How to play acoustic instruments authentically on a keyboard

[⚖Hugh Wallington]

How to play acoustic instruments authentically on a keyboard
 
This was another topic that we discussed on my Tierce-de-Picardie Forum before it closed, and again I have been able to rescue most of what was said and SAVE it as a WORD document.  By clicking the below you will be able to read what was said, and clicking on any audio or video LINKS will also take you directly to the music to listen to.  You can download the word document if you so wish, but clicking on the audio/video links in the downloaded document is not quite so straightforward to get you to the music.  Follow the instructions that appear.
 
https://app.box.com/s/wxrqxqinrdhglartqgyx5anjd71a0tmi
The essence of all this is not to give instruction on how these instruments should be played, but for you to listen to both the real thing and how other keyboard players seem to get a semblance of these instruments from their keyboards.  At the end of the day, only eg. a saxophonist could get a saxophone to sound as it should .. and how well it comes over depends on how proficient they are at playing their instrument.  I don’t play a saxophone, so I wouldn’t have a clue!
 
Hugh

[♔Chello]

@Hugh

Many thanks for this wonderfully well explained article, and especially for the video from SynthMania demonstrating how to play guitar etc correctly on a keyboard.

Anyone who plays piano keys should see this one.

I've kind of always been aware of this (even if I don't do it right), because I grew up with family that played the accordion, electric bass, acoustic guitar, banjo, cornet and trumpet.

I therefore know a lot about the limitations of these instruments and how the tones are produced.

By the way, I noticed that the Kurzweil synth in the video has exactly the same pads as the OASYS, which are the best pads I've tried.

[⚖Hugh Wallington]

Before I had my Yamaha AR80 I had a Farfisa Balmoral organ, and that had ‘tabs’ on it to get the various voices.  And on these tabs it used to say things like ‘Clarinet’, ‘Saxophone’, ‘Trumpet’, ‘Violin’ and so on.  People watching me playing would never listen to what I was playing .. they just looked at the names on the tabs I was using and make comments like, “That doesn’t sound like a clarinet!”.  Or, “That doesn’t sound like a trombone!”.  I wished sometimes that they didn’t use names of real instruments to describe the sound the organ was making eg. “A woody sound”, or “A brassy sound”.  But then they would never have sold any organs!  As I understand it, they used to create these sounds by mixing sine waves, sawtooth waves and square waves. 
 
But I must admit that the way they sample the real instruments these days gives a very good sound of the real instrument.  When I got my Tyros 4, the first tune I played was Beautiful Dreamer (my version of it!) and was completely bowled over by the sound of the Concert Guitar.  You could even hear the strings being plucked!
 
https://app.box.com/s/2dhxd80cbdtaxttymfg5hghn7isw9119
Hugh

[♔Chello]

Before I had my Yamaha AR80 I had a Farfisa Balmoral organ, and that had ‘tabs’ on it to get the various voices.  And on these tabs it used to say things like ‘Clarinet’, ‘Saxophone’, ‘Trumpet’, ‘Violin’ and so on.  People watching me playing would never listen to what I was playing .. they just looked at the names on the tabs I was using and make comments like, “That doesn’t sound like a clarinet!”.  Or, “That doesn’t sound like a trombone!”.  I wished sometimes that they didn’t use names of real instruments to describe the sound the organ was making eg. “A woody sound”, or “A brassy sound”.  But then they would never have sold any organs!  As I understand it, they used to create these sounds by mixing sine waves, sawtooth waves and square waves. 
 
But I must admit that the way they sample the real instruments these days gives a very good sound of the real instrument.  When I got my Tyros 4, the first tune I played was Beautiful Dreamer (my version of it!) and was completely bowled over by the sound of the Concert Guitar.  You could even hear the strings being plucked!
 
https://audio.com/hugh-ar/audio/beautiful-dreamer-t4
Hugh

@Hugh

Thank you for your complementary feedback.

I also had various cheap organs that gave a similar result to your Balmoral.
In fact, my previous Roland FR-8Xb had equally poor sounds for everything but the accordion, which was very good.

But it has always been done with organs that they create other sounds by mixing sine/sawtooth/square waves - many of the internal organs on the Pa5X are like that..?

The Tyros4 also has many really good sounds, which are better than the Pa5X's.