Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Is there a software piano with more than two-channel output?

As I continue to amuse myself with the idea of a DIY Avant Grand I realized that if I duplicated the four-channel capability of the AG I might not have a software piano to drive it. Currently I use Ivory, with I think only has stereo output. Is there a software piano that provides for more than stereo output?

Pianoteq supports up to 5 "microphones" (which you can place wherever you like in, on and around the piano) and 5 or more output channels (if your Audio interface supports this). You can route each microphone to a different ouput. It may be worthwhile checking on the Pianoteq website and forums...

I couldn't have expected a more encouraging response. I will check the website as you suggest to see how to access the multiplicity of channels. Thanks to you my DIY project is back on"go". The only thing I'm missing now is the vibrations that Yamaha uses to induce some tactile response. Personally I think that is a bit "hokey" and the some of the reviewers prefer to turn it off.

There is the Galaxy 5.1 Piano.

<<I will check the website as you suggest to see how to access the multiplicity of channels>>

I think you could have say two microphones directly under the piano and route those to a pair of juicy and hunky emienence 12 inchers under your "avant grand" then place the others microphones on top with matching speakers.... could be fun!

It is fun already just thinking about it. Imagine having an acoustic keyboard in a nice mini-grand cabinet, having access to all the software pianos as they evolve and full control of the speakers. I'm getting excited just thinking about it.

I went to the Pianoteq web-site but was unable to find out how to get the multiple channels out of the computer to drive all the loudspeakers? Any suggestions. Oh, I will check out Galaxy 5.1.

Thanks for the help.

I think you'd have to care about the vibrating feel a lot to justify going through the trouble with emulating the vibrating feel. But if you want to implement it, I can't help but suspect that the Avant-Grand transducers may be just some kind of low frequency speakers muffled up by having the front of the cone covered up, and with some kind of special mounting to the keyboard to amplify the vibration it creates instead. The reason I say this is because if I have the TRS mode on but turn the volume to 0, I can still hear some soft sound created by the transducer.

But keep in mind that transducers aren't only used for the TRS on the Avant-Grand. They also have 2 transducers to send vibration to a flat panel soundboard on the N3, too (not available on the N2). I'm not exactly sure what this does, but supposedly to reproduce the "build up of sound felt by pianists when playing a grand piano", whatever that means.

Based on the reviews I've read the vibrators would not be worth the trouble and some have even said they become annoying. How do you feel about them?

I think it depends. If you're used to playing a DP before without the vibration, you probably won't know what you're missing because you never had it, and possibly annoying because you're not used to it. But if you're used to playing a real acoustic grand before, then you'll probably know what you're missing right away if you turn the TRS off.

I have 3 players in the house (me, daughter and son) and none of us find it annoying at all. There's nothing artificial about it to me. And I'm the guy who owns and played a $500 DP prior to buying the Avant-Grand. So I'm actually in that category of people who may find it annoying, but I don't.

There are 3 TRS level settings, so even if the effect is too much for someone, just take it down a notch. If too little, take it up a notch.

But I think by turning it off, you would cheat yourself out of 1 of the 3 key innovations that the Avant-Grand brought to the table. Those 3 key innovations are 1) great sound (by virtual of 4 channel samples & strategic speaker placement & lots of speakers & amps, 2) great action on keyboard and pedals (by virtue of using the real thing) 3) great feel/vibration of keyboard and pedals (the TRS).

I think you have convinced me to give up on my DIY AG and await Version 2.0 that has 4-channel input. Do you have any reason to believe that such a revision is in the works?

I'd bet that they use something like this:
transducer

I checked around and found the following on another site:

An audio interface that supports at least five channels is required. Perhaps there are sound cards out there with more than two audio output channels.


Glenn

Of course such things exist. How else to play surround sound DVDs in a home theatre setup?

The first thing that comes to mind is the optical s/pdif outputs that is built into every Apple Mac. That like all s/pdif outputs can handle many channels.

If you want analog, line level outputs so you can directly drive an amp and speakers again the lowest cost method will be to use a "AV Receiver" and s/pdif but audio interfaces with multiplle outs are available here are a few. There are dozens of them to choose from

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/828mk3/
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SaffireLQ56/

Please excuse a dumb question but I have a MacBook Pro and I have no idea what the "s/pdif output" is. Would you explain, please and thanks.

I have another dumb question. How does the software piano, i.e. Pianoteq, enable the user to direct the multiple outputs to the s/pdif output?

I think if you already own an acoustic grand (if I remember correctly) and are in no hurry, it may not be bad to wait. I think now that Yamaha is "there", the pressure is on and competition will be fierce amongst manufacturers. I don't know if they'll provide 4 channel inputs soon or not, but if there are enough third party piano softwares that gives users more options on other grands' sounds, maybe Yamaha will eventually open it up.

Is the reason you're so big on utilizing the 4 channel sound for an external source because you don't care for the Yamaha sound and want some other sound instead?

Another thing interesting in terms of the use of transducers is the ButtKicker designed to give you the vibration feel of low frequency bass in a home theater. You put it under your sofa and it'll "kick you butt" on the low frequency bass sounds. Their website is called www.thebuttkicker.com. I sat on a set up at Sam's club over the holidays. Pretty cool, but it can be overdone after a while.

s/pdif is a digital audio format used in TV sets and home theater setups. The data can go over fiber optic cable or coax with RCA plugs.

How to set up muti-channel output...
launch the "audio midi setup" app. Then select the speaker device. Then choose "multichanel" and then in the drop down menu select from choose the format as 7.1, 5.1 or quadrophonic or whatever you like. The mac will generate sound in this format


The little round headphone jack in the MacBook is actually a hybrid analog/digital jack and there is a small laser inside. The other end of the fiber cable to a home theater audio input and it gets decoded and sent to speakers. Typically this is used to playback DVD movies in surround sound

But really I don't think this could work for general purpose multichannel record and playback. Playing in real time is not the same as playing a dolby encoded DVD. I have to admit now that I think it should work but that is different from I'm doing it now.

I think what you are telling me is that there is a way to get surround-sound out of my Mac but not a general multi-channel output.

Let me describe what I am thinking. For the sake of this discussion suppose I have an Avant Grand with four-channel input, and I have PianoTeq with four channel output. In Pianoteq I configure the virtual microphones at the locations of the speakers of the AG. Then, according to my logic, when I play the MIDI keyboard Pianoteq will general a sound that is appropriate for the speaker placement. In other words, it has mimicked what was done when Yamaha recorded their samples. But now I can have the correct spatial "sampling" for all of the Pianoteq pianos. Correct?

If so, the question is how do I get Pianoteq's 4-channel outputs over to the AG inputs?

This time I'll limit my self to what I know will work. Buy a USB or Firewire audio interface with enough line level outputs, 4 in your case. Each output shold a 1/4" jack. What does you AG input look like? Are these line level inputs. Or are they simply speaker terminals for all 12 speakers? If there are four line level inputs then four straight cables are all you'd need.

The worst case would be if there were 12 speaker terminals on the AG. Then you'd need four active crossovers and 12 audio amplifiers. That would be a good sized audio rack full of gear.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge. You are very generous.