Tremolo when playing acoustic piano tones

[Neil The Hat]

Hi guys,

I have been enjoying my PX 560 for about 3 years usually doing jazz gigs.  However, a couple of months ago I started getting a tremolo effect when playing any piano tone.  The tremolo is only noticeable in a handful of notes around the C above middle C.   The Modulation wheel is definitely turned off (I previously experienced the Modulation wheel effect over the whole keyboard and spent 30 minutes discovering the problem).   The Tremolo appears whether using the piano's inbuilt speakers, an external PA system or even a good set of head phones.

 

Any  solution suggestions to remove this tremolo would be gratefully received.

Neil The Hat.

 

 

 

[Brad Saucier]

It is likely the modulation wheel.  If you don't use the mod wheel often, then it may become dirty and send erratic signals, even when simply sitting still.  Use the mod wheel some, give it a few spins to help self clean it.  That should help.

[AndrewL]

You can be 100% certain by assigning the modulation wheel to something else. It's strange that you only notice it around middle C and only with pianos.

[Brad Saucier]

If none of our suggestions help, it would be helpful to upload an audio clip of the issue so everyone can hear what you hear. 

[Neil The Hat]

On 5/30/2021 at 11:49 PM, Brad Saucier said:

It is the modulation wheel.  If you don't use the mod wheel often, then it may become dirty and send erratic signals, even when simply sitting still.  Use the mod wheel some, give it a few spins to help self clean it.  That should help.

Thanks Brad for your suggestion.  Unfortunately using the wheel hasn't helped.  As Andrew suggested I assigned the wheel to a different task and nothing has changed.

Therefore I'm pretty confident it is not caused by the wheel.  

The Troubleshooting section of the Manual states "multiple digital samples are taken for the low range, middle range and high range, of the original musical instrument.  Because of this there may be a very slight difference in tonal quality and volume between sample ranges."   I'm inclined to think that this is what is causing the effect that I can hear.  When an acoustic piano is tuned, the three strings of a note need to vibrate at the same frequency.  If they are not spot on, it sounds as if the piano is slightly out of tune.  I think that is what is happening due to the original sampling process.  Not everybody will notice this but my hearing is particularly sensitive to it.

 

I just recently downloaded one of the piano sounds from the Casio Forum Website (Steinway and noticed that it sounds exactly the same.   All of the above has convinced me that there is nothing wrong with the piano, but I have very sensitive hearing.   Thanks very much for your input.

Neil The Hat.

[AndrewL]

Does this happen when you play just one note, or only with several, like a chord? If it's the latter, I guess it's the fact that un equal temperament all notes are slightly out of tune. If in the settings you select pure major temperament on C, and play C, do you still hear that vibration?

Besides, if it's due to equal temperament, you should have noticed this in every other keyboard as well (unless configured with another desired temperament).

BTW, I never noticed any single piano sample being out of tune with itself. Indeed high keys have 3 strings while the lower notes end up with just one string. I just found this, interesting read (maybe related):

https://www.yamaha.com/en/musical_instrument_guide/piano/mechanism/mechanism004.html

(Sorry for the... url.....)

[Jokeyman123]

Since you did not hear this originally, and it now is apparent, something is not right. Upload a sample of the sound-there should not be any kind of "tremelo" effect in any key range, sounds like a software or hardware glitch. There should be a good simulation of enharmonics like a real acoustic with the 560 acoustic piano tones-not the GM acoustic piano which is not stereo and sounds distinctly different than the stereo sampled pianos. But the enharmonics/harmonics-tones from the same strings interacting with each other in the upper registers, should not sound like a tremelo effect. Would have an irregular perhaps almost slight phasing effect if brought out by one of the acoustic piano tone settings. Look at the individual DSP settings for the pianos-the acoustic simulator settings might have glitched somehow, page E-73 in the manual. Again, no matter how you have these configured-there should not be a tremelo sound-and if it were, it should occur across the entire key range. would be easier to hear in the upper registers, but the tremelo should still affect the entire 88-key range. DSP effects and the mod/pitch wheel are "global" per tone-will affect all 88 keys. and the acoustic simulator settings should not present a 'tremelo' effect unless there is some kind of glitch. You can always back up everything on the thumb drive and do a factory reset. 

[AndrewL]

23 hours ago, AndrewL said:

Besides, if it's due to equal temperament, you should have noticed this in every other keyboard as well (unless configured with another desired temperament).

Continuing with this topic, what I mean should be more noticeable with simpler tones, like Synth / 016 Sine Lead, optionally disabling effects in the main menu.

 

Like Brad suggested earlier, can you record a sample of what you mean?

 

 

BTW, @Jokeyman123, happy 3,400 posts!!!!! 🎉

[Neil The Hat]

On 6/6/2021 at 9:20 PM, Jokeyman123 said:

Since you did not hear this originally, and it now is apparent, something is not right. Upload a sample of the sound-there should not be any kind of "tremelo" effect in any key range, sounds like a software or hardware glitch. There should be a good simulation of enharmonics like a real acoustic with the 560 acoustic piano tones-not the GM acoustic piano which is not stereo and sounds distinctly different than the stereo sampled pianos. But the enharmonics/harmonics-tones from the same strings interacting with each other in the upper registers, should not sound like a tremelo effect. Would have an irregular perhaps almost slight phasing effect if brought out by one of the acoustic piano tone settings. Look at the individual DSP settings for the pianos-the acoustic simulator settings might have glitched somehow, page E-73 in the manual. Again, no matter how you have these configured-there should not be a tremelo sound-and if it were, it should occur across the entire key range. would be easier to hear in the upper registers, but the tremelo should still affect the entire 88-key range. DSP effects and the mod/pitch wheel are "global" per tone-will affect all 88 keys. and the acoustic simulator settings should not present a 'tremelo' effect unless there is some kind of glitch. You can always back up everything on the thumb drive and do a factory reset. 

Thanks Jokeyman123 for your suggestions.  I have previously done a factory reset to no avail.  

Attached is a 1min 29sec sound sample made up as follows: 

Middle C D E F G A B C D E F G. 

Two Octaves from A below Middle C then Bb, B, etc to E.

Major Triads starting at Bb below Middle C, then B etc to E.

To my ears, the B and C an octave above middle C are most different from all the other notes played.

Being in our 4th Lockdown because of Covid in Melbourne, Australia, I spend a lot of time playing my Casio PX 560.  Because I am aware of the different tones with those particular notes I hear it loud and clear every time.   Anyway would be grateful for any comments.  Thanks again.  Neil The Hat.

TAKE00.WAV

[Brad Saucier]

It sounds normal to me.  

[AndrewL]

On 6/13/2021 at 2:37 AM, Neil The Hat said:

To my ears, the B and C an octave above middle C are most different from all the other notes played.

 

Sounds fine here too. Are you saying that B4 and C5 have a tremolo effect? Have you tried doing a blind test, that is having someone play the notes without you looking and checking that you identify them correctly? (without having heard them recently, unless you have perfect pitch)

[Jokeyman123]

Aside from a few notes sounding slightly brighter-and this could be due to varying piano velocity on the keys, I don't hear anything approaching  a tremolo effect. And if you are hearing this while playing octaves or 2-hand chords-duplicate c chords in various octaves for example-there might be more obvious enharmonic effects which the Casio samples might be duplicating from the source piano although my px560 seems to be pretty in tune with itself in octaves and 2-3 octave chords played together. Your wavfile sounds pretty much the same as my PX560. I can tell you, with all the practicing I did with grand pianos-good well taken care of grand pianos-no one note might sound the same when struck repeatedly, even if I hit it exactly the same-due to variations in when you are re-striking the strings, interaction with other strings that might still be resonating-one of the many acoustic problems that can drive engineers and musicians to losing their hair! The problem with even the best digitals-unless there are  complex algorithms that can create these variations as you play the same note repeatedly-this is what makes digitals sound more 2-dimensional-the random response of playing an acoustic, if you need to get down that far in detailing a tone must be extremely hard to duplicate. He**-a piece I'd be practicing would sound different on different days-due to humidity or lack of it-torture if you are a perfectionist!!! You might be hearing the effects of the "AIR" modeling which is trying (pretty successfully for a digital IMO) to duplicate this random quality of a good grand or upright. Listen to some older rock/pop chsart-leading songs that had acousitc piano solos-you might surprised at how bad some of these pianos sounded, and the recording was kept intact. one example-not the worst I've heard-Joe Cocker's piano solo-as good as his playing wss-"Feeling Allright" did not use a "perfect piano" IMO, but still sounds killer.