[LAU] Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano

[Stephen Doonan]

Roberto Gordo Saez wrote:
> 
> Let me know if you make music with it, I'll be happy to hear!


OK-- I uside Qtractor and Qsynth to do a test of the Disklavier 
soundfont as well as a comparison with the William Coakley piano samples 
I primarily use.

I recorded a MIDI track into Qtractor, so that I could channel exactly 
the same MIDI trigger data to both Qsynth (with the Disklavier soundfont 
loaded) and later to my outboard (external) MIDI tone generator with the 
Coakley piano samples in its memory.

I then played back the recorded MIDI track in Qtractor while 
simultaneously recording an audio track (also in Qtractor) of the 
Disklavier soundfont through the audio output of Qsynth.

Then I disconnected both the audio and MIDI between Qtractor and Qsynth, 
and connected them instead to the MIDI output of my sound card (a Delta 
1010) and the audio input of that sound card, to capture the Coakley 
piano samples as the tone-generator responded to the recorded MIDI track.

I had previously monitored the audio output of each source to adjust the 
volume to just under clipping. That was difficult with the Disklavier 
soundfont, because the stereo panning of treble notes mostly to the 
right speaker/channel and bass notes mostly to the left speaker/channel 
was so great that one channel would easily clip while the other's 
amplitude was soft and not producing much sound at all.

So in this "side by side" comparison, the Disklavier file may sound a 
little lower in general volume than the Coakley file, especially when 
most of the sound is coming from the midrange keys of the piano. 
Roberto, you may want to consider adjusting the stereo panning to be a 
little more conservative. ;-)

No processing was done to either of the files. They were both exported 
directly from Qtractor as .ogg files. Here they are:


Disklavier soundfont
--------------------
http://flytrapranch.com/lau/disklavier-piano-soundfont.ogg

William Coakley piano samples
-----------------------------
http://flytrapranch.com/lau/coakley-piano-samples.ogg


To my ear, the higher frequencies (harmonics) of the mid and upper piano 
range of the Disklavier sound a little too crisp and exagerated (I'm 
using Mackie HR824 studio reference monitors which have a very flat 
frequency response), but other (younger, better) ears than mine will 
probably have other opinions. ;-)


Best wishes,
Steve