dancehall piano sound

Peter M · Post by **Peter M** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 12:21 am

any advice on getting that sharp/bright synth piano sound as in late 80s early 90s dancehall (on a whole heap of Jammy's tunes for instance)I use reason 2.5 and have tried some dx7 and similar soundfonts but they are not even close (even w/with much tweaking). Reason has some great piano patches but they are "too good" for this sound I know steelie and clevie used dx100, casio cz etc but cant find multisamples of these for the life of me. Cheers Pete

Peter M · Post by **Peter M** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 4:31 am

any takers?

Post by **interruptor** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 9:31 am

umm... up to now i was quite sure dx-7 is the way to go as i know that a lot of reggae bands in the eighties and also much later used this instrument for offbeats. probably you just didn't get the right soundfonts? you could try the demoversion of <A HREF="http://www.kvr-vst.com/get/17.html">fm heaven</A> a vst synth which comes with a big bank of dx7 like sounds. can you use vst-synths within reason?

Peter M · Post by **Peter M** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 11:26 pm

alas no i did try some dx7 sf2 but perhaps they did not have the right patches on there i will check out that site nonetheless thanks

Post by **interruptor** » Mon Dec 27, 2004 4:41 pm

i listened to some late eighties jammy's dancehall tracks and actually got pretty close with yamaha factory presets loaded on a vst fm synth. so i think they used a fm synth at jammy's. probably they edited the factory piano preset to fit their own needs.. the problem with these piano sounds is that they are such horrible approximations of a real piano that nobody except some nerds like us would ever want to use them nowadays. the typical fm piano sounds people usually look for are the glassy e-piano patches which do sound different than the original rhodes piano but were very popular and became a sound category in their own right.

Peter M · Post by **Peter M** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 1:19 am

thanks u might be interested in this thread over at Versionist too: <A HREF="http://www.versionist.com/topic.php?id=7288" TARGET="_top">http://www.versionist.com/topic.php?id=7288</A> the dx100 got a run, but Im not sure its the one I still feel it must be a preset/close to a preset because its on so many diff records from diff producers with the exact same sound...often with diff kinds of rev/delay but seldom much complex eq its def that metallic timbre that u just dont find... every fm piano patch I find has that glassy timbre... the reason nn19 epiano patch is close/serviceable but not quite the same the dx100 that is up on V. is close but still...<IMG SRC="http://www.interruptor.ch/cgi-bin/discu ... rt/sad.gif" ALT=":("> old school dancehall nerd/freak and proud of it ;) wonder if anyone knows any of the key players from that era so we can settle this...?

Post by **interruptor** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 3:32 am

in fact asking one of the players would be easyest. steely & cleevie are still in the busyness. maybe they are nice guys like Steve Barrow at Blood&Fire Records who has a website with a discussion forum where he chats with the fans.. well, i am just dreaming :-)

disrupt · Post by **disrupt** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 8:44 am

To emulate a CZ-1 you should try refx's (www.refx.net) PlastiCZ! Another way is to take the Native Instruments FM7, use an empty preset and do something with 2 carriers, one of them a square wave, the other one to 'scratch' that square wave. Also interesting: take the (free) mda Piano - not the e-piano! - (www.mda-vst.com), set it to minimal release and hard sound, run that through the mda speaker simulation, a bitcrusher/downsampler like refx's incredible Trasher, maybe a Tapedeck plugin and then compress it hard! Slams! You can check out that sound at www.jahtari.org, used it for numerous releases.

Jahkls · Post by **Jahkls** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 11:17 am

I think it's a Yamaha FM patch.
The DX100 "Deepgrand" preset might be it.

Mini Nuke · Post by **Mini Nuke** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 11:51 am

I woul suggest you should try the Roland MKS-20, this machine has got the metalic bright sound you are probably search for.

KoCha · Post by **KoCha** » Thu Jan 03, 2008 9:28 am

I think you can achieve this sound with any kind of 'Electronic-Piano' emulation, I speak about the kind of 'rhode' simulator...

Depending on hardware/plugin you use, you can switch settings to get that specific sound.

Post by **interruptor** » Sat Apr 02, 2011 5:22 am

Regarding the piano sound: See the second half of this video. Steelie and Clevie explain and demonstrate their instruments aproximately in 1988.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crARrMMK ... re=related

The Instruments:
- Yamaha DX-100: piano sound
- Oberheim DX : drum machine
- Yamaha CS-01: monophonic bass synth

.. and here is a 1986 tv commercial for the yamaha dx-100:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcAiOsGn ... age#t=290s

Post by **interruptor** » Fri Apr 08, 2011 1:51 am

And here is one more video which is not to be missed:

Noel Davey & the Casio MT-40: The Sleng Teng
http://vimeo.com/16905521

"This is a video of Noel Davey - the guy who switched up a pattern on the Casio MT-40 keyboard to create the the first fully computerised riddim in Jamaican music: the 'Sleng Teng'
The clip was filmed at Noel Davey's home in Waterhouse, Jamaica in 2001 for the pioneering web program 'Kingston Signals'."

Video recorded by Peter Dean Rickards
website: http://www.afflictedyard.com

tradesman · Post by **tradesman** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 8:43 pm

Jahkls wrote:I think it's a Yamaha FM patch.
The DX100 "Deepgrand" preset might be it.

this is the one on most of the 80s digi stuff , the dx21 also has this preset . you can also get the dump files from these synths and load them into fm8 native instruments.