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Pianocade: Arcade parts meets musical instrument
shponglefan:
I was wondering when That Guy was going to show up. And two of 'em so far. Good job fellas, stay classy. :applaud:
Howard_Casto:
To be fair, if you post an incredibly stupid idea you should expect people to point out what a stupid idea it is.
In know non-musicians can't seem to grasp this, but the piano is actually an ANALOG instrument. The sound of the notes changes depending upon how hard and how long you hold down the keys. To make it full on digital, and not only that but to map things to non-keys hat aren't suited for playing but merely add a superficial aesthetic value, well it just doesn't make sense unless you are a hipster doofus that wants to pretend they are playing an instrument when they really aren't.
shponglefan:
--- Quote from: Howard_Casto on March 26, 2013, 01:11:57 am ---To be fair, if you post an incredibly stupid idea you should expect people to point out what a stupid idea it is.
--- End quote ---
I'm amazed people even beging to think it's an "incredibly stupid" idea. I think it's interesting and innovative and give the creator props for that. It's trying something different, and I can't believe people would ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- on that (although this *is* the Internet I suppose).
But coming from a forum where people devote utterly ridiculous amounts of time to build arcade stuff, it seems doubly dumbfounding.
--- Quote ---In know non-musicians can't seem to grasp this, but the piano is actually an ANALOG instrument. The sound of the notes changes depending upon how hard and how long you hold down the keys. To make it full on digital, and not only that but to map things to non-keys hat aren't suited for playing but merely add a superficial aesthetic value, well it just doesn't make sense unless you are a hipster doofus that wants to pretend they are playing an instrument when they really aren't.
--- End quote ---
But it's not trying to be a real piano; it's a synth. I don't think anyone who is buying this would think otherwise. So that complaint makes no sense.
And it's hardly the first synth instrument to use non-standard keys as well (Pocket Piano, Monotron, Analog 4, etc).
Vigo:
You want a full thought out answer? OK, I'll be honest: This thing blows as an instrument. I agree with Howard. The dude in the end of the "feature demo" video couldn't even slide up the note scale without getting his fingers stuck on the buttons. And keep in mind that he could have as many takes of that shot as he wanted to get it right.
And for reasons other than what HC mentioned, my biggest beef is this is only a 4 bit, square tone synth, based on NES hardware. Besides the obvious fact that an original Nintendo IS NOT AN ARCADE MACHINE, the sound chip was the most underdeveloped part of the NES system. I loved that console dearly, but it's sound chip was just awful comparing the sound to any other platform. Just compare it to the SID chip from a c64, (released 3 years prior). The SID chip could handle various waveforms and filters to create dynamic audio tones. Arcade machines were usually even better. Even a couple years before the NES was released, arcade machines were commonly running 16 bit synth chips that could handle a much larger battery of sound. Arcade games sounded amazing back in the day, and the pianocade wouldn't be able to capture that in the least.
So in essence this is a $500 control panel with an audio chip about as advanced as my toddlers Fisher Price piano. I'm not gonna praise a hard to play, poor sounding synth simply because it is "Retro cool". It's just an overpriced piece of hipster garbage.
Howard_Casto:
Well that's the thing... synth doesn't mean digital, it means synthetic. The old electric keyboard is still synth, but at the same time, you've got analog keys, and analog manipulation of that synthetic sample via all your tweak buttons. Your cheaper keyboards are digital sure, but professional musicians don't really use the cheaper ones almost exclusively for that reason.
I know this is going to butt hurt a lot of the chip tunes kiddies out there, but they aren't "playing" stuff, they are merely activating samples via the pressing of a key. So it's guitar hero. Sure it's guitar hero with more buttons, but it's still guitar hero. I mean I've seen youtube videos of these poor, hopeless individuals "performing" in front of a massive crowd of 12 people on a modified Gameboy and they actually think they are doing something, even though the device only has two digital buttons, so they couldn't possibly be contributing anything to the playback of their samples. This, to me at least, is just an extension of that..... all form, absolutely no function.
When I see that thing, I think that somebody wasted a lot of buttons on a speak n spell that could have been put on a really nice arcade cab instead.
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