I don’t want to get into this particular fray too much as I don’t have the PLG (though I’m a MO7 owner and it is a relevant topic for me since I could be a potential consumer).

While the monster thread has been closed for the sake of readability, I am slightly dismayed at the ‘parenting’ and seemingly attempted censorship that has taken place on this particular subject matter.

This particular subject has asked for debate/opinion within the forum membership on the newly released PLG.  The response by Yamaha US was unexpected, appreciated and, given the liability they carry, minimal and non-committal.  The response by Yamaha US was just one aspect of the thread and it was beaten to death by perhaps just one unrelenting poster. 

A problem that I see is that the thread was shut down supposedly because the original question ‘Is the PLG defective?’ has been answered.  It appears to ‘me’ that the thread was shut down out of deference to the relationship between this forum and Yamaha US....or some concoction there of and a fear of ruffling feathers.  Shutting down the thread due to length is fair (although I’m sure I’ve encountered worse offenders).  What I find troubling is that rather than asking members to start threads anew and attempt to stay on subject or what have you, the thread was shut down with an iron fist that has decided to speak the final word on ‘Is the PLG defective?’.

Respectfully, and I can say that word because I’ve had many personal keyboard issues resolved here, I don’t think it’s in the forum’s best interest to have such discretion doled out by the powers that be.  The topic is a touchy one and we can all appreciate that and the fact that the forum is run by a Yamaha distributor.  However, if the forum management is going to close down a thread and ALSO ask members to consider the topic as finished and the question as answered, I will cast my one vote that says I don’t want the forum management speaking for me, babysitting me, or steering my thought process away from a contentious area.

I have full appreciation here for all that I should appreciate.  I don’t need to be reminded of any of that nor the time that others put into this to make it happen.  It’s not my forum; I’m not an owner.  My personal and emotional investment here is limited.  However, if you try to squelch conversation about an issue, as such, you will have relegated this forum to abide by rules of engagement that don’t offend Yamaha US on timely and sensitive matters (the new release of a hopefully hot item).  Whether that is your intent or not does not matter - the perception is as such and should be remedied.

The thread in question could easily ruin some sales for Yamaha and this Yamaha distributor.  I know I’m on the fence.  It’s a fair question to ask if that is the real reason that we have just been ‘parented’ into moving on. 

Finally, it was mentioned that a couple posters complained that the thread got away from the original point.  If that is part of the reason for the need to close the thread and not re-new the topic, we’ve all had our intelligence slightly insulted and way too much ‘power’ has been given to those complainants.

My opinion.

Re: PLG-150 redux

I believe I resemble that “unrelenting poster”.  /forums/images/icons/smile.gif alt= (Oh no; there he goes again!)

Agreed on all counts. And it wasn’t bad enough that the decision was made to close down the thread; but I just loved the fact that the moderator(s) felt that the issue had been definitively “decided” one way or the other. LOL! I guess I can relax now that the decision process has been taken out of my hands?

Here’s the thing: Yamaha still has the opportunity to “hit a home run” with this, if they would just engage in some civil conversation…

Re: PLG-150 redux

Hey cnegrad!

They can close the thread, but you are still the one who runs the show.

I completely agree with you, cnegrad! You are the man!

“They can run, but can not hide” /forums/images/icons/smile.gif alt=

Waga

Re: PLG-150 redux

Thanks, but let’s stay calm about this okay? I take no joy whatsoever in being this “difficult”. Anyone who knows me is aware that it’s far from my “comfort zone” to be this much of a pain. But I’m very disappointed about how this whole thing has evolved and grown out of proportion. Peace.

Re: PLG-150 redux

cnegrad, I hope I didn’t insult you in any way on my previous Post. I know I got a bit sarcastic at the end of it, but my response was directed at Bunapi. 

You have to remmeber that yamaha is not going to publicly accept things like this(although they did to a certain degree). But, too much reputation and business is on the line.  Personally, for you to ask yamaha to publicly answer your very own personal questions for a product you have not even purchased yet, and are guiding by mere here say, its, really not fair. I mean, the samples you heard, how can you be for certain that they came from the AP board? How sure are you? 100%?
Think about it, like the example I made of the Ford comp. Would you think that ford will publicly accept something like that just because your asking them? and you have not even purchased the car? Well, I dont mean to be rude or anything, because, I do respect your opinion. Sincerely I do.
But I recommend you get the board from GC, tell them youre gonna try it out, and make up your mind when you actually hear it yourself.
Again, with all due respect, please, I hope you dont take this wrong. I respect you and I know your feelings are really strong regarding this AP board.  Just remember that many peoples livelihoods are on the line. If it really is that important to you, call them up bro.  Talk to someone.  Theyre not going to hang up on you. Just think fairly.  Remember, this awsome instrument is being used for the Glory of God and for that, im so very greatfull for the people at Yamaha.  I pray that God continues to bless them big time !! I know they will put out better AP boards, but we have to support them.
Blessing to you my bro.

/forums/images/icons/blush.gif alt=

Re: PLG-150 redux

M4C,

No insult taken, whatsoever. We’re cool. Look, I’m tired of being “the bad guy” in this conversation. The last thing that I ever intended was for this to be an argument between myself vs. most of the rest of you. Call me naïve, but I expected Yamaha to be involved in this dialog, and not in an adversarial way, either. Please don’t take personal offense to any of the following either. Just continuing the dialog:

You said, “ You have to remember that Yamaha is not going to publicly accept things like this...”

This is the crux of the whole matter, isn’t it? We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one. IMHO Yamaha is a HUGE corporation that brings in billions of dollars annually. To them, it’s a given that a certain percentage of their product won’t do as well as they had hoped. I don’t understand why you’re so afraid of upsetting them that you refuse to engage them in non-hostile discussion on how they can improve things. I can’t live my life allowing myself to acquiesce to flawed product (no matter what the product may be), without at least having a congenial, businesslike conversation with the vendor in question to try and rectify the situation. Do you have a flawed house full of flawed appliances and electronics because you’re afraid that someone might be fired over it? Have you never returned a product in your life? And I hardly think that people are going to lose their jobs over this; particularly when so many of you are going to use the AP anyway; and more power to you.

You said, “ Personally, for you to ask yamaha to publicly answer your very own personal questions for a product you have not even purchased yet, and are guiding by mere here say, its, really not fair.”

Again, why? Most corporations have Pre-Sales Representatives who handle *exactly* what you’re referring to. Questions before the sale are perfectly allowable. And as of 3pm today, my local Guitar Center still can’t get their hands on one, though I’ve been bugging them about it since mid October. I only WISH that I had one on hand. It would only lend further credence to my argument. But of course, people would still find other ways to argue with me, wouldn’t they?

You said, “ I mean, the samples you heard, how can you be for certain that they came from the AP board? How sure are you? 100%?”

Be careful, you are on the verge of calling bunapi and several other people here liars. One report I would question, but multiple reports I tend to lend credence to. Is it *possible* that they’re all lying? I guess so, but it’s unlikely isn’t it?

Please understand that I will continue to record and perform music for His Glory, regardless of whether it’s Yamaha gear or not. If Yamaha wants it’s logo to be seen whenever I perform, let them at the very least engage in businesslike conversation with their user base, and even better - assume that any gear that they put on the market for use with professional workstations be of professional recording quality. I really don’t think that it’s asking too much.

Re: PLG-150 redux

Yes, I agree with you on some things I said. I should have not. But then again, it goes back to the same point. What others seem as offensive, others wont. Thats just what this AP board has created. I think others dont mind having a noise in their sample.  Perhaps like you said, a noise that in their particular needs, will not make any noticeable effect.
But in your particular needs, I totally agree with you, it will.  Thats why I also agree with you that this matter should be handled in different ways.  In other forums where developers or programmers actually do participate, I have never seen one admit to a problem when the problem is subjective. Because, its a matter of taste.
Like I fly this awsome flight simm called iL2 forgotten battles. The developer there participates with the community as far as how to make the simm better. Well, he has gotten smoked in past times for doing that. But over all, the simm has gotten better. So in a sense, I agree with you that it would be so awsome if more output for yamaha, with at least ideas of what could be done to satisfy the folks that feel affected by the noise. That would be nice. But to do it publicly might not be any manufacturers cup of tea.

If you noticed on my posts I always say that I dont mean to offend anyone. Its not my purpose and if I do it unintentionally, I publicly apologize because its never my intent.

But, it would be nice to find a solution. Im all for that. At least a meet me half way type of thing. Believe, I know yamaha people are thinking of this as we speak. But I think you should let them know directly because, this is not an official yamaha complaint forum. Its a place to help each other out with problems related to our Synths. If they happen to come here, we should be greatful because not so many manufacturers do that. But again, like you said, its not against you bro. Not at all. No one here thinks less of you because you have expressed your God given right of opinion. And I respect you big time for that. 
Get the board and check it out. And God willing when you hear it, hopefully the positives will outweigh the negatives and you will be rocking more for Jesus !!

Rock on bro !!!

Re: PLG-150 redux

One last posting from me on this subject. (I tried to stay out of it, but I couldn’t help myself. /forums/images/icons/blush.gif alt=)

Here’s my take on what we’ve heard from Yamaha on this subject:

1. The PLG150-AP is aimed at a particular price point - ~$300 list price (street price is ~$250). It is not intended to be a top-of-the-line piano synthesis. Certainly, Yamaha knows how to make such a product - check out the P250, for example.

Does Emerson apologize when it’s $50 boom boxes don’t have the sound quality available in a $1500 Bose sound system? Of course not. The two products are intended for different applications.

2. The PLG specification and form-factor imposes specific limitations as to the maximum sample memory that it can support - 16MB.  This means that Yamaha’s designers had to make some choices as to how they would implement the PLG150-AP. According to Athan (Yamaha_US) the choice came down to shorter loops on the samples for the triple-strike waveforms or using linear predictive coding with a 2:1 compression ratio. This was no doubt a difficult choice to make as in one case you could end up with unnatural sounding loops on sustained notes and in the other you will get some compression artifacts. Following what I’m sure was extensive discussion and evaluation, they chose to go with the longer loops and compression.

3. While it’s interesting to assert that they could have done better; I’d be hard pressed to believe that someone other than Yamaha knows what’s possible given the price and technology constraints that are essential to this product.

4. They have no doubt read and discussed all of the comments on this site; and in light of that, they still believe that the PLG150-AP for a street price of ~$250 is a good value.  Without their actually saying so, basically what they have said is this:[list]The PLG150-AP is what it is… if you want the sound quality of a $2500 P250 - then that’s what you should buy. If you are looking for the best 64-note polyphony, piano plug-in board for use with your Yamaha host synthesizer, consider the PLG150-AP.[/list:u]5. Having made these points in the original thread, I’d bet that they see little value in continuing to argue and debate these points. There are apparently some number of customers who find the PLG150-AP at $250 a good value. Others don’t. Arguing and debating those points is unlikely to change anyone’s mind.

Hey, no one is forcing you to buy this board… if it meets your needs and you are so inclined, buy it. If it doesn’t meet your needs, check out what else is available - whether that be samples to load into your Motif/ES or other workstation, another workstation, Yamaha’s P-series pianos, a real grand piano; whatever.

Regards,

Brad Weber

Re: PLG-150 redux

I just returned from spending the last two and a half hours at Church and after spending considerable time in the Bible, I’ve come to the following conclusion:

Y’all have made this all about _me_, and that’s not what this should be about. So I’m done. If someone else wants to pick up the gauntlet, by all means do so. It’s all yours. Thanks Yamaha, your customer support is something to behold.

Re: PLG-150 redux

“Hey, no one is forcing you to buy this board… if it meets your needs and you are so inclined, buy it. “

Oh where do I begin.....

**Rant mode on**

Very True. I think everyone is just upset because we have been asking for this card for YEARS (not months) and thought that Yamaha would have come out with something better. Sure it might be beautifully sampled, but what’s the point when it’s has artifacts in it that limit it’s usefulness to where only with a LOUD band live or in a BUSY mix recording wise is where these flaws aren’t noticed? Shoot, if THAT’s the case, does it matter WHAT piano you play? Probably not! we were hoping for something special, and once again we are dissapointed. (In my experience, first with the EX5, then aspects of the Motif, and now this! The ES is probably the closest to what the EX5 was supposed to be, but that’s another rant...later) I also have a Yammy CD burner that I paid twice what all the other brands were for, and it NEVER lived up to it’s claims! In Fact, the CD’s from it wouldn’t play reliably anywhere! No matter what software, firmware, anything! How do you think I felt when my buddy’s $30 burner outperformed my “professional” $225 burner?  (Can you feel, why I have disdain for Yamaha products, and DID NOT upgrade to the ES?)

Supposedly, the Motif classic piano is the best live piano, but sucks in mono. The ES has a nicer mellow expressive piano (So I’ve heard), and this board was suppossed to brige the gap, or at least give us a nice alternative. From what these guys are saying, it sounds like it does neither, and from the demos, I DO HEAR our tambourine man in the sound, and it’s atrocious! So what to DO?

Yamaha should drop the PLG format, or redo it from the ground up for their next series of workstations. Enough with this backwards compatability BS if it SUCKS! I think the PLG format was originally made for the xg sound card only as an add on, and was never meant to be a professional solution. When the EX5 FLOPPED, (Oh yes it did indeed flop!  Their first big flagship in years, with all KINDS of outrageous claims (for the time) advertised in what it could do and how it would change your life!) Yammy had to come out with someting fast, I’m willing to bet they knew it was junk going out the door and was already working on damage control with the Motif. Since they couldn’t make a “fixed EX5” (Bad for PR, or to make worse) they fixed the immediate shortcomings of the EX5, cut the features in half (polyphony, seqencer, and master controller abilities) so the machine wouldn’t choke, and disected the AN, VL into the limited PLG cards in addition to removing FDSP.  Put in much improved samples, and voila! “New” Keyboard.  Oh yeah, there was a “we’re sorry” I mean umm.. “Loyalty program” rebate for that too like $150. I lost a hell of a lot more than $150 on that fiasco, but I took it and ran and sold the EX5 knowing the resale value would tank FAST, and sure enough it did. As time went on components became cheaper and with more R&D they released the ES, which is much closer to the original EX5, which is another rant yet again.

Also as the workstations go, they should go the extra mile this time and give us what we want! Something that works, and works the way it should. The way we expect! Obviously this can mean different things to different people, but read the forums of all the major keyboards and newsgroups, and it’s pretty clear what’s wrong with each workstation. I STILL want what was promised to me in the EX5, yet I am pretty jaded from this very expensive lesson. I still dig my motif, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what really went down. Maybe I’m crazy, uninformed, and wrong, but I call it as I see it. I’m sure my version is oversimplified, but as an end user I know what I’ve been through, and that’s all that really matters in the end. The customer! Of course you could say it’s the coporation’s bottom line, but that’s another debate. I think yamaha should start paying more attention to the customer and less to their bottom line, if not just for a little while. Yeah I got a lot of these in me, and you wonder how I sleep at night? /forums/images/icons/wink.gif alt=

This is why I am for years now most interested in what Korg’s new flagship will be.  If they EVER release something that isn’t triton version 25.Xtremely lame.abc to the fith power or something that is truly a new design that is....

**Rant mode off**

Re: PLG-150 redux

Look, kind folks. The decision to close the ‘Defective AP Board’ thread was entirely my own. No pressure, no request, nothing from Yamaha whatsoever.

The decision was based simply and solely on trying to keep this issue ‘alive’ and not simply circulatory.

Anyone can open another thread with the same name if they really want to, or open up a whole series of threads saying the AP Board is the worst thing they’ve ever encountered in their life… Plus the original thread is still there, in its original form.

You also need to know that both Yamaha and ourselves spend way more time helping people on and off these forums than there is any sound commercial reason for so doing. Before you lambast what we are trying to do here - which is trying to provide an interesting, and useful forum for discussion that’s vaguely ‘efficient and organised’ (hardly ‘Big Brother’) please can this taken into consideration.

There is no conspiracy, no censorship at work here but, wow, I do think this particular horse has been flogged to death, hasn’t it?

MM

Re: PLG-150 redux

Fair and appreciated response.  Now back to the sidelines to watch the second half.....

Re: PLG-150 redux

MrMotif,

How can you say it has been flogged to death if there has been no further response by Yamaha as to whether what steps they are going to take from now on in regards to all the customers and forum members who either purchased or are thinking about purchasing an AP board. I believe you when you say closing the thread had no other motives behind it, justified or not, I think it was taken as more of a punch in the face to those who were trying to get their message across to Yamaha, thus conspiracy theory’s emmerged. Are the forum users supposed to do nothing and wait for who knows how long until a response from Yamaha occurs? I certainly don’t want to cause trouble, and this isn’t about causing controversy. Most of the responses I make or others have made have been in response to people who feel their views aren’t justified, or that they should take Yamaha’s initial response as the final word. I care about those people’s feelings, especially those who bought the board and are unhappy with the artifact part of the sound. This isn’t about any one person causing trouble for Yamaha. I was very excited about this board and was thinking about buying one. Obviously having so many people find problems with the way it sounds is troubling at best and shouldn’t be overlooked. Yes, I agree that piano voices are subjective, and I for one think the piano sounded good until I listened to it more closely with higher end headphones. I’m quite certain that if this piano truly had no defect, there would still be some people who would complain and not like it. However, it is far beyond that since there is a specific problem that isn’t only subjective based. I don’t want to keep on talking about it, and others have quit it seems. But I do feel it is an important issue and one that deserves to be rectified by Yamaha. The least Yamaha could do at this point is to fully release a statement that is official in nature to us in the forum explaining what the plan to do about this if anything. If they do not plan to investigate further, or even attempt a fix of some kind, then let them tell all of us this. That is what everyone here wants to know.

Re: PLG-150 redux

cnegrad,

If I have offended you, I do ask for your forgiveness.

Coop

Re: PLG-150 redux

Me too man, I think that its gotten way out of hand.  This is the last post in this matter from me.  I need to learn this cubase junk. Its driving me crazy.  I might just start recording with my Roland VS until I get the hang of the Cubase madness.

Re: PLG-150 redux

Hey guys, no offense taken at all; don’t give it a second thought. But I decided not speak on this anymore, as long as the focus is that my feelings are unjustified. The focus should be on Yamaha, and their lack of responsivness in this matter. And PLEASE; don’t give me the line about this not being an official support board. This is where Yamaha interacts with it’s customers, when it’s inclined to do so or not, whether it’s “official” or not.

Mr. Motif, I appreciate your above statement about why you closed the other thread. But I feel that you went too far when you announced that the issue was decided, that there was no flaw in the AP board. But I refuse to be the focus anymore. If you want Yamaha to respond to this, you guys are going to have to demand it.