Yamaha MODX vs the best software pianos 

i'm astonished so many of you made it through to the end!!!

thanks octavian, and congrats for making it to the end!! :D

Totally Epic! I had this album on cassette. I haven’t heard it in 25 years. The moment my brain made the connection, I think I time traveled.

Any knowledge that you can store in your own brain beats what ever software lives on your computer :)

Perfect attitude. New sounds might inspire but they won't ever improve technique.

and some of them are veeeeery long... thanks for watching!

that's very complimentary, thanks!

tears of laughter?? :D

congrats on your MODX, bet the pianos are pretty nice to play on the 8.

Alan Chapman - as good as this is, the Kronos does all of this and more in a single Program OSC, which is 1/2 of one part. Kronos, which comes with now 4 major piano libraries on the new SE, has 12 velocity layers, full length samples on every key, with adjustable damper resonance, damper noise, modeled sympathetic resonance, release noise, stereo orientation, draggable lid and una corda samples. If Yamaha had only developed new specialized engines instead of staying with the Motif PCM architecture.

xp50player I do want a chance to dive into a Kronos beyond checking out store demos. I liked what I saw whenever I messed around with one. Yamaha’s SCM was a neat technology that became slightly less interesting once I saw it only applied directly to the electric pianos (still a mighty neat prospect in its own right). The CP1/CP5/CP4 still use samples for the acoustic pianos and SCM models for the preamps, effects etc. The best part of Yamaha’s tech is that it sounds so good out of the box in any situation. With Roland and others I find myself trying to edit things to sit right in a mix, or not sound so dry and digital when solo. Could just be my ear is used to Yamaha’s sound though. I personally can’t stand sympathetic string resonance. On products that include it I usually turn down the intensity or find a way to disable it. Engineers often try to EQ that out of acoustic recordings anyway. My favorite non-Yamaha piano sound on a hardware synth is the Grand Lady D from the Nord Stage 2. The resonance isn’t overly harsh, and it just sounds so warm.

Thank you. For some reason, I also still like the older Full Concert Grand. I think, it was already on the XS.

Yea original pianos are thin and weak..don't cut through live well.

@@blakeh6250 Try one of the Mono samples. Stereo is great for listening in headphones or a good set of speakers for solo or practicing, but in a live mix, use a Mono sample. Nobody is hearing all that stereo detail through a PA live anyway, and most bands play too loud in my opinion. If you’re really competing with some powerful instruments, spike the mid EQ. Also, wear earplugs! Lol

IMHO, comparing Rolands to Yamahas, to the various VI's, they each seem to take their own approach to 'where' the player/listener will be situated physically - some sound like the user is seated at the instrument, others like they're standing beside it, others like your head is IN it! Have you played the Prophet-XL for it's piano sounds? Curious as to your take on that!

Philippe Steindl well said. I’ve slowly started really making the shift mentally from hardware keyboard (I still swear by Yamaha lol) but I found some really good vst. I will say tho that there is nothing like the feeling of playing on a really good semi weighted keyboard.

Good ! The hardware keyboard allows you to play immediately, alone or with a few friends, or on stage. And the keyboard (arranger) with its speakers doesn't even need a sound system ! It's even faster and easier to play... (sorry for my english, i'm french)

While the yamaha is a hardware synth it's a digital synth after all. So there are no physical components that you need to model. That's for the fm engine. The pianos probably use samples as well so there is no advantage to hardware in that case.

@Dice my MacBook Pro turns on and main stage or Logic Pro or the stand alone software vsts are all ready to go faster than hardware if not around the same time. I’m way more inspired when playing them. So because I love playing vsts for this reason, it helps me to see why the hardware guys with slow computers still go with hardware. For me, hardware is no longer impressive. The instrumentalist is the main thing anyway. So whatever you use have fun and make great music!✌🏾

It's just different departments. VSTs are for studio work and synthesizers for live playing on stage. Synthesizers never glitch (until they are not broken) and generally more reliable than computers. I wouldn't rely on a computer for stage playing.

46:55 was 👌🏾

You can download the free trial from the Pianoteq website. The trial version has pretty much all of the functionality of the full version except 8 notes are disabled and Pianoteq needs to be restarted after 20 mins. But that's more than enough to see if it's right for you and worth buying.

Oh, and the download is under 50 megabytes!

you're right, well said, but still astonishing to me that you can play a 10GB piano without glitches The entire library is not loaded into memory, the memory footprint is negligible. must be some sophisticated caching and streaming algorithms going on behind the scenes.

Rik Vanhoenacker Bruv keep the Moxf it has a better Keybed then the MODX

@@tuneunleashed I had no plans to sell the MOXF and i'm very sceptic to buy a MODX as I heard that some refuse to start up sometimes :-o

so how do you like the key feel on the modx ? I can't stand it.

For me it works just fine with the light touch when playing fast solos, pads, expressive fm sounds, and synth brass etc. Not the best keys for piano sounds. Then I prefere Kawai grand feel action. The modx (and montage sound module in it) connected to it is amazing. 👌

appreciated, thx, i've always made a lot of effort on that

very kind of you to say so, cheers

Agreed ,

Totally agree

i hear you, same mirror, same side, but it got haunted this time... :o

Keyscape is fantastic, for many different keyboard types.

Hi james, thanks for the comment, better you send me an email if you have any propositions, cheers

probly coz the ballad stuff is easier to play? is for me anyway! yeah, big fan of those guys, will try to accommodate you.

we never stop... :)

now that's what i was hoping for, thanks!

yeah, the presets default to mint, but agree, it's nice to back it down to 75% or something, i do that with the presets that I created

Interesting. How did you do the voicing?

grandeur will get the job done!

pianoteq

So What (Miles Davis)

i don't remember what happened, and don't want to re-watch, but hope the tears were in a good way!

@@WoodyPianoShack You're one of my best reviewers man. I just purchased a MODX6 based on your video and the mad but lovely Doctormix. I hope you watched Dave Bristow san on his DX7 presets.

Nice job real wood man

it was some version of that, yeah!

Keyscape is amazing.

$100 limit, though...

Yeah. I got Ravenscroft. And probably the best ever. When it runs smoothly on my crappy macbook that is.

Pianoteq

vslo bosendorfer, garritan cfx are better...

ahh, shucks, thanks.

so true

thanks for the suggestion, i have neither so unable to do a test, but I will keep your request in mind, should I get lucky enough to have both.

free for MODX also, same download I think usa.yamaha.com/products/music_production/synthesizers/modx/sound_library.html

sometimes the piano sounds on hardware synths are "tuned" / adjusted to the responsiveness of the keys, which is not easily achieved with software piano and any random midi controller. could be that!

The Korg M1 piano was very good for 1988, but only a short time later "most" other decent synths had a better piano, and a "grand piano" sound which the M1 piano lacked, and would have been nice. The M1 had a total of 4 megs of rom wave files for all the instruments, not including Korg's own expansion cards that used the rom wave slot. The M1 piano was still popular for years to come because it was the best selling keyboard of all time, and because it cut through the mix of a live band well even if it was a weak piano for playing grand piano type of pieces. To most keyboardists, the piano sound is by far the most important and the biggest selling feature, though not to me but I"m an exception. It wasn't very long before other keyboards had better piano sounds. The real magic of the Korg M1, was ALL THE OTHER SOUNDS!! What the programmers did in a mere 4 megs of ram is amazing. I have a dozen keyboards, numerous soft synths of many classic keyboards, and I bought a Yamaha MODX6 identical to Woody's. Would you believe, the M1 probably makes more "useful" sounds than the MODX6 does? Sounds far fetched, huh? Well, combine the M1 with the magical 1993 $500 (professionally installed) Invision Plus One board which added another 4 megs of rom, and again, more genius sound patch programming. I play 80s & 70s rock. For my uses, the M1 combined with that board, and a number of great Korg & 3rd party expansion sounds, just amaze me. You would think newer Korgs would be better at reproducing real life instruments of things such as a solo saxophone, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, Hammond organ with great Leslie via foot pedal, pipe organ, electric piano, and countless great lead synthesizer sounds. I decided if anything happened I better buy a spare, so I searched the Internet and bought a 2nd one, with the same upgrades. I'm trying to play some gigs downsized using only the MODX6 & a netbook. It's not without some compromises. MODX6 portability is amazing though. What I really should do, is put up my own series of videos showing how great this old Korg was, and I'm puzzled why newer keyboards even from Korg don't match many of these great sounds, that are extremely useful for covering classic music, and also, that software synths for lead synths & organs generally are far better than the ones for the MODX either via Yamaha or 3rd party, which is usually targeting modern music like techno, rap & dance music, for young people. Though it's sound engine is superior to the M1's, the people making sounds for it have largely missed the boat for numerous weekend warriors like myself playing live shows of classic rock. Woody, please express to Yamaha the next time you talk to them that they are missing out on a huge classic rock live performance market, which the MODX hardware makes total sense for. Some, compact, powerful, affordable. I do believe MODX could make most of these sounds, with the right programming. A total of 8 megs vs almost 6 gigs. One would think 6 gigs would easily win the battle. Not so. I love the MODX hardware (especially the MODX6). So light, compact and fits on my back and impressive sound engines. The hardware is impressive. I wish I could say the same about the sound libraries. Roland FA seemed even less impressive in my auditions of them as with the Korg Krome. I'll be using the MODX6 though, one of my M1 "Plus One" keyboards, and others at one of the largest casinos in the world in a month or so when my band returns.

@@n8goulet I really like the M1. I have the iM1 iPad app and use it quite often as the Darwin gadget in Korg gadget. One of my favorite sounds are Universe, Pole and Pinger. This synth had such a big impact and it was used everywhere. It was famous for it's use in dance music but it was also used by video game composers, there are many super nintendo games and amiga games that use samples of the M1. The slab bass was super populair and the Universe sound was used by Darkman. Shadow of the beast also contained quite a lot of M1 sounds like the kalima sound. I especially like it's airy, breathy quality to the sound. The classic M1 piano sound has a unique quality of it's own mainly as a reflection of the technolgy of the time. It was quite amazing what they could with just 4 megabytes of Rom space back in the day.

i don't gig out any more, yt is my stage. eq must surely depend on the amplication system and the room, must be tedious to have to adjust each patch, yikes! i wouldn't have bothered, these details probably lost on the audience anyway :)

Woody Piano Shack No, i dont gig out anymore either....at least not at the moment lol. it was the first time ive used my MODX through a PA system and it was quite soul destroying. I noticed a lot of brass sounds have a boost around 8khz which is why it all sounded fizzy. Ive just put a LPF on each brass parch and hoping for the best. Going to use my Helix Stomp as main EQ next time. Its not the overall EQ I’m worried about, it was really painful and off putting. Thanks of the reply and for all the great videos