Playground Forums

I'm going to share with you a method I use to practice with higher quality piano sounds. This won't work for everyone as it requires additional software.

One of the main gripes I've had with the app is that the piano sound is horrific. There are very little dynamics and it's difficult to get a good, consistent sound. It dawned on me one day that there was a way around this problem. And that's what I'm going to share with you today. It's very simple.

If you have digital audio workstation (DAW) of any kind then you are most of the way there. You can use something like Garageband, Logic, or Ableton. Most of these daws come with a decent piano sound. And that is what we will be using.

What you do is open up the DAW and load up a piano sound. I have many piano libraries inside of the Native Instruments Kontakt sampler and I like to use these sounds, but any piano sound is better than the Playground sessions default piano sound.

First load up a piano sound on one of the tracks and make sure that the midi controller is connected to your computer. I use a Yamaha P-115. I like it because it's got 88 fully weighted keys and it feels very realistic. Especially with these higher quality sounds. After you are getting piano sounds from our DAW that are triggered by the MIDI input, go back to the Playground sessions app and go to settings. Inside of settings, turn the piano volume all the way down. Keep everything else how it is.

Now, when you practice along with the software, you should be hearing the piano sounds from the sampler inside of your DAW while still hearing the metronome, count-in, sound effects and accompaniment from the Playground sessions app.

Let me know if you guys have any questions. This has made practicing along with the app sooo much more enjoyable and I wanted to share with you all.

I'm curious how you route the MIDI from your Digital Piano to the DAW and Playground Sessions at the same time.

Thanks for sharing! I'm always interested in our user's setups! Way to go.

sw1tch73ch wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 05, 2018 6:52 pm

I'm curious how you route the MIDI from your Digital Piano to the DAW and Playground Sessions at the same time.

It's automatic. Meaning that my computer is recieving the MIDI from the Digital Piano. So each program is receiving the midi simultaneously. If I don't turn the piano volume down in Playground sessions then I will hear sound coming from the DAW and the Playground sessions app at the same time.

Does this answer your question? I didn't do anything special. It's functioning that way by default. Have you tried this for yourself? I'm curious if anyone else has and how it's worked out for you.

I'll have to play with that. I have an old version of the lite Cubase on my Playground Sessions workstation. As far as I recall it liked exclusive access to the audio ports. But I'll give it a shot.

I gave it a shot. I setup Cubase with the one and only VST I have for it - the one that came with it. All my good voices are on my "real" DAW machine. But while the MIDI does go to both apps, Cubase hogs the audio output (takes exclusive control) so that Playground Sessions can't be heard at all. I do have the piano voice all the way down on PGS, but I should hear the rest of the accompaniment tracks. With Cubase running, that isn't happening. Also my lag went through the roof. My little PC just isn't up to that much going on while Playground Sessions is running.

Plus, the piano voice of my... piano... is decent enough (not up to the standards set by the Piano VST on my DAW station, but for practice it works). I will keep using that.

It was worth the experiment though.

Any idea how to actually mute the midi voicing of your own playing, but keep internal piano demo sound? It is quite useful to get the rhythm right sometimes.