Jump to content
Video Files on Forum ×

Dave Weiser

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    42

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Dave Weiser

  1. Dave Weiser
    Well you've got a good tool that has many strengths and a few shortcomings (the PX-5S), and a job to do (your songs). The more complex the song/gig, the more preparation work that's required. On my Broadway shows we easily use 16 zones of splits/layers on a single patch and that one might only be played for a few bars before you're off to the next patch... with an average of about 500 patch changes per player per show. So we do a ton of preparation work ahead of time. I'm talking weeks or even months. For a gig (rock/pop/GB) I can easily imagine cover songs where you'd want to have more than 4 sounds. At least the PX-5S gives you two ways to tackle this: 1. Create a split within a hex tone. You're going to need to learn how to do this in order to get the most out of your board. Don't fret, it's easy. And Casio has a TON of tutorials, videos, etc that are very helpful as you get up to speed. 2. You've got 70 songs and 100 slots for stage settings.... so for 20-30 songs, feel free to use two stage settings if you've got songs with sounds that only appear at the beginning or end. Here's an example. I've heard from a few my own customers who are in top notch GB bands that cover Michael Jackson's Don't Stop. Depending on the instrumentation in the band, the keys parts will vary. But usually it's some permuation of this: 1. Synth bass opening 2. Regular strings 3. Strings dive 4. Rhodes 5. Syn brass (bridge) 6. Lead (bridge) (We'll assume they have a horn section, which was the case for the last cat that hired me for this one.) How I would tackle it on a PX-5S: I'd create two stage settings - one with items 1, 5 and 6, and another with 2, 3 and 4. Just toggle back forth between them. If I were running short on stage setting ID slots, I'd combine items 2 and 3 in a hex tone (since you only need one note for the dive) and items 5 and 6 in another hex tone. Songs with strings and horns + keys parts are always going to eat up zones as will prog stuff like Styx, Yes, etc. While do I think it is reasonable to expect more than 4 zones in a board intended to be used by working pros... keep in mind the PX-5S's pricetag and all the amazing sounds/features you get for that nice price. It's *almost* a handicap for the PX that it's SO awesome for $999 that it invites comparison with more full-featured boards that cost 2 or 3 times as much. Take advantage of the resources at your disposal, including this most excellent forum. You got this!
  2. Dave Weiser
    Got a short clip of my buddy Erik James tearing it up on the Gig Piano! https://soundcloud.com/dave-weiser/takin-it-to-the-street-gig2piano2wav He's one of the best cats in NYC, plays the better piano bars and has a funk/R&B band that'll burn off both your ears. http://www.erikjamesmusic.com/#!atomic-funk-project/c187x
  3. Dave Weiser
    Anyone interested in strings, orchestral type stuff?
  4. Dave Weiser
    I just caught the fact that the note in question was spitting out velocity values inconsistent with the *other white notes*. D'oh!
  5. Dave Weiser
    I used to get this kind of feedback on piano samples all the time when I worked for Kurzweil. In fact I got an email about it yesterday (re PC3K) and I don't even work for them anymore! The thing is... though I've heard from lots of users, they rarely mention the same notes as being problematic. The notes are usually different per user, due to the sound systems/speakers/headphones used for playback. The harmonic content of samples can vary key to key even if volume remains level across the entire range. In the old Kurz PC3 piano sample, a few of the lower notes, like C2, have a lot of high frequencies and certain speakers can *really* accentuate this. The result is a perceived jump in volume even if the levels on a mixer volume meter appear to be consistent. Note - many real pianos have the same kind of characteristic frequency bumps across the keyboard. In the cases of both Kurz and Casio, they likely just captured the character of the actual piano being sampled. The difficulty for all sound designers is that trying to even out these harmonic inconsistencies can have a sterilizing effect on samples, making them sound static and artificial. This static/sterile vibe is something that sound designers are constantly trying to avoid or offset. Usually, in the context of normal playing, a well made piano with a few harmonic inconsistencies will sound fine. Best thing to do in when you run across something like this: 1. Try playing a few different types of music to see where and when the note jumps out and how bad it is. 2. Try listening through something else, anything else. Different speakers, keyboard amp, headphones, etc. This will tell you if or by how much your original listening system is adding to the issue. 3. If your sound system seems to be adding to the exaggerated frequencies, and you happen to use this sound system frequently, you might want to consider a minor global EQ tweak. This can be done on a most keyboards, or with a mixer or outboard gear. With the PX, I would look at the Stage Setting EQ for the pianos you use, since you might not want the EQ to affect other presets like EPs, strings, organs, etc. Don't worry about the different response between black and white keys. Something would be horribly wrong if they responded the same way. It's just phyics - the lever mechanisms are different sizes. I'm not 100% sure how Casio does it, but as far as I know ALL keyboard manufacturers create separate velocity maps for black and white keys. I've played on test units that *didn't* have the separate maps and it felt absolutely insane.
  6. Dave Weiser
    It's great to get the input, but please know that several of those items are a tall order, especially the Fazioli and Bosendorfer. You'd probably need sample sessions for each to do 'em justice. (I use a custom 8-strike Faz recorded at Abbey Road on all of my Broadway shows. Lovely sound - but required a mountain of time, work and resources.) I actually have something like the Chick Rhodes mocked up in a Kurz sound set I'm selling right now. I originally created the custom sound for Weird Al's keyboardist, Ruben Valtierra (an amazing player). I could probably do something similar on the PX. For basses I'll have to see what's in the PX to work with. The nature of the samples will determine what types of flavors I could squeeze out of 'em, which sounds will work better than others, etc.
  7. Dave Weiser
    I'm thinking of putting together another small pack of sounds... Let me know what types of sounds you're looking for. If I get enough requests in a certain area, I'll release something later this spring. I've gotten quite a few requests for electric bass - those are fun. One of my favorite projects for Kurz was doing some of the E bass presets for their current line-up. (Jaco, Jamerson, Bootsy Collins and Chris Squire all covered.)
  8. Dave Weiser
    This. Very good point. And one big reason is the levels issue. Onboard recorder is a fine sketchpad though.
  9. Dave Weiser
    Ah this is a classic challenge that comes in sound programming especially on tones like EP that are a bit dense across the entire range of the keyboard. A few things to investigate: 1. On the zone/layer that's giving you an issue, be sure to check filter frequency and resonance. If there's a somewhat high resonance and the filter cutoff freq occurs right around where those notes are, you might run into a "resonant hump" that will intensify the perceived volume in this range. There's a good chance that some variety of this issue is the culprit for what's happneing here. Try dialing filter resonance down and filter frequency up. Another good trick is to add key-tracking, so the filter freq goes up the higher you play on the keyboard. 2. Try headphones and other speakers. If you're using an amp, try studio monitors (if you have some) and vice versa. All speakers have freq ranges where they are extra succeptable - they have their own resonant hump, and if it lines up with the resonant hump of a sound being fed into it the speaker will become a bit cranky. If the hump is equally present on all listening devices - speakers, amps, headphones, etc, then you know that the hump is coming 100% from the keyboard and you can adjust accordningly. If some of the hump is coming from one particular set of of speakers, you might want to keep this in mind and not dial things back on the keyboard *too far* or it might adversely affect the sound when playing back on *different* speakers. Suggestion for feature request: add a "roll-off" as a control source. (Sliders, LFOs, Envelopes, etc are all control sources that can affect things like volume and filters). The Kurzweil boards have Roll-off that can be assigned, a pre-programmed curve that starts at the 14th key from the top going up. This is very helpful -I often assign it on EPs program layers to take down volume or filter resonance by a few dB. This would be a very handy feature to borrow from the Kurz architecture, not unlike the split-shift feature which I believe was inspried by Kurz's "timbre-shift".
  10. Dave Weiser
    Ah man I've been there! Your best bet is the keep things simple and establish protocol for volume control ahead of time. What I do to keep it simple: I run mono to my amp (which is really a powered PA speaker). The amp has a balanced XLR line out that can go to a PA for bigger gigs. I highly recommend doing it this way (or some similar variation). On smaller gigs, I position the amp so it's both my sound source AND monitor. On bigger gigs with a PA it's my keys monitor. You don't want to mess with stereo in the front of house mix as this will have your piano with higher notes panned right, lower notes panned left. Also, Leslie effects will sound insane. Only on a really, really big gig in a huge venue with a pro sound dept do I run stereo anything. And then I'm running 4 pairs of stereo outs from mulitple instruments. I need a drink just thinking about it. To establish volume control: First, everyone in the band needs to keep their heads screwed on. No turning up beyond an agreed upon point or destruction and mayhem will ensue!! You can each give yourselves a little headroom for solos, but that's it. If you've got a PA and a mixing board, try to get someone to mind it during the gig, or make sure it's located within reach of a designated band member. In general, the more monitors the better. But for a small gig you shouldn't expect a ton of monitors or an elaborate monitoring setup - just one that does the job. What l like/need to hear when I play, in order of importance: 1. Drummer (this can be achieved by proximity and not necessarily monitors) 2. Guitar 3. Bass 4. Vocals Obvisouly I'd like to hear all of these clearly, but man I can't function without the drummer. I *enjoy* hearing the bass more than anything, but hearing the guitar is very important as a keys player since guitar and keys occupy the same slice of the frequency spectrum. Need to make sure we're not stepping all over each other. Good luck!
  11. Dave Weiser
    I banged out a quick little video clip with the Gig Piano in action.
  12. Dave Weiser
    I'm actually hoping to have some clips of *other people* using these sounds sometime soon. I have one clip of the Gig Piano Stage Setting being used live by the legendary Jim Alfredson, whom many of you know. Though most of the clip is a Hammond solo (that KILLS), the beginning features a few bars of the piano. When you have a chance, go to Jim's page, check out his music and give him some love. I caught one of Jim's live shows over the summer and was absolutely blown away! http://jimalfredson.com/
  13. Dave Weiser
    Brass sounds, eh? Lots of flavors out there, specific examples would be helpful. I've also received serveral requests for elec and ac basses. Elec bass is actually one of my favorite categories to program, had a blast doing the ones in the Kurz sound set. I'll take a look this week and see what can be done. Always nice to have an excuse to crank up the Genelecs and play the PX-5S along with tunes, especially the funky stuff.
  14. Dave Weiser
    I did create one CP80 type preset for the PX-5S, in the vintage keys set I did for Casio in 2013. (That set is a free download.) It's called 80sPopEGrand. I didn't have samples of the real thing, so I made creative use of the piano samples and the timbre shift feature. http://www.casiomusicforums.com/index.php?/topic/4725-vintage-keys-set/ I have a CP70 here in my sound room just a few feet away from my PX. It was a gift from Jon Carin, who last played it at Live Aid in 1985 with Bryan Ferry. Lovely instruments those CPs.
  15. Dave Weiser
    The feedback so far has been extremely positive, thanks everyone! Having a blast working with sucha cool keyboard. Anyone can feel free to send me input if there are certain sounds you'd like to see developd by a third party. I've got a few Casio sound design projects cooking, but would love to hear directly from PX-5S owners. weiserdav@gmail.com
  16. Dave Weiser

    2,729 downloads

    A set of 15 sounds programmed by Dave Weiser. The zip file contains both Stage Settings and HexLayer tones so you can utilize these sounds within existing Stage Settings. Descriptions of each and audio demos are below. 3Dog Pianet - From Joy to the World, also works for Misty Mountain Hop https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/px-5s-dogpianet 80s PopEGrand - From Buggles' Video Killed the Radio Star https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/spopegrand BeaterReed - Generic gigging Wurly sound, with the excessive highs and lows cut out https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/beaterreed DWBeater - Rhodes with the highs/lows rolled off, like Ray Charles in the Blues Bros https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/dwbeater DynoRhds - Inspired by Donny Fagen's Nightfly album https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/px-5s-dynorhds Gabriel CP - From Peter Gabriel's Wallflower https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/px-5s-gabrielcp HeavyFuzzClav - From ELO's Evil Woman, works great for all dist Clav applications https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/px-5s-heavyfuzclav Mix EQ EP - A Rhodes that takes up a very thin slice of the EQ spectrum, will work easily in a dense mix. https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/px-5s-mixeqrhds PhasAmpClav - From Bernie Worrell's clav parts on the Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense album/movie [Phaser done with synthesis] https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/px-5s-phasampclav PhasCHDist EP - Rhodes with phaser, chorus and distortion ala George Duke late 70s [Phaser done with synthesis] https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/px-5s-phaschordistep PhasDistRhds - Rhodes with phaser, chorus and distortion ala 70s Grateful Dead, EQ'd to work well in a dense mix [Phaser done with synthesis] https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/phasdistrhds-wav Ray Wurly - Emulation of the earlier model 112 Wurly from Ray Charles' What'd I Say https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/px-5s-raywurly Steely Clav - From Steely Dan's Black Cow https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/steelyclav SupastiClav - From Stevie Wonder's Supersticious https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/px-5s-supasticlav Zep Clav - From Zeppelin's Trampled Under Foot https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/px-5s-trampled
  17. Dave Weiser
    File Name: Vintage Keys Set File Submitter: Dave Weiser File Submitted: 08 Oct 2013 File Category: PX-5S Stage Settings A set of 15 sounds programmed by Dave Weiser. The zip file contains both Stage Settings and HexLayer tones so you can utilize these sounds within existing Stage Settings. Descriptions of each and audio demos are below. 3Dog Pianet - From Joy to the World, also works for Misty Mountain Hop https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/px-5s-dogpianet 80s PopEGrand - From Buggles' Video Killed the Radio Star https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/spopegrand BeaterReed - Generic gigging Wurly sound, with the excessive highs and lows cut out https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/beaterreed DWBeater - Rhodes with the highs/lows rolled off, like Ray Charles in the Blues Bros https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/dwbeater DynoRhds - Inspired by Donny Fagen's Nightfly album https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/px-5s-dynorhds Gabriel CP - From Peter Gabriel's Wallflower https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/px-5s-gabrielcp HeavyFuzzClav - From ELO's Evil Woman, works great for all dist Clav applications https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/px-5s-heavyfuzclav Mix EQ EP - A Rhodes that takes up a very thin slice of the EQ spectrum, will work easily in a dense mix. https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/px-5s-mixeqrhds PhasAmpClav - From Bernie Worrell's clav parts on the Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense album/movie [Phaser done with synthesis] https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/px-5s-phasampclav PhasCHDist EP - Rhodes with phaser, chorus and distortion ala George Duke late 70s [Phaser done with synthesis] https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/px-5s-phaschordistep PhasDistRhds - Rhodes with phaser, chorus and distortion ala 70s Grateful Dead, EQ'd to work well in a dense mix [Phaser done with synthesis] https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/phasdistrhds-wav Ray Wurly - Emulation of the earlier model 112 Wurly from Ray Charles' What'd I Say https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/px-5s-raywurly Steely Clav - From Steely Dan's Black Cow https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/steelyclav SupastiClav - From Stevie Wonder's Supersticious https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/px-5s-supasticlav Zep Clav - From Zeppelin's Trampled Under Foot https://soundcloud.com/casiomusicgear/px-5s-trampled Click here to download this file
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.

  I accept