Yamaha have officially launched their latest synth, born from the Motif series - the Yamaha MX61. 

According to Yamaha, "The MX series synthesizers feature carefully selected sounds taken from the Yamaha MOTIF XS. That powerful sonic palette is packed into sleek packages (available in 49- and 61-note versions) that fit today's on-the-go life style. But the MX Series aren't just synthesizers; they are designed to bridge the gap between hardware and software. By adding extensive audio and MIDI USB connectivity, advanced DAW and VST controller features and a suite of powerful music production software, the MX integrate hardware reliability with controller flexibility to give you the best of both worlds at a ground breaking level of affordability".

As a player of Yamaha synths for many years now I'm not entirely sure where their market lies with this latest release. Initial reaction across the web seems a little lukewarm also - as one commenter on YouTube wrote, "Buy a used XS6 if you want to make music. This crap is waste of money". The feature set of this new keyboard seems quite elementary, and Yamaha really don't seem to be bringing anything new to the table that they haven't released generations earlier. 

For a further introduction check out the videos below - the first providing a product overview (yawn) and the second a rather dubious bedroom-to-dancefloor style promo video! Enjoy. 

-
Paul Doolan provides online keyboard session recordings for bands and solo artists. 
Want to add keyboards to your track? Learn more now. 

Back in 2010 I released an album titled "Keyboard Players Can't Play Metal", available as a pay-what-you-want download here. 

As I explained in a blog article about the keyboard-only album back then, I love the energy of heavy metal music but have often felt "outside the circle" being a keyboard player rather than a shredding guitarist or breakneck drummer. The album, in which I played every note by hand on a keyboard, was an exploration otherwise. Embedded below is a sample track. 

At the time I thought I was a bit of a lone ranger, composing and performing heavy music solely on synth. I've just read the article "Unearthing The Metal Underground: The Synth Metal Scene" today, making me realise that there is indeed a whole scene of people into this music (interestingly, quite popular in Italy). 

So what do you think - is it true that keyboard players CAN play metal?

-
Paul Doolan provides online keyboard session recordings for bands and solo artists. 
Want to add keyboards to your track? Learn more now. 

I was recently asked via a contact on YouTube whether the digital piano I play, the Yamaha P-155, is a good choice. 

I have just replied and thought many other people could be wondering the same thing, as I did prior to making a purchase some time ago. 

The detailed specs for the piano can be found on Yamaha's website. For those who are less interested in the numbers and specs, following is a summary of my responses to the questions I was asked earlier:

- Before I purchased, I had trialled the P-155 for touch and sound alongside some high end Kawai and Roland digital pianos and it stacked up easily as well (and in the case of the Kawai MP6 which is generally at a significantly higher price point, the P-155 sounded and felt better, more realistic, under the fingers).

- Many years ago I held the belief that keyboards with internal speakers were "low end", not as professional as those you have to plug in to external speakers. While sometimes a truism, this is not a solid rule. The quality of the internal speakers in the P-155 is fine, and part of the appeal for me with this model was the ability to sit down and just turn it on and play. Having played with synths in a studio environment for years, it is refreshing and more natural to have no need to put headphones on, turn speakers on, wait for the piano to boot up etc. It was closer to the experience of playing a real piano.

- Something you wouldn't think of and most people wouldn't think to mention - when you use a keyboard of some substance which has internal speakers, because the sound is created inside the keyboard there is a slight vibration you can feel through the keys as you play them - a sensation which feels a little more natural like the resonance generated by the strings of an acoustic piano.

- Like a wine, a car, or a restaurant meal, some people will judge an instrument's quality or lack thereof by price tag alone. This is a shame. Interestingly though, the Yamaha P-155 which retails in Australia for $2,199 actually uses the same AWM Dynamic Stereo Sampling sound engine as the Yamaha Modus H11 which retails for $18,999+. In other words, the wrapper may be different but the sound you're paying for is exactly the same. 

As I did prior to purchasing, listening to and comparing clips of various piano performances on YouTube is a good way to get a feel for the quality of sound and sensitivity you can reproduce with various digital pianos. Hear the Yamaha P-155 put through it's paces further here. 

Happy listening. 

Muscle memory is an amazing thing. The process of repeating a movement so frequently that it is committed to your memory, such that you no longer need to think about the action, it can just happen.

I've often thought how great muscle memory is as a musician. When learning a new track you will listen to it over and over - in some cases hundreds of times - before you feel fluent in the performance, not needing to think your way from one note to the next. There's a real sense of freedom when you can breeze through a once difficult part of a performance, later reflecting on how much repetition went into getting it to sound so "easy". 

Sometimes I'll sit down at the keyboard and without any effort play through a piece I haven't thought of in years. No sheet music, no accompaniment, no recent listening - just the action stored in the brain... and it can sound as good as it ever did. 

Earlier this week a friend of mine, learning piano, commented on wanting to learn the track "Army" by Ben Folds. In particular he mentioned the left hand arpeggios playing so quickly at times (check for example 1 minute 15 seconds into the video below).  

At first this would require a lot of conscious effort, but in time would be done with ease - as this performance shows! 

Just today I was playing Dark Knight (below), a composition of mine well over 10 years old. The piece starts with a fairly complex left hand part, which continues regularly to keep the tempo well after the right hand melody joins in. Having not played the track in quite some time, this once tricky left hand line came out again with relative ease. 

I, like many other composers, have for quite some time been recording my tracks as they reach a state of completion. Over the years these recordings have changed format for me several times, from four-track cassette tape recordings on a Tascam MF-P01, to digital hard disk recording on dedicated units such as a Roland VS-880, to recording audio direct to computer via Firewire. My primary synth workstation the Yamaha Motif XS even allows on-board mixing and output direct to USB as a WAV file. 

These are just the means of recording audio that I have personally used over the years. Of course there are many more alternatives...

The point of this is that recording music these days is incredibly easy. So easy that much of what is heard in current popular music can be created readily in the home studio, bedroom or garage (read my blog post on AutoTune for more on that). The process of getting a composition idea from your head and into a recorded form is child's play.  

But what is the longevity of these recordings? I have many cassettes of original music I recorded only 15 years ago. I have 6 stereos in my home and none have a working cassette player. But I don't need one - I stopped listening to music on cassette years ago. 

So what of the music I recorded on that format? Some of it I have continued to perform over the years and could still sit at a piano and play now. Other pieces I vaguely recall while several more songs and song ideas have been lost to time.

From cassette, to CD, to mp3 - the times will continue to change. The next generation of digital formats are just around the corner. Then what will become of all the music currently committed to mp3 or CD? Will that music's fate be the same as my old cassette recordings?

Music notation - sheet music - however, is a relative constant. The same music written hundreds of years ago, well before any form of audio recording was developed to capture the performance, could be performed today from sheet music. 

As well as longevity, sheet music has an additional benefit. Many people long to read a great story in a book rather than be presented the story in film, allowing their imaginations to conjure the scene, characters' faces and surroundings. Music notation allows the performer to add his or her own interpretation to the music. This allows the music to truly live. 

After a recent request from a client to provide piano notation for his wife as an anniversary gift, I have a renewed commitment to score all of my own compositions. 

One day my great grandchildren may pick up a box of old things and with a puzzled look cast aside cassettes, CDs and mp3 players - but I can image a feeling of pride when they see an ancestors' name printed at the top of some sheet music. They'll just need to find a musician to perform it...

When I was a teenager I listened to the usual bits and pieces that were on the radio at the time. Before too long it all seemed a bit samey and going in a direction that was no longer interesting.

Around that same time a friend lent me a cassette full of great classic metal, Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax – the "big four" – among others. From then on, I was in…

I loved, then and now, the energy of metal music. The pure heaviness of it was energising. A lot of this of course comes from huge distortion, flat out and powerful drumming, break-neck speed and precision. Very little could ever be attributed to the presence of a keyboard player.

Faith No More were an early inspiration for me. Roddy Bottom’s atmospheric synths, strings, and piano added something extra to the sound. But metal? Not really…

Deep Purple had the rock power and energy, and the brilliance of Jon Lord’s overdriven Hammond organ was certainly a defining element of their sound. But metal? Hmmm…

It has only been since the early 90s that I’ve really found the keyboardist’s contribution stepping up to become an irreplaceable element of the metal mix, primarily through “progressive” bands such as Dream Theater,Symphony X, and the many projects of Arjen Lucassen. The tide had turned. Keyboard players could play metal.

Partly through the need to do something different, partly because I thoroughly enjoyed it, and partly tired of the age-old keytar jibes at being a keyboard player interested in the heavier side of music, I recorded an album a short time ago titled "Keyboard Players Can’t Play Metal".

Every note and rhythm on this album was created by myself as a keyboard player, using only a keyboard. Sounds lame, right? Keyboard players can’t play metal. Really….?

Having been a fan and avid user of the Yamaha Motif XS keyboard for several years, I wanted to post on one of its basic functions: quantizing.

For those who don’t own a synth or other audio editing tools but are interested none-the-less, quantizing is essentially the process of “rounding off” the timing of notes you have recorded to ensure they are more in time than they may have originally been recorded. This can be useful if correcting slight issues of losing the beat here or there, however should be used sparingly to ensure your music remains human and musical, rather than exact and robotic.

For anyone wishing to do this on a Motix XS, as I was asked tonight on Twitter, the process is as follows…

Once you’ve recorded your music, follow these steps:

- Press the track number of the track you want to quantize
- Press the Job button
- Press F2 for the Note menu
- Select job 1, Quantize
- Choose the start and end point of the selection you would like to quantize
- Select the quantize amount i.e. quantize to the nearest 1/4 beat, 1/8 beat, etc
- Press Enter to complete the quantize

If the result is not quite what you wanted, you can straight away undo (still in Job mode) by pressing F1 for the Undo / Redo job, and pressing Enter.

It can sometimes be trial and error to get the result you’re after. You may not need to quantize a whole phrase, but only a few bars within in. Also, if you’ve tried various quantize amounts (1/4 beat, 1/8 beat etc) and it’s rounding the notes a bit too far apart or a bit too close together no matter how you do it, it may be best to go back to basics and rerecord the take.

Trust this is helpful!