WHAT AMBIENCE IS AND HOW TO ACHIEVE IT

[♔Chello]

WHAT AMBIENCE IS AND HOW TO ACHIEVE IT

I am probably in a very special situation, because I am a HiFi enthusiast and at the same time a musician, who does advanced editing.

Regular speakers are only slightly capable of reproducing ambience, no matter how good they are.

This is due to acoustic conditions - if the speaker units have distinct waveguides, they can to some extent be able to reproduce ambience, while acoustic lenses are better, and horn systems (traditionally) best.

I use a horn system, where 2 units also have double membranes, which are even better than horns at focusing on ambience.

In other words, regular speakers have a DRY sound, while horns have a WET sound.

And no matter what speaker system you have, the sound becomes more WET the louder you play, and horns even more than others.

I have optimized my horns to perform best up to 70-80 dB - I rarely play louder, because the sound then becomes too WET.


Arrangers I have had have never had a correct reproduction of ambience, because artificial reverb is largely used, which has nothing to do with the original (genuine) ambience that is found in all samples - to varying degrees.

Only synths such as OASYS, Kronos and Nautilus have been able to reproduce a credible ambience.

I used Cubase for a while to add credible ambience to arranger styles, but this is enormously laborious and requires all my free time.

When I got my Pa5X, I found that I can do much of the same on this as with Cubase - with a few keystrokes.

For some unknown reason, NONE of the Pa5X's internal styles have their drum kits activated ambience content - this must be added with the Drum Editor by the user.

Although other sounds (and drum kits) have included reverb and other effects, these are all artificial, and will never be quite the same as genuine ambience, which is available with the Drum Editor for most drum kits.

Precisely because genuine ambience is not enabled for drum kits, the Pa5X is perceived as DRY by most users.

It is also important to know what genuine ambience is, and this is the near-field acoustics that are emitted in the immediate vicinity of the drum kit.

So if an artificial ambience is to be created, this must be done with a reverb effect that has very short acoustics, which requires in-depth knowledge of how the effect works.

Most internal styles on the Pa5X can be significantly improved by activating the drum kits' genuine ambience, and for some styles you must change the drum kit to one that has ambience enabled.


Finally, I want to highlight the Yamaha PSR 9000 Pro, because this has the most open soundstage I've ever heard from an arranger, and I know why: 
All styles have activated genuine ambience for the drum kits.

[⚅Graham UK]

Finally, I want to highlight the Yamaha PSR 9000 Pro, because this has the most open soundstage I've ever heard from an arranger.

Chello. Possibly that's the reason the 9KPro always ticked my boxes.
Not forgetting it's lovely to play Key-Bed.
The modern so called progress does not always give sound improvements.

[♔Chello]

Finally, I want to highlight the Yamaha PSR 9000 Pro, because this has the most open soundstage I've ever heard from an arranger.

Chello. Possibly that's the reason the 9KPro always ticked my boxes.
Not forgetting it's lovely to play Key-Bed.
The modern so called progress does not always give sound improvements.

⚅Graham


Thanks for your supplementary comment.
The Key-Bed is actually the best I've tried on any arranger - this is almost identical to the one on the OASYS; it's the same make and almost the same model - Yamaha FS-E76 on the OASYS, and Yamaha FS-E76 SW on the 9000 Pro.

The Pa5X doesn't have that great a sound, but the interesting thing is that my styles from midi that have minimal edits sound pretty similar.

In short, the Pa5X is OVERWORKED.