The Ultimate Hybrid Digital Piano - Accurate acoustical reproduction

I need to be sincere...

No ultimate thing will came from a garage !!!  Sorry...
Unless Philippe likes to work in his garage...   

Some people puts bright colored LEDs in everything. Funny...   There is already a digital piano with a glowing keyboard, light direct from the keyboard with adjustable colors.

I don't believe in a ultimate digital piano for a short time coming, and the reason is that no digital piano is flawless yet.  Sampled technology have clear problems, and modeled have other problems.  The real thing it's still the best, but requeire to be a expansive grand piano, well tunned, in fine shape etc.

^ Haha.

As a pianist, I do understand that a digital instrument will not rival an acoustic instrument for many years to come, if ever. It is just far to complex. I do, however, feel the technology has come to the point where I would enjoy a digital instrument next to the steinway in my living room. For aesthetic purposes, I wish to integrate a digital instrument into the shell of an grand piano. The challenge lies in creating the psycho-acoustic presence of the instrument that is lost in conventional audio reproduction methods.

Again, I don't plan to replace every piano ever made with the "ultimate" piano, I just have found that reproducing the sound of a piano in an open environment to be a challenge that has eluded many in their attempts. I do believe with the application of a few of solid concepts will lead to a better sounding digital piano than could otherwise be created with equipment purchased off the shelf.

I am entering new territory when attempting to split up the parts of an instrument's reproduction. It's not my fist choice, but I believe it must be done to obtain the psycho-acoustical signature of an acoustic piano. That's why the big guys are doing it. And that's why I think I can do it... while utilizing far more suitable components.

Hello All,

If the gentleman wishes to have an ultimate piano experience to augment a Steinway grand (assuming its well maintained and regulated), may I suggest he looks into acquiring a Yamaha Disklavier (size C3 or larger) Mark IV.  Such pianos are equipped with microprocessors and an array of powered speakers located on the underside of the soundboard.  The Mark IV also accepts satellite communication for 24-hour music streamed into the piano. In my opinion, this is a better system than Pianodisc (whose installation is a retrofit process rather than building the piano from the ground-up for Disklavier).

Incidentally, I am not associated with Yamaha pianos and I do not sell them.

Cheers,

Joe

Just one thing: are you willing to reproduce a real piano from the player side or from the audience side?
VERY different even if not incompatible...
The "sound engineer" versus the "piano player" point of view... (I'm  both, actually...)

What about inplant you into pianoteq:

And even a  couple friends too, a trio for piano.

A hybrid digital acoustic piano is exactly what I'm building (albeit, very, very slowly as it's quite expensive to get all the parts and time consuming).

Ingredients :
-Old Antique baby grand piano, gutted, but kept the frame, harp, ebony + ivory keys
-brand new strings, modern, ultra-fast repetition action
-possibly attaching strings to pins via aggrafe ala Stuart & Sons (or the academic Bordendorfer++ project) or variable magnetic fields to maintain string vibration in the vertical axis only, thereby reducing muddiness and improving tone and clarity
-midi XP sensors and USB cable, such as those seen in the ads on this site
-a tiny linux / windows 7 virtual machine PC to power pianoteq and speakers or via HDMI cable (optional)
-a small LCD screen to display sheet music and control pianoteq, or some knobs and buttons mapped via midi to easily tune the various settings of pianoteq, or even to change pages on the sheet music display, start/stop accompanying music, etc. Would start off simple or possibly just use a rack module close by

Important aspects of a hybrid : The action needs to be heavy, with fast repetition, good velocity sensitivity and capture, i.e. it needs to have a real grand piano action. The hybrid part comes in when I add a lever to raise the harp so that the strings are completely muted on the acoustical side, and I can use headphones to bang away all night (as soundproof as my loft is, I don't think my upstairs neighbour would appreciate it too much )

I don't, I just want it to be a fully-functional acoustic piano as well as a midi controller.