REVIEW Roland RD 2. Digital Stage Piano. Setting a New Standard in the Field of Digital Stage Pianos. FRIDAY, JULY 24, 2015. V8 power brings economy and speed By Randy Dufault. P. ower systems developed for vehicle propulsion outside of aviation have one thing. KeyboardMag. com Online Community for Keys, Boards, Gear, Lessons, News, Video, Tabs Chords. Mainstage 3 Patches' title='Mainstage 3 Patches' />In a world where hype like game changer describes instruments that might have only one or two new features, its refreshing to see some understatement. Case in point Roland unassumingly classifies their new RD 2. Its certainly that, as its core piano sounds are excellent. But it also packs a workstation class quantity of electric, acoustic, synth, and other sounds with nary a bad sound in the bunch an organ mode with drawbar control and rotary simulation USB audio interfacing to your computer extensive splitting and layering and MIDI capabilities deep enough to recall the heyday of master control keyboards such as the Roland A 9. Wed label the RD 2. Organization. Technically the RD 2. First, an all physical modeling engine straight out of Rolands ambitious and concept proving V Piano generates its star acoustic pianos. Mainstage 3 Patches' title='Mainstage 3 Patches' />GarageBand is a line of digital audio workstations for macOS and iOS that allows users to create music or podcasts. GarageBand is developed and sold by Apple Inc. Read Sweetwater customer reviews for Yamaha CP4 Stage 88note Wooden Key Stage Piano. Rated 4. 0 5 by 27 customers GarageBand2. Free Mainstage 3 Patches' title='Free Mainstage 3 Patches' />These are the first ten sounds in the machine and are tagged with MD in the display. Second, Super. Natural sounds, which show SN in the display, employ complex multi sample switching to capture the nuances of vintage electric pianos, Clavs, classic organs, and still more acoustic pianos. Then theres everything elsestrings, brass, pads, guitars, basses, synths of all kinds, drum kitswhich dont have a corresponding tag but are thoughtfully organized into sub categories. A tagless sound isnt necessarily less than an SN in sound quality, but the SN sounds do tend to have more tricks up their sleeves in terms of editing and performance control. The RD 2. 00. 0 labels single instrument sounds Tones and combinations of multiple sounds e. Programs. This is a departure from traditional keyboard speak, in which program usually means a single sound and performance or multi refers to a combination. A Program can contain up to eight zones, split and layered any way you like among internal Tones and external soft synths and MIDIed up keyboards. Youre limited to a single instance of the V Piano engine, but this piano Tone will have effectively unlimited polyphony. SN and other Tones offer 1. Playing the MD pianos with lots of note density and sustain wont drain a note of polyphony from your other sounds. Fig. 1 Even when browsing single sounds, more sounds are assigned by default to neighboring zones, making for quick splits and layers. The RD 2. 00. 0 is effectively always in multi timbral mode, with Tones ready to go in zones 1 through 4 Simply hit a zone onoff button and bring up the fader see Figure 1. A nice touch is that you set key ranges for each zone by striking the actual low and high keys you want. A dedicated Split button shortcuts to two way splits such as piano and upright bass. Once you get everything how you like, you can save it as a Program. If your set doesnt require a lot of patch changes but, instead, a group of staple sounds, you could set up a single Program with piano in zone 1, organ in zone 2, strings in zone 3, and so on, and simply turn zones on and off as needed. In fact, the panel layout sort of suggests this as an intuitive way of working. Scenes offer more organization still. Like Programs, Scenes can store a single Tone or a bunch, plus all related zoning and settings. They offer two things Programs dont one touch recall via the Tone buttons and custom text memos in the display, with text file import. Functionally, Scenes improve upon the Live Sets from the RD 8. June 2. 01. 4 in Keyboard see keyboarmag. Acoustic Pianos. Laying into the RD 2. A few minutes shedding your favorite songs, and you just dont want to stop. The premiere MD piano presets give you ten timbral variations to fit different styles of music. Overall, theyre wonderfully warm with long, singing sustain. Collectively, theyre flexible enough to go from Debussy demure to Benny and the Jets bombast in response to velocity, with the base Stage Grand Tone covering much of this territory by itself. The physical keyboard is a huge factor here. The RD 2. 00. 0 uses Rolands new PHA 5. Theres also escapement, which on an acoustic piano refers to the point at which the hammer is destined to hit the string even if you pull your finger back from the key. On a digital piano, simulated escapement makes for an organic and non fatiguing feel thats especially noticeable on fast single note repetitions and arpeggios. Modeled pianos have a different character than even carefully multi sampled ones. Along any audible indexpitch, brightness, loudness, sustain, whateverthey somehow feel smoother and more together. Are they always superior to sampled pianos No. Good sampling beats bad modeling. That said, the RD 2. A piano patches in most stage pianos and synth workstations. Fig. 2 Modeled pianos in the RD 2. Play Commando 3 Hacked. The RD 2. 00. 0s modeling also provides fine control over acoustic piano nuances, via Tone Designer. This is an editing mode that digs into parameters of the selected sound, and it shows up in one form or another across all Tones. With the modeled pianos, Tone Designer includes lid position, several kinds of resonance things in the piano vibrating in sympathy with struck strings, key off noise, and much more. Even more surgically, it allows you to adjust the volume, tuning, and character essentially brightness of each note. This lets the more obsessive create and save custom piano profiles see Figure 2. The RD 2. 00. 0s home oriented sibling, the FP 9. V Piano sounds and lets you edit the same set of parameters from an i. OSAndroid app called Piano Designer. There doesnt appear to be any such provision here, nor any editor librarian app in either the mobile or desktop realms. Stage pianos usually arent deep enough to warrant a software editor, but the RD 2. A plethora of Super. Natural and other sampled pianos are also on hand for backward compatibility and sheer variety. Another reason to use these in a Program or Scene is that, because the modeled piano Tones come from a separate engine, they dont support patch remain e. All other Tones do, in any combination. EPs and Organs. Super. Natural programming is put to good use in the RD 2. Clav, and tonewheel B3 style organs. A huge menu of Rhodes and Wurly sounds is on order, with Tone Designer covering various mechanical noises as well as a sound lift parameter that can bring your keyboard solo forward in a mix without having to increase the master volume. The balance of bell versus body in the sound is more a matter of which Tone you select, but there are so many of them that youre bound to find a match for whats in your minds ear. These EPs are stellar. For realism, detail, and plain attitude, the Vintage bank exceeds anything Ive heard from Roland before, and yells Come at me, bro at the Kurzweil banks that have long been my vintage keys comfort zone. The Clavs are as good, with the different pickup settings of the original represented, not to mention a nice, funky touch wah. The Modern EP bank showcases Rolands RD 1. Structured Adaptive SA synthesisan early form of modelingto produce acoustic and electric piano sounds with then unprecedented expressiveness. If you want something a bit different, these Tones hold up surprisingly well today. Many tonewheel organ Tones have drawbar control with the nine faders behaving authentically e. Even if I am fond of real acoustic instruments,I have always been intrigued by synthetic wind instruments,be them sampled or synthesized. For example,I really like some flute patches that come with the Patchman Turbo VL upgrade chip for the Yamaha VL7. I find them quite expressive and playable with my Akai EWI 4. Alas,I always failed at finding a decent implementation of a virtual sax. Using a sampler rather than a synth including synths that use physical modeling to replicate the sound characteristics of a real wind instrument,as is the case of the VL7. I have always been disappointed by the lack of playability and the inability of achieving the many timbre variations that only a real sax can offer. When I decided to record music for sax quartet,the choice was between purchasing a real tenor and baritone to be added to my alto and soprano or trying again with a sampled instrument. This is how I got to Samplemodeling and its range of products,which includes brass Trumpet,Trombone,and French Horn Tuba and woodwind instruments Saxophones,Clarinets,Flutes,and Double Reeds. Their list price ranges from 1. Trumpet,Trombone and Clarinets up to 2. Saxophones which includes soprano,alto,tenor,and baritone and Double Reeds oboe,English horn,bassoon,and contrabassoon. These price tags make Samplemodeling products more expensive than libraries that offer hundreds instruments for a fraction of a dollar each,but this comparison is misleading,because none of the instruments in these libraries can really compete with Samplemodeling. The company has been on the market for a while and gained a very high reputation among musicians,especially EWI players. The first line of their products is based on the Native Instruments Kontakt platform,and in fact they include the free Kontakt Player for users who dont own the complete product. This holds true for brass instruments,but newer woodwind instruments including The Saxophones are based on a proprietary engine named SWAM Synchronous Wavelength Acoustic Modeling. For more tech information about SWAM check this page,but for now its enough to say that this platform is a further step towards more realistic virtual woodwind instruments. SWAM instruments dont require you to install the Kontakt player. Installation,licensing and required hardware. The good news is Samplemodeling software needs no dongle key e. Lok dongle,which means you dont have to give up to a USB port on your computer AND you dont feel you are treated as a potential pirate. Instead,you get two license keys,which allow you to install their software on two different computers. If you buy a third computer you can have one key deactivated and reactivated on the new hardware. As is common with most vendors,a valid license gives you the ability to download future minor releases of the same product,without having to pay for a yearly subscription. My review is based on version 2. I learned that version 2. Samplemodeling instruments work on Windows XP and later and on Mac OSX 1. They are provided only as plug ins in the VST2,AAX,and Audio. Unit formats,therefore they require a plug in host such as Cubase,Live,Logic,or Pro. Tools. If you dont have a host program,you can use a free one,such as Cantabile Lite. In all my tests I used the Audio. Unit version loaded inside Apple Main. Stage 3. Interestingly,Samplemodeling virtual instruments are built with the wind player in mind unlike other software,you must use either a wind controller such as the Akai EWI or Yamaha WX5,a MIDI keyboard with either a breath controller such as the Yamaha BC3 or at the very least an expression pedal that emits CC1. Without any of these MIDI controllers,SWAM instruments dont sound at allInstalling The Saxophones on my Mac. Book Pro was a breeze. I havent used by second serial key yet,therefore I dont know how it works on a Windows system,but I dont expect any trouble. I scanned the Samplemodeling forum before getting the software,and the satisfaction level among users is impressively high. This surely means something. First impressions. Quite opportunely,Samplemodeling provides three configurations to start with for keyboard players with an expression pedal,for keyboard players with breath controller,and for wind controller players. Each configuration correctly initializes the programs parameters to work properly with the corresponding MIDI controller,and in fact all the four instruments of The Saxophones worked well enough as soon as I loaded them in Main. Stage. But probably well enough isnt enough for you,thus you need to read the manual to get the best out of these instruments failing to do so means that you are leveraging a fraction of their potential. The documentation is short,clear and concise,and just takes a few minutes. Once I grasped the fundamental concepts,it took less than one hour to tweak the many available parameters until I got the sound and the responsiveness I expected. The parameters are grouped in three distinct sets basic sound parameters,in the main windowadvanced sound parameters,in the Options window. MIDI CC mappings,also in the Options window. Lets have a look at basic parameters first,even though they arent really basic,as youll see in a moment. In the top half of the window you can set the intonation in Hertz or cents,the transposition in semitones,the pitchbend up and down ranges,the volume,and the pan. You can also control reverb,even though I prefer Main. Stages own reverb plug ins because they provide more options. A rectangular area in the center of the main window shows a subset of the messages arriving from the MIDI controller,i. CC1. 1 or breach CC2,and vibrato. It also provides a graph of the dynamic envelope and shows how the software is interpreting the way you articulate the phase e. These pieces of information are crucial,because The Saxophones unlike traditional samplers uses sophisticated algorithms to understand the musicians intentions and generates slightly different sounds depending on the result of this analysis. If what you hear isnt what you had in mind,you should keep an eye on these parameters to understand how the software is analyzing your playing style. The quest for the perfect parameter value. In the bottom half of the main window you see more advanced controls that directly affect the resulting sound. Your first option is which instrumentmicrophone combination you want to use each sax model soprano,alto,tenor,and bari provides between 8 and 1. Sax 1 Dry or Sax 2 Bright. Each variations results in a slightly different timbre,even though the differences arent always noticeable,at least to my ears. After some tests,I found myself focusing on two or three different variations for each sax model. Except for a few sliders whose meaning is obvious for example,the amount of growl,the compressor rate,and the release time the controls in this area require a deep knowledge of acoustic principles and honestly I cant really claim I could grasp the meaning of each of them. In some cases I managed to have interesting sound variations by moving a slider,in others I found no audible difference,probably because some controls must be adjusted in groups rather than individually. For example,I found out that lowering the default value of the Dyn.