Topic by markh

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  • markh
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  • From: Liverpool UK
  • Registered: 08-09-2007
  • Posts: 9

Topic: Speakers and Sound Systems

I am a classical pianist, and my interest in Pianoteq is specifically as an alternative to an acoustic piano, as previously mentioned in other threads I have owned Steinway D's and other quality pianos, but presently don't have the space or money for a D or anything even close. In my view it's a D, maybe a Steingraber, Stuart or maybe the exotic Italian thing, names excapes me.

My present system is as follows:
Keyboard: CME UF8
Pedal CME GPP-3
CPU: AMD 5200, 2 gigs RAM, WD Raptor Drive
Sound Card M-Audio 192
Sound Routing: Samson C-Control

Speakers: VL-X5

All in all it's not bad, but I want to improve the sound delivery.

I am making a framed cabinet to house everything from 3x3PAR  timber (75mm x 75mm). This will be heavy: presently I use a double X frame and it's not even completely level, but it works fine for now.

I Was thinking of mounting the speakers under the keyboard pointing away from the playerpossibly even angled upward slightly so the sound reflects of any wall in front of the player. Possibly also (via the Samson C-control) a second pair of high frequency powered speakers pointing from the corners of the keyboard towards the player, but set volume wise lower than the main Tascams.

I have also seen the Yamaha YSP800, or even 1000 which is really a TV single box surround system. This claims to diffuse the sound. This is woudl consider mounting behind the keyboard, but pointing up at the ceiling.

Any comments will be greatfully received.

Reply by rented

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  • Registered: 07-06-2007
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Re: Speakers and Sound Systems

I know you said you the x-frame was sufficient, but if you are looking for a great and inexpensive "stand" for the keyboard, look outside the music store Due to unavailability to any stands except the most simple ones, I was forced to find another solution, which turned out to be better than anything made specifically for keyboards. IKEA. Yes, that's right Go and get a Galant desk frame, sans the table top, and with the A-Legs.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S89806740

Super stable, adjustable height and inexpensive!

Regarding the speakers. I don't quite understand why you want to diffuse the sound from the speakers. I think it will work especially poorly with monitor speakers, as they are designed specifically for near-field listening, i.e. close to the speakers in the direct sound field. If you bounce them off the wall in front of you, all you will accomplish is to loose the definition of the sound.

At the end of the day, its all a matter of personal preference of course. However, if you don't feel happy about the direct sound from the monitors, perhaps another type of speaker is more suitable. Maybe something like a typical rear or side home theater speaker, pointed upwards towards the ceiling. These type of speakers are usually designed for a wide, radial distribution of sound (for ambiance in movies). Of course, these speaker lack bass, so a sub-woofer would be required as a compliment. Still, the speakers would have to be relatively large (i.e. not those typical 3x3in cubes) in order to get some midrange.

Reply by Rainer

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  • Rainer
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  • Registered: 23-05-2007
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Re: Speakers and Sound Systems

Hello,

great idea! I wanted to have a stand for my Nord Stage but did not like the original one. So I ask in a joinary nearby. I gave them a drawing what I wanted to have and one week later picked up the stand. I payed 120€, this is less than you have to pay for a simple Yamaha P70 stand. Looks like this:

   http://www.justchords.de/piano/nordstand.html

Rainer

Rainer's Website

Reply by doug

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  • Registered: 08-05-2007
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Re: Speakers and Sound Systems

What a lovely lovely spot for a musical instrument. Congratulations.

Reply by Beto-Music

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  • Registered: 02-05-2007
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Re: Speakers and Sound Systems

My haunted cursed PC can't run Pianoteq now.

   Im have a Athlon 3700+ 939 1Mb, motherboard Asus A8v-X, 1,5GB of memory, and can't run Pianoteq now.

   I had changed my old Athon 2200, for this one, and get back to the old, to the new to the old, and the new again, finally selling the new.  And I can't run Pianoteq cause I can't get Latency without noise and pops or disfiguration of sound.

   Four computer tecnicians had worked in this PC and noone of them was able to set the cursed machine to run Pianoteq properly.

   The FUNNY THING ABOUT, is that the simple onboard soundcard of my Athlon 2200 was able to run Pianoteq okey with 8ms latency.
    Asio4all seens to don't wore. A technician spent hour, yesterday and today, trying to fix the adjusted this cursed machine, but nothing worked to run Pianoteq right !!!!
    I tried change hundred times, hundrets combinations for the adjusts of the Asio4all interface, but nothing worked.

    This 3700+ Athlon gave so much headache than I would like to send it to space :-)

    Can anybody sugest anything else to try adjust the latency in my PC?

    Regards

Reply by hyper.real

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  • Registered: 30-05-2007
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Re: Speakers and Sound Systems

There is a very obscure issue regarding relative priority of different hardware interrupts, which can affect sound and video replay. See here for an explanation, and a utility called DblDawg which lets you reorder the priorities between them:

http://www.mark-knutson.com/

On my previous Athlon 3000 machine it listed 5 interrupts, but on my current Intel Core2Duo machine it lists only 2, so I don't know if the program is being maintained. YMMV. You may have a "difficult" mainboard and/or combination of components.

If you have to resort to a new machine, Intel looks the way to go. I have overclocked a 2.2Mhz C2D to 2.9MHz quite easily (some will go even further) and with a nominal latency of 2ms (lowest I can get to with the device driver), I have no audible symptoms of problems with Pianoteq even when sweeping across 5 octaves with the sustain pedal down. That is one impressive cpu.