I suspected as much because I can think of a couple of action details that are going to be super hard with with geometry but if they can get it to work (or if they already have it working) then that would be a major engineering accomplishment. They talk about it as if it is working.
The way I understand it is intended to be an electro-mechnical piano with an electronic keyboard. That removes the linkages at the price of no longer being a purely mechanical instrument, which I'm pretty sure isn't going to sit well with advanced pianists. I've found a video but it looks like a rendering to me and not someone actually playing it.
The advanced pianists I know are the snobbiest of peoples when it comes to their instrument. A boogie woogie player wouldn’t care but a classical purist would have a heart attack and refuse to play it. I find it interesting and if they can reproduce the feel (as some higher end clavinovas have) then they might have something. The design is definitely striking. The tone and action is what is going to make it last.
I have access to a whole bunch of instruments, An older grand, a nice upright and a good quality digital. The latter is the one that gets the most time by far, it's just so much more convenient.
Love the idea and the design - but if the hammer isn't mechanically coupled to the keys, it's hard to imagine it will have proper control and feedback from the touch.
I'm sure the designer is fully aware of this, so it's probably intended for it's niche
Electronic keyboards are advertised as if they have tactile feedback.
In reality, it's a very hard problem and we shouldn't be surprised that consumer-grade ones don't even get close. (of course, this advertisement isn't really for consumer grade ...)
Man there are digital pianos that have an entire keyboard and hammer assembly right out of a acoustic piano but the hammers strike a force sensor instead of strings. Definitely more on the ridiculous side of things but the fact there's a market for it means people do really care for the authentic tactile feeling of a piano especially if that's what they've trained on for decades.
Not having an opinion on the matter, I just wanted to point out that there is also a market out there for people pretending to hear the difference between optical audio cables and gold-plated optical audio cables…
I wouldn't be surprised if companies were willing to over-engineer something, anything just to sell at a higher price :)
Sibling comments are correct that weighted keys, graded hammer action, etc are all much better than a plastic level but still don't have a proper sense of touch that is linked directly to the sound.
It's not even a matter of training with a particular touch and being used to it - the link between the body and the sound is incredibly important and mechanical means of making the link are still far superior.
At this point I would doubt that pro pianists could tell the difference in a blind test environment.
Regardless of what pianists will tell you, there is just one variable (hammer velocity) to actual sound production (by that point the hammer is decoupled from the key and whatever you do to the key after the first 5-7 mm of travel is of no consequence).
So the only "real" problem to solve is correctly measuring the desired speed and launching the hammer quickly enough.
I'm a professional musician but not on piano, and even I can tell the difference.
While it may be true that velocity is the only variable, it's not a physics problem. As a player you can't choose the instantaneous velocity for the note, and the note is played at the same time or immediately before/after other notes, which all adds more variables to the touch and the movement of the musician.
Therefore the whole action matters, including how the key travels, the decoupling point, the resistance of the multiple parts of the action, the rebound... etc
It's interesting you're happy to disregard pianists opinions on the matter. Perhaps you think experts are too mired in tradition to see the truth? That may be true sometimes, but you also don't have the same grasp of what's involved as they do.
I know for a fact that experts can't tell Stradivari from modern high quality violins, can't tell if two glasses of wine are from across the world of each other or from the same bottle, rumours are they can't tell whether they're listening to a recording or live string quartet.
There is quite some variation between real piano actions of grand vs upright, 18th century and modern, German vs French vs English action etc. There's also no magic about either of them and no fundamental reason why an electronically coupled action couldn't exactly mimic them.
Why go for more expensive a dismissal when a cheap one is enough?
All I want to say is human perception is crap. You often think you feel something but you don't, you project your biases and external suggestions onto your senses and end up with yesterday's weather on Mars.
Therefore the most logical way to test whether you can really sense the difference is to deprive you of any reference for your biases, the double blind test.
Actually, human perception is incredibly good, though I agree prone to biases. But there are no double blind studies on this, so why dismiss experts' opinions so readily?
> Electronic keyboards have weighted keys and similar tactile feedback to regular acoustic pianos, so this is a solved problem.
For professionals, the difference is huge. Seriously massive, on even the most expensive electronic keyboards. This is why I replied (unusual for me) - saying "it's a solved problem" is so far off the mark
If the hammer isn't mechanically coupled to the keys he could also have addressed functionality such as the width of the keys instead of just aesthetics. The standard size piano keyboard is too wide for most female hands and many men to play advanced pieces comfortably (or at all).
So it doesn't exist? At least, if it did exist, one would think there would be some video. Certainly searching for "ravenchord" on YT nets a lot of unrelated things, including a piano simulator app named "Raven Chord".
28 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 45.2 ms ] threadThat Ravenchord is something else though, what a look!
Does it actually work?
The way I understand it is intended to be an electro-mechnical piano with an electronic keyboard. That removes the linkages at the price of no longer being a purely mechanical instrument, which I'm pretty sure isn't going to sit well with advanced pianists. I've found a video but it looks like a rendering to me and not someone actually playing it.
> [The hammers etc.] sit on the center spine and are activated by solenoids, a proven technology even used on some Spirio Steinways.
I don't know much about pianos but it struck me that they were looking at their shoes when they wrote that.
I'm sure the designer is fully aware of this, so it's probably intended for it's niche
Electronic keyboards have weighted keys and similar tactile feedback to regular acoustic pianos, so this is a solved problem.
In reality, it's a very hard problem and we shouldn't be surprised that consumer-grade ones don't even get close. (of course, this advertisement isn't really for consumer grade ...)
I wouldn't be surprised if companies were willing to over-engineer something, anything just to sell at a higher price :)
Sibling comments are correct that weighted keys, graded hammer action, etc are all much better than a plastic level but still don't have a proper sense of touch that is linked directly to the sound.
It's not even a matter of training with a particular touch and being used to it - the link between the body and the sound is incredibly important and mechanical means of making the link are still far superior.
Regardless of what pianists will tell you, there is just one variable (hammer velocity) to actual sound production (by that point the hammer is decoupled from the key and whatever you do to the key after the first 5-7 mm of travel is of no consequence).
So the only "real" problem to solve is correctly measuring the desired speed and launching the hammer quickly enough.
While it may be true that velocity is the only variable, it's not a physics problem. As a player you can't choose the instantaneous velocity for the note, and the note is played at the same time or immediately before/after other notes, which all adds more variables to the touch and the movement of the musician.
Therefore the whole action matters, including how the key travels, the decoupling point, the resistance of the multiple parts of the action, the rebound... etc
It's interesting you're happy to disregard pianists opinions on the matter. Perhaps you think experts are too mired in tradition to see the truth? That may be true sometimes, but you also don't have the same grasp of what's involved as they do.
I know for a fact that experts can't tell Stradivari from modern high quality violins, can't tell if two glasses of wine are from across the world of each other or from the same bottle, rumours are they can't tell whether they're listening to a recording or live string quartet.
https://www.science.org/content/article/million-dollar-strad...
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-ta...
There is quite some variation between real piano actions of grand vs upright, 18th century and modern, German vs French vs English action etc. There's also no magic about either of them and no fundamental reason why an electronically coupled action couldn't exactly mimic them.
I don't see how that or a blind test is relevant to what I wrote anyway? Except for a cheap dismissal.
All I want to say is human perception is crap. You often think you feel something but you don't, you project your biases and external suggestions onto your senses and end up with yesterday's weather on Mars.
Therefore the most logical way to test whether you can really sense the difference is to deprive you of any reference for your biases, the double blind test.
> Electronic keyboards have weighted keys and similar tactile feedback to regular acoustic pianos, so this is a solved problem.
For professionals, the difference is huge. Seriously massive, on even the most expensive electronic keyboards. This is why I replied (unusual for me) - saying "it's a solved problem" is so far off the mark
Not to any rigid standard, but some pro musicians can't tell the difference it seems.
So, this thing doesn't actually exist, does it? That's a lot of bold and assertive language for something that's at a designer's prototype stage.