From WeAreAs1@aol.com Mon Sep 13 18:50:45 2004
Subject:RE: MKS-20 and sampled grands, OT big time


In a message dated 9/13/04 4:04:11 PM, Dan S writes:

<< Was that just samples or was it modeled? >> (regarding the Roland P-55
piano module)

I know all of those Roland instruments very well, having owned all of them at
one time or another, and also having been an authorized Roland factory
service technician for many years. I was the keyboardist in the band Oingo Boingo
during their heyday in the 1980's, and we used the MKS-20 very extensively on
records and on tour. We were "early adopters", having bought the very first
ones to be delivered in LA when it first came out. Danny Elfman, the band
leader and chief composer, still uses his MKS-20 on the film soundtracks that he
scores. These days, I mostly use sampled pianos, but I do pull mine out (umm,
my MKS-20, that is...) whenever I need a killer and very dynamic Rhodes sound.

The P-55 sounds are all samples. It does have some samples of MKS-20 sounds
in it, but because they are samples, they do not have the incredible dynamic
response of the MKS-20. In case you didn't know, it is the dynamic timbral
response of the MKS that gives it such great musical appeal. Multisampled,
cross-faded or velocity-switched samples are no match for it. The P-55 is
basically an early Sound Canvas (SC-55) tone generator engine with a special piano
sound ROM. Honestly, it doesn't sound much better than the original Sound
Canvas, and it doesn't sound as good as the SC-88 Super Sound Canvas pianos and EP's.

In my opinion, the MKS-20 Rhodes is still the best Rhodes sound that has ever
been offered to the public -- and I am including real Fender Rhodes pianos in
that shootout. Of course, I'm also including all the modern sample-playback
instruments, such as the Fantom, the Motif, and any of the Kurzweils. And
yes, I have owned many a real Fender Rhodes piano, some of them were extensively
(and expensively) modified for feel and tone. I'll take the MKS any day! The
RD-1000 even has a few additional adjustable sound parameters which improve a
bit on the MKS sounds. It also has a very nice analog stereo phaser, for
that classic Joe Zawinul phased Rhodes sound, al la Weather Report's "A Remark
You Made". The MKS has only chorus and tremolo effects, but both are very good,
and both are very analog.

The P-330 has the same exact Rhodes sound as the MKS-20, but it has a
markedly inferior acoustic piano sound. The 1unit rack size is appealing, but the
lifeless, thin acoustic sound made it unusable for me. The P-330's lack of the
crucial sweepable midrange EQ control doesn't help, either.

Tip for making the MKS-20 acoustic pianos sound much better: radically boost
the midrange at about 1K (with a wide Q setting). A minimum of 6dB boost,
if not more. To my ears, not nasally or midrangy at all - just nice, fat, and
ballsy. BTW, the same kind of EQ setting usually makes sampled pianos sound
like ****, but it works very well on the MKS. Keep in mind that I always used
the MKS in full band settings -- It doesn't fare so well as a solo piano sound
for jazz, classical, etc.

It is possible to use two MKS-20's for more polyphony, but you'll also need
some kind of external MIDI Processing device, such as a Yamaha MEP-4 or Digital
Music Corp. MX-8, to split your MIDI signal into odd and even MIDI note
streams. If you do this, then you can also slightly pan the two MKS outputs
slightly left and right, which will bring a bit of stereo animation to the sound.
Not like a real (sampled) stereo piano sound, but nice anyway, and better than
the flat mononess of the standard MKS acoustic piano sound. I always played
my MKS-20 in combination with a Yamaha MEP-4. This allowed me to tailor the
velocity response to my liking and to my controller (which very often was the
velocity-challenged DX7 or DX7-II), and also let me create a program change
mapping scheme (the MKS-20's sound-to-program change relationships are fixed,
unfortunately). I also used the MEP-4 to filter out troublesome MIDI CC messages,
but still allow the sustain pedal CC get through. The MEP-4 was, and still
is, a miracle box.

Michael Bacich