Keyboardists often complain that their digital/electronic piano sounds harsh, honky, thin, muffled, resonant, tinny, strident, boxy, like a toy/budget instrument, and other kinds of terrible and awful, such as the “ice-pick-in-the-ear effect”. I’ve been frustrated by these issues myself; no one feels inspired playing an instrument that sounds bad!
After a few years of working on understanding the causes of these problems, I’m convinced they can be solved by careful loudspeaker design, especially with attention to directivity control. It is possible to achieve a much more inspiring sound with existing keyboards. However, most off-the-shelf sound systems (e.g. “keyboard” amps, monitors and compact PAs) aren’t up to the task, for reasons described below.
There is a need for a purpose-built system for naturalistic, acoustic piano sound. I want to build that system. Please sign up for my mailing list to let me know if this is something that interests you; I’ll send you updates as the project progresses. Continue reading
