_I was recently asked via a contact on YouTube whether the digital piano I play, the Yamaha P-155, is a good choice.

I have just replied and thought many other people could be wondering the same thing, as I did prior to making a purchase some time ago.

The detailed specs for the piano can be found on Yamaha's website. For those who are less interested in the numbers and specs, following is a summary of my responses to the questions I was asked earlier:

- Before I purchased, I had trialled the P-155 for touch and sound alongside some high end Kawai and Roland digital pianos and it stacked up easily as well (and in the case of the Kawai MP6 which is generally at a significantly higher price point, the P-155 sounded and felt better, more realistic, under the fingers).

- Many years ago I held the belief that keyboards with internal speakers were "low end", not as professional as those you have to plug in to external speakers. While sometimes a truism, this is not a solid rule. The quality of the internal speakers in the P-155 is fine, and part of the appeal for me with this model was the ability to sit down and just turn it on and play. Having played with synths in a studio environment for years, it is refreshing and more natural to have no need to put headphones on, turn speakers on, wait for the piano to boot up etc. It was closer to the experience of playing a real piano.

- Something you wouldn't think of and most people wouldn't think to mention - when you use a keyboard of some substance which has internal speakers, because the sound is created inside the keyboard there is a slight vibration you can feel through the keys as you play them - a sensation which feels a little more natural like the resonance generated by the strings of an acoustic piano.

- Like a wine, a car, or a restaurant meal, some people will judge an instrument's quality or lack thereof by price tag alone. This is a shame. Interestingly though, the Yamaha P-155 which retails in Australia for $2,199 actually uses the same AWM Dynamic Stereo Sampling sound engine as the Yamaha Modus H11 which retails for $18,999+. In other words, the wrapper may be different but the sound you're paying for is exactly the same.

As I did prior to purchasing, listening to and comparing clips of various piano performances on YouTube is a good way to get a feel for the quality of sound and sensitivity you can reproduce with various digital pianos. Hear the Yamaha P-155 put through it's paces further here.

Happy listening.

Last weekend I recorded a performance of my composition "Before April". In a strange coincidence, a few days later I read this post about the "Out Back Project", a 15-minute audio piece to be composed from the memories contributors have of their backyard. I immediately contacted the talent behind the project and am pleased to contribute my track as the score.

The title "Before April" refers to the time shortly before the arrival of my first child. At the time I was living in Sydney, in a unit, with a tiny grassed area flanked by a very tall graffitied concrete wall, the only thing separating us from the Gore Hill Freeway into Sydney.

I composed this track thinking of the complete unknown that lay ahead for us with the pending arrival, as I looked out to our very limited living space outdoors. That April we moved to Newcastle, returning to our roots, closer to family, in our first home with a large and varied outdoor environment for our little guy to explore. We have not looked back since, and the concrete wall I once saw from the window of my studio has been replaced with the top of citrus trees, rooves and an expanse of sky.

With that, please enjoy the track via the YouTube clip above. If it connects with you, you can download the track in the format of your choice from here. Enjoy.

Having been a fan and avid user of the Yamaha Motif XS keyboard for several years, I wanted to post on one of its basic functions: quantizing.

For those who don’t own a synth or other audio editing tools but are interested none-the-less, quantizing is essentially the process of “rounding off” the timing of notes you have recorded to ensure they are more in time than they may have originally been recorded. This can be useful if correcting slight issues of losing the beat here or there, however should be used sparingly to ensure your music remains human and musical, rather than exact and robotic.

For anyone wishing to do this on a Motix XS, as I was asked tonight on Twitter, the process is as follows…

Once you’ve recorded your music, follow these steps:

- Press the track number of the track you want to quantize
- Press the Job button
- Press F2 for the Note menu
- Select job 1, Quantize
- Choose the start and end point of the selection you would like to quantize
- Select the quantize amount i.e. quantize to the nearest 1/4 beat, 1/8 beat, etc
- Press Enter to complete the quantize

If the result is not quite what you wanted, you can straight away undo (still in Job mode) by pressing F1 for the Undo / Redo job, and pressing Enter.

It can sometimes be trial and error to get the result you’re after. You may not need to quantize a whole phrase, but only a few bars within in. Also, if you’ve tried various quantize amounts (1/4 beat, 1/8 beat etc) and it’s rounding the notes a bit too far apart or a bit too close together no matter how you do it, it may be best to go back to basics and rerecord the take.

Trust this is helpful!