostly from mf to fff.

It would be nice to know more about the process how Clavia has made these instruments: how did they record different velocities and how much post processing is involved in final sound? Compared to Roland and Yamaha in my opinion Clavia has maybe the most natural (less processed) sound which makes it quite nice for recording purposes for example. Also, you might describe Clavia's sound as punchy, sharp, crisp and bright, which makes it easy to mix on stage and cut through mix. This is true about their E-pianos and organs as well.

Finaly I tried new grand with a MIDI track: check a new version of Tango Untitled (My Music). In fact new piano sound was so bright and "perfect" that I had to put some Logic effects (EQ, piano reflection reverb etc.) to to it to make it less perfect. In general it's very difficult to render MIDI piano tracks made with one piano with another piano and make it sound natural. Tango's piano track was originally made with Roland RD-700GX and I had difficulties to make it sound natural with my Nord Piano. Now it seems to me that Bright Grand can maybe catch the original feeling better than Lady D or Grand Imperial.

Arturia Spark in use

Arturia Spark hybrid drum machine

First few weeks have passed with this new hybrid drum machine. In this case "hybrid" means that basically you're using (or listening to) a software but you also have a dedicated usb-midi controller. To be honest, I haven't yet had that much time to mess with it - I hope this will change now...







In general I am very satisfied with Spark: sound is what I expected to be and even more. Its GUI (Graphical User Interface) is very well thought and intuitive. I also like how it looks on the table and on the screen - Arturia products have always looked nice to my eyes. (They are also close to Apple design.)

But like many earlier Arturia products, Spark was not finished product yet and still they decided to start selling it. In other words, at the present moment it's still quite buggy: some problems are small but others are bigger. I can imagine that some customers aren't very happy about it.  Others, like myself, did have past experiences with Arturia and they did know what to expect. (Think about Origin as another example: Origin has been there since 2008 and still we don't have all those features which was supposed to be there. We are still waiting for some templates and modules. Some customers are obviously very disappointed. Personally I love my Origin that much that I can tolerate the delay of its development.) So I'd advice to wait a little bit for those people who expect to have a finished product with Spark. On the other hand, if you accept small bugs here and there, you'll probably like Spark very much. It works well enough for my purposes - no noticeable latency, no crashes or anything crucial. Well, I must stress out that I am using it with its standalone app (not in DAW), in Mac (not in PC) and with Motu soundcard (which is very liable in Mac environment)! At the moment I don't go to any details about bugs which I or any other user have found (if you wanna know more about problems, just check Arturia Spark forum: http://www.arturia.com/evolution/smf/index.php?board=82.0)

Spark found a nice place in my cellar
(laptop stand under it is made by IKEA)

After my first period with Spark here's my main idea of improving it: Spark can play synth lines with its step sequencer but you should have more tools with synth programming. First entering and editing note values for synth bass line is painfully slow - you should be able to enter them by typing or via MIDI. Also you should have a possibility to transpose some line to another key or with some interval. Spark has physical MIDI out port; it should be possible to send step sequencer MIDI data to external MIDI devices. I have a dream to control Origin with Sparks sequencer or perhaps even synchronize Origin's and Spark's sequencers to each other. So basically I have an idea to use Spark as my performance controller on stage. I have reported these ideas to Arturia and they responded that those are in principal possible to implement. Let 's see what future brings to us...

Unboxing Spark and some first impressions

Spark comes with a nice package which you probably want to save for future transportation.

Inside the box there's the hardware controller itself, manual (english, french and japanese) and USB-cable. 

Installing Spark software went very quickly and without any problems. I didn't use the CD which came with the unit, because at Arturia's website there was a newer updated version of Spark (version 1.1.1.) available. After installing the software this same software made me update also the hardware firmware (now running version 1.1.0.1). I must say that all this procedure - downloading and installing updates, registering products - is very painless and fast.

At the moment I have been just messing up with presets, using mainly the standalone program with my Motu Microbook USB-soundcard. 

Some fist impressions are worth mention here:

(+) Spark standalone operates well without noticeable latency / crackles in sound (if the buffer is too small). It works well also with my Mac Book pros own internal sound card.

(+) It's very intuitive and easy to use!

(-) Synth sounds. I was hoping a little more from bass and lead sounds. They just seem to be a little extra. There are some presets (very basic ones) and not much to do to tweak them.

(-) Programming melodic lines with synths can be little difficult / time consuming with step sequencer. 

But maybe these latter points must just be accepted; it's a drum machine, not a synthesizer. In general I am very excited and impressed of the product. It seems to fits perfectly to my home studio which already has Origin as my main synth.

One nice surprise come out today: Arturia gave Spark users a free download of two drum machines: DR-606 and DR-707. First one is modeled and second one is sampled.

Bigger review of Spark coming soon, when I go deeper into it and really start to use it...

Few comments on DSI Mopho Keyboard

DSI Mopho Keyboard

I also a had chance to finally test this little beast:

Mopho Keyboard  from David Smith Instruments (DSI).

Well, to make it sure, now we are speaking about real analog synthesizer. I had no chance to go very deep into its sound but for sure it sounded like real analog: basic sound was pleasing and filters were really great. I did own DSI tetra some time ago so basically I knew what kind of sound to expect. 

What made me little disappointed was the keyboard itself. First, for me personally 32-keys keyboard is too small. I had to play it to really realize this. I'd say that 44-keys (3,5 octaves) might be quite optimal like it is in Minimoog for example. This Mopho size can be also problematic on stage: where to put it when normal double stands cannot hold this small keyboard?

In general Mopho Keyboard seems to be well constructed: it is heavy (in its small size), it has sturdy metal enclosure and nice wooden ends. Then it was a little surprise to me that keyboard action was little lighter than I expected and it was not that good quality. It felt little loose and "cheaper" compared to best Roland keyboard actions and to Minimoog voyager for example (which were there at the same music store).

First impressions of Nord Electro 3 HP

Nord Electro 3 HP

Today I went to some local music shops to check some new toys. Here's the first one: the brand new Nord Electro 3HP.

If you think what it is compared to "normal" Electro 3, I might put it this way: If you're a organ player wanting to also play some piano stuff, normal Electro 3 is for you. But if you are more piano player who wants to play also organ stuff, HP-model is targeted for you. So simply it's all about keyboard touch.


Best part of HP is Clavia's superb sound quality but also its portability: it weights only 11kg which is maybe kind of a record for a piano-type keyboard. Of course it's not a full piano: it has 73 keys. So I'd say that this is basically a keyboard for a band musician not for a solo piano player. HP-keyboard feels nice and I might say that it's same (or very close to) Nord Stage 2's. (I have this latter and I cannot tell you that there was any difference. On the other hand I had no change play them both at that store.)

Obvious problem with HP (and with all Electro 3 models) is that it is "monotimbral". This means that you cannot get more than one sound at a time. You cannot make dual sounds or splits with pianos, organs or sample sounds. You cannot play Electro-organ with other midi keyboard and same time piano with Electro. For me this makes it quite useless: I would like to play piano with other hand and organ with other. So it should have at least two sound engines inside (= 2-parts multitimbrality). For example Stage 2 has 6-parts multitimbrality, which justifies its higher price.

Other thing is that HP's "screen" has on only two digits which is ridiculous when nowadays almost everywhere you can have color touch screens. So you have to memorize quite a lot when using it. But on the other hand Clavia is giving us nearly-knob-per-function approach where practically everything is there on the panel; you don't need to go through complex menus to edit effects or anything.