Disklavier

so my girlfriend's parents have an old 90s Yamaha Disklavier sitting idle in their hotel lounge, and my mission is to bring it back to life. It's been unused for some time so probably the tuning is completely fucked, but it should work once the mains cable is repaired.

Anyway I just ordered a USB floppy disk drive and gonna fill some disks with hotel-lounge-compatible MIDI files and send them over, lets see if it still works.

Finding the idea of an automated real piano kinda intriguing - thought it could be fun to generate some mad MIDI and do some recordings... this is probably gonna happen around christmas (the thing is located in Austria, we will be visiting again then).

Anyone got experience with Disklavier?

Might be fun to run some EKT community MIDI through it, maybe make a compilation...? watmm xmas piano tunes...?

Can't promise that it'll work out time-wise as their hotel is busy AF at the time, need to find some time where there's no guests who are going to flip out because of extreme musics... also gotta get a recording device...

Looks sick. I would love to compose something for that.

it's just standard MIDI files on a floppy. Probably a default piano synth/sampler patch is a good approximation of what it will sound like.

haven't looked into how exactly the MIDI file needs to look like yet - but I reckon it's as simple as putting down note on/offs on channel 1. it can also automate the pedals, not sure which messages to send but it's probably standard CCs....

dunno, if you wanna try things, around christmas I'll probably get physical access to the machine. it's a model which has moving keys, so making videos could be nice too..

Pretty sure the Phex said he's had to replace a bunch of the solenoids on his from having it play too fast... So maybe don't try anything too insane. I'd be down to send in a midi at the end of the year, I like the idea of a XMAS compilation as well. Maybe we could do some original compositions and then remix your recordings

From what I've heard - it takes a deal of time to get the notes to play exactly as you'd like them. Something something velocity. 

These things are very col.  It'll definitely need tuning and strings, which is no small thing (one of my best friends is a piano tuner and it's pretty serious business), they need to be tuned pretty regularly even under idea conditions but it's worth it, disklaviers are really cool.  I'd love to have access to one of them.

You should seriously consider fitting it with a Gotek floppy emulator, they're cheap and work well.  I've already put one in my old Atari ST and I've got another waiting to go into the 90s Korg I've been using as a master keyboard. You should be able to find one for around $20 on eBay.  Reliable floppies are getting harder to come by and drives wear out eventually so in the long run it's the way to go.

Anyway, my vote is throw caution to the wind and make it into a tack piano (stick carpet tacks into the felt of the hammers so it sounds like a giant clavinet, as heard somewhere in the mix here).

EDIT: I just noticed you said "USB floppy disk drive" not "floppy disk drive" so I assume you're talking about a Gotek or similar.

  On 9/25/2016 at 2:11 AM, ganus said:

Pretty sure the Phex said he's had to replace a bunch of the solenoids on his from having it play too fast... So maybe don't try anything too insane. I'd be down to send in a midi at the end of the year, I like the idea of a XMAS compilation as well. Maybe we could do some original compositions and then remix your recordings

yeah I guess some sane boundaries for notes are good - probably not a good idea to play things faster than the keys/hammers are able to handle. 

  On 9/25/2016 at 2:21 AM, Audioblysk said:

From what I've heard - it takes a deal of time to get the notes to play exactly as you'd like them. Something something velocity.

aye, probably true - tho the thing is supposed to be able to record and reproduce live performances. So anything within normal human limits should be ok I guess... personally I don't mind if the machine introduces certain inaccuracies of its own, basically has its own voice.. just a shame that I'm not anywhere near it right now to test it out...

  On 9/26/2016 at 3:25 AM, RSP said:

It'll definitely need tuning and strings

yes! from hitting a few keys you could hear that it sounded a bit odd, like the low keys had almost no bass to them, high notes had low sustain.... maybe my gf's parents may invest into an overhaul...

as for modification - I'd be totally up for that, but unfortunately it's not my own piano, so this probably won't work out.. since it's an upright piano (vertical strings..?) it's not simply a matter of laying objects onto the strings...

it's a Yamaha Mark II XG, has floppy disk drive and DIN MIDI inputs... I've ordered a USB floppy drive so I can write floppy disks from my computer... kinda looking forward to that..

Check out Arne Nordheims Vevnad. There's some proper black MIDI action happening on the Disklavier, alluding to tapestry.

I saw this performance live a few years ago, and witnessing the machine go crazy towards the end there was downright frightening.

yes! this is the good stuff, cheers - if it'll be able to do that I'm already super satisfied. even if there's a physical limitation to play the same key in very rapid succession, there's a lot of keys spread all over...

the first idea I had for generative things was to do wave-like movements over the entire range similar to what's happening in the video ca in the middle. also super-dense steve-reich-like phasing / polyrhythmic things with lots of low-velocity notes...

  Quote

 

yes! from hitting a few keys you could hear that it sounded a bit odd, like the low keys had almost no bass to them, high notes had low sustain.... maybe my gf's parents may invest into an overhaul...

 

as for modification - I'd be totally up for that, but unfortunately it's not my own piano, so this probably won't work out.. since it's an upright piano (vertical strings..?) it's not simply a matter of laying objects onto the strings...

 

it's a Yamaha Mark II XG, has floppy disk drive and DIN MIDI inputs... I've ordered a USB floppy drive so I can write floppy disks from my computer... kinda looking forward to that..

Ah, OK.  Well definitely look in to that Gotek, they work really well and you might be able to talk them in to letting you install it (it's really straightforward and will future proof the thing for a long time).

Depending on the environment it's kept in, tuning can be a weekly (or more) thing unfortunately.  MY piano tuning friend keeps an upright in the practice space we shared until recently and it stays in tune about 48 hours there.  Not as big an issue if you aren't recording classical music or something, of course, but it's definitely going to need to be gone over if you want it to sound like a normal piano. Or you could just leave it as is and work with that, of course!  Nothing wrong with an out of tune piano with dead strings if you can make it sound interesting.  But it would be worth having a pro look at it.  New strings, maybe new felt on the hammers, and a good tuning would make it sound reasonable for a long time.  I think the average serious non-pro pianist usually only gets them tuned once or twice a year at most.

Oh, see if you can convince them to get it tuned to just intonation (but pick your key wisely, since that's the only one you'll be able to use from there on out and still sound in tune)!

You should do something like this i guess. Fuck that muzak MIDIs.

Having had experience with a Disk, there's really no reason to get it unless you know how to mic really well. I got permission to use one at a nearby university, and brought a friend along to mic it. I've done this twice so far, I'll prepare the midi with a sampler, then run it through the disk. Make sure your midi is very straightforward and has no overlap, I always have to make corrections when I get there.

I've done 2 tracks in a disk:

https://soundcloud.com/evoava/nostalgian-bungalow

and

https://soundcloud.com/evoava/black-and-white

It's the same one miked mostly the same. with black and white, the latency was randomly off sometimes. It felt like swing though so it ended up working out. It was much better with Nostalgian Bungalow.

In all honesty, I did it for the novelty of it. If you don't know how to mic, either bring a friend that does, or just use a sampler. Thankfully I have a friend who's very good at it. You can probably make higher quality stuff with a good sampler, there are so many good kontakt libraries nowadays! It's my favorite type of kontakt library probably. I'm probably not going to make something with the disk again for a while. Unless I have another idea. 

I ACTUALLY wanna alter it to where you can only hear the hammer sounds, then layer that over the actual piano, like aphex has done a few times.  I could probably accomplish this by putting something between the hammer and strings so you just hear the hammer movement. You can hear my attempt at getting some of the hammer sound in both these tracks. Though I doubt I'd be allowed to unless I own one though. So it's going to be a while before I can :)

Brisbot, those are beautiful! Nostalgian Bungalow especially is spot on. Is there is a download anywhere?

I'm not sure I would be able to do that with Kontakt, but then again I can see how sprucing up a Kontakt version might be easier than trying to mic the Disklavier perfectly. Any recommendations on sample libraries? I just use pianotec ATM.

  On 9/29/2016 at 2:09 AM, ganus said:

Brisbot, those are beautiful! Nostalgian Bungalow especially is spot on. Is there is a download anywhere?

 

I'm not sure I would be able to do that with Kontakt, but then again I can see how sprucing up a Kontakt version might be easier than trying to mic the Disklavier perfectly. Any recommendations on sample libraries? I just use pianotec ATM.

I went ahead and enabled downloads, though I can only keep them enabled for like a day or 2, some guy has set up a program to download each of my tracks 200+ times a day, and after a few days it disables itself because I guess SC detects the ratio of plays to DLs is VERY off, which is really weird. I don't get why someone would do that, but it's whatever.

I don't like pianotec.. well it's fine if it's mixed in with other instruments, but by itself something is.. off. Though I haven't tried 5, only 4.

Here are my 3 favorites so far:

Imperfect Samples - Ebony Grand (like 30+ gigs, and sounds amazing, you can even isolate hammer sounds. Which is what I want. Haven't used it yet though, but i've played around with it)

Sound Iron Emotional Piano( only a few gigs)

Spitfire Felt Piano (only a few)

Also look at the other pianos these companies offer. Between them there are a lot more where this comes from. Piano libraries generally sound very different from one to the other so... yeah. have fun!

Thanks for the tracks and the library recommendations!

A friend of mine got a job refurbishing player pianos, so I wrote a thing for him today in case he gets to do a MIDI controlled one.

I would most likely need to raise the entire composition a half step to get it to play right on a Disklavier, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1spPEebIhXI&feature=youtu.be

That sounds great, hope he comes across a MIDI piano!

damn son that sounds guud