Topic by Cellomangler

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  • From: Iuka, MS
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Topic: Elton's piano sound, live in Tokyo...

Just seemed worthy to share if ya hadn't caught this one.  Talk about one powerful sounding grand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6Ax0wPJrz0

"Downing a fifth results in diminished capacity."

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Reply by Glenn NK

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Re: Elton's piano sound, live in Tokyo...

It sounds honky-tonk to me.  They fiddled with the unison slider too much.

Glenn

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Reply by skip

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Re: Elton's piano sound, live in Tokyo...

It sounds like it has the Roland MKS20 sound blended in, and I don't particularly like that sound.  (I haven't got super-natural hearing powers - I recently learnt from the EltonJohn.Com web site that they do typically blend in the MKS20 with the acoustic)

It doesn't sound honky-tonk to me, per-se - just a bit electronic and artifcial.   

EDIT: Here's the very long thread about Elton's piano sound:

http://forums.prospero.com/n/pfx/forum....p;tid=4623

Greg.
p.s The MKS20 is a rather old piano module that uses Roland's "Structural Adaptive Synthesis", which I understand is a form of modelling.

Last edited by skip (27-03-2010 03:12)

Reply by Glenn NK

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Re: Elton's piano sound, live in Tokyo...

I agree that it doesn't sound very good.

What intrigued me is how he plays with his forearms at about a 45 degree angle to horizontal - almost like he's standing up.  Strange.

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Reply by Cellomangler

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Re: Elton's piano sound, live in Tokyo...

Well.. in my defense, I didn't say it sounded good, I said "powerful".
I think it would make an interesting experiment -maybe in a subset of the forum- to use YouTube to search out what we each think is the best piano sound and post those links.  See if there is any consensus.  I'd use YouTube as the source because we all have access to it and we'd be hearing the exact same thing.  I'd really like to see how we all perceive our idealized "recorded" piano sound, and even though YouTube's  audio is far from pristine, it would offer a huge palette to choose from.

"Downing a fifth results in diminished capacity."

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Reply by skip

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Re: Elton's piano sound, live in Tokyo...

Agreed - it is powerful.

For the second time, I think this piano album is excellent:
http://itunes.apple.com/au/album/the-lo...d315013454
("The Look Of Love - A Beautiful Piano Tribute to Burt Bacharach")

Hopefully iTunes is almost as universal as YouTube. The fidelity is certainly better in iTunes, anyway.  Previewing is possible without making a purchase.

Here's the kind of piano sound I would PREFER Elton use:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPeVbEg1DHE
("It's Too Late", Carole King, live)

Greg.

Last edited by skip (28-03-2010 03:54)