Don’t underestimate the contribution of the player... I can tell you a humbling experience for any piano player, you sit down and play your best stuff, you get up and Chick Corea sits down at the same sound, and he sounds so much better. Same sound, different touch. Yeah, I bet a lot of MOXF owners think some one else sounds better on their MOXF.

Also don’t underestimate the contribution of the recording skills... even YouTube video sound runs the gamut from terrible to almost excellent. Ever call up a video and you can hardly hear it at all, other videos the sound is full and present? Do you think the person recording it in one instance knew what they were doing, and the other just let whatever the default setting were dictate their quality. Not much you can do about not being Chick Corea (except practice), but there some things you do immediately...

There is no change in EQ, or a single “magic” setting that makes your MOXF sound so dramatically different. If you are playing the same sound they are, there are other factors involved. Here’s another: some folks play and use the full dynamic range of the sound they are playing... in other words, the MIDI velocity only reaches 127 when they are applying MAXIMUM effort in the dynamics of what they are playing... this allows the sound to breathe.

If you are playing, for example, a three-way velocity switching piano sound, and every note you play is a hard strike, overall your recorded performance will sound one dimensional compared to someone who utilizes all three velocity regions. Being a former full time recording engineer who watched the birth of MIDI recording, I've spent (probably) way too much time looking at and studying the 1-127 range of MIDI dynamics and how it can impact the overall sound of the resulting audio. Velocity makes a difference, in how it sounds and (as a musician) I know it also makes a difference in how it feels when playing it.

One quick thing you can do to make better recordings is set your listening volume properly. If you are turned up TOO LOUD, you naturally will use less effort hitting the keys. If you are too soft, you wind up overcompensating and it throw off your performance. And every subtle change makes a difference.

In the studio when instructing the class - I would play a game with the person performing on the acoustic piano in phones... while they were engaged in playing a fortissimo portion I would slowly increase the volume in their headphones, and everyone in the Control Room would watch the person ease up on attacking the piano... this is not rocket science, they have an internal something that is in charge of effort applied and expectation of result. Eventually, and it would take much longer than you would think it should take, they would request less in the phones.

Same happens when you slowly reduced their volume, you can observe them increasing the energy with which they are attacking the keyboard... and again eventually they would request more in the cans. This was not (just) a cruel joke I was playing on the musician... it was to teach the young budding engineers in the Control Room that they cannot setup a monitor mix without the help of the musician attached... the player needs, to hear themselves in a particular balance to what they are playing along with... and only the performer can really tell you what that balance is.

And when wrong, it can mess with their musical performance. Engineers (talking recording engineers) get a good reputation when they are sensitive to how loud something is in the performers ears. You can’t listen for them, they have to tell you. But more than that it’s important to have a sense of when they are struggling with either too much or too little level.

In doing this for yourself, take a look at your MIDI data, if you see too many 127s that could be a problem, some of the energy you applied is wasted. Either adjust you Velocity Curve, or make you listening volume LOUDER so you are not inclined to max out MIDI dynamics. Hope that makes sense.

Thanks for the reply!

And I agree.

But just like you said in another thread: "... changing effects, or EQ and other minor tweaks can truly make this a “go-to” acoustic piano."

I was just wondering what changes/tweaks others have made - if any.

Hi,

I understand what you said about the youtube videos, remember that for professional videos there's a post-production process for the video and the audio, they might raise up the volume levels. I watched some videos side by side playing along with my MOXF6 and it sounds the same. You can watch Ujie's videos below and notice that he has not enabled the Master FX button. However for some sounds I like to turn it on and select an effect called "isolator" and a pre-set called "Near"; it sounds very bright so I needed to lower a bit the highs region. See page 107 of the MOXF6/MOXF8 Data List PDF file.
https://asia-latinamerica-mea.yamaha.com/files/download/other_assets/2/330242/moxf6moxf8_en_dl_a0.pdf
You can also check the effect called Multi Band Comp and a preset called Maximizer, same page

Here the videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwd9OKOThDc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbuX1U-Sn1M

Let me know if it worked for you

Raul wrote:

Hi,

I understand what you said about the youtube videos, remember that for professional videos there's a post-production process for the video and the audio, they might raise up the volume levels. I watched some videos side by side playing along with my MOXF6 and it sounds the same. You can watch Ujie's videos below and notice that he has not enabled the Master FX button. However for some sounds I like to turn it on and select an effect called "isolator" and a pre-set called "Near"; it sounds very bright so I needed to lower a bit the highs region. See page 107 of the MOXF6/MOXF8 Data List PDF file.
https://asia-latinamerica-mea.yamaha.com/files/download/other_assets/2/330242/moxf6moxf8_en_dl_a0.pdf
You can also check the effect called Multi Band Comp and a preset called Maximizer, same page

Here the videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwd9OKOThDc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbuX1U-Sn1M

Let me know if it worked for you

Thank you VERY much!

Yes - those are two of the YouTube videos I was talking about!

Here is another one - the great piano sounds (and others) start at :45

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7ZgiIbfUNw

Oh I see what you mean, passages like the one on minute 1:56 or around right?, that's due to the 88 key sensitivity, I mean you can do that with a 61 key but the feeling is something really, really important. And there's a huge difference when you play a synth action key and a graded hammer. There it comes I think, the long text our fellow posted above. However this other advice might work: I heard a user that felt his MOX sounded duller or not bright but after restarting the keyboard to its factory settings and making sure it was updated with the latest firmware (I think version 1.12), it started to sound as expected, may be it was a subjective thought or actually after restarting it, it removed a Master EQ or FX that was wrongly configured.

A friend of mine told me he used to hear a hiss when playing his KORG pA600, he was about to return it to the store and decided to download the latest firmware and after that it was fixed and sounded as expected.

I know how you might feel if you had expectations with your keyboard after watching those videos, try it and tell me. I'm kind of disappointed with my new MOXF as well but for a different situation. The sound is ok like I told you above it sounds exactly as Ujie's videos, the problem with mine is a group of keys that randomly spike velocity notes. I will open a topic in this forum perhaps someone else faced an alike situation, in the meantime I opened a topic in motifator.com and sent a message to Yamaha support, I even uploaded a youtube video. I hope the store will replace the unit or a firmware fixing might be...

Good look with your MOXF