Jump to content

Craig, do you still like the CME UF8 keyboard controller?


blue2blue

Recommended Posts

  • Members

I've been on and off the grail hunt for a weighted 88 key controller for... about as long as I've had MIDI controllers.

 

The new CME advert caught my eye, with Craig's pretty glowing endorsement [correction: review quote]. (And I just went to Keyboard Mag and read his Music China 2004 show review, which shades the picture a tad but still sounds mighty good for the dough.)

 

CME_UF8.jpg

 

 

I'm wondering if you ended up with one, Craig, and, if so, if you still like it?

 

 

Any gotchyas or warnings?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

>

 

I didn't write a show review for Keyboard...are you thinking of the one I did for EQ? And I'm not quite sure what you mean by "shades the picture"...I didn't really say much about them. Maybe you're thinking of someone else's report?

 

>

 

Well, I tried to buy one before I moved, but they were still filling the dealer pipeline. So I have one ordered, but decided to wait to have it shipped until I finished my move to New Mexico. That's complete now, but the studio isn't really set up so I don't have a place to put it -- I mean, jeez, it's an 88-note keyboard! I can't just put it on a couple of cardboard boxes...

 

As soon as I have a space for it, I'll have Kaysound ship it here. At the moment I'm using an old Ensoniq TS-10 for a master keyboard. The main thing about the CME is I really, really like the feel of the keybed. So that's the one for me.

 

 

 

Nothing much that wasn't mentioned in the review: It doesn't do polyphonic aftertouch, you only have one split or layer (you really need to do fancy splits or layers in software), and the sequencer transport buttons work only with hosts that support it, which is very limited at the moment. But that's about it. I still think it's a great master keyboard.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Thanks, Craig!

 

In addition to being legendary -- you apparently have more ubiquity (the quality not the label) than you realize:

 

 

http://www.keyboardmag.com/story.asp?sectioncode=30&storycode=7780

 

 

I think I'm going to have to go down to Sam's and pound on one of these things for myself...

 

A buddy was trying to get me to also look at the latest 88 hammer from M-Audio but... I dunno. I'm just not an M-Audio guy, I don't think.

 

 

On the shading front... the article above (I'm thinking maybe it migrated over from EQ?) has some qualifying bits on the velocity curve (4 presets rather than programmable), the transport buttons lack of preprogrammed connectivity, and lack of poly aftertouch. Still, if the action is as good as it sounds (the ad had a glowing endorsement from Grant Nicholas, as well) it might be just the thing for me for now. ('Til I can buy that new Bosendorfer upright grand, donchya know? :D )

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

OK!

 

I did it.

 

UF8_angle_2005.jpg

www.cme-pro.com

 

I called up Sam's to see if they had any in stock and the guy said there was some kind of 15% discount promo (or something) today only which took it down to 510 clams (US). That was enough for me.

 

You know... you realize an 88 key 'board is going to be, you know, a bit bigger than your old 60 key... but you don't really think about how much bigger until you try to get it in your Corolla.

 

Now, I used to get my whole, crazy loop rig (2 60 key 'boards, a 200 watt PA, some guitars, a couple of SBK rack boxes, yadda yadda) in that car... but dang... in the coffin sized shipping box, this thing was big. I pulled it out of the outer box and managed to get it almost in, but I still had to leave the trunk bungied open. I had this image of some kids doing a commando hit on the car at a light, but the drive was thankfully uneventful.

 

Crazy thing is, out of the inner box and sitting on my stand where the old 'board was, it almost looks even bigger.

 

I'll report back when I've got this thing hooked up. But I have to say, the action feels pretty, make that very, piano like. Piano like enough that I found myself musing about the lack of ivory. Er... not that I would ever, ever buy a new piano with ivory keys (even if that were possible). I'd often mused about how very sad it was that an elephant had probably died just to cover the keys of my 110 year old piano but I'd also come to some sort of peace with that.

 

Agh... rambling again. Obviously, I'm putting off opening up these manuals, etc.

 

Okay, back to the new toy...

 

 

Again, Craig, thanks a million for the info!

 

__________

 

Amusing parting bit from manual: Caution: Do not connect the unit when thundering.

 

Baby, when I get this thing under my fingers I'm always gonna be thundering...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

On the shading front... the article above (I'm thinking maybe it migrated over from EQ?) has some qualifying bits on the velocity curve (4 presets rather than programmable), the transport buttons lack of preprogrammed connectivity, and lack of poly aftertouch. Still, if the action is as good as it sounds (the ad had a glowing endorsement from Grant Nicholas, as well) it might be just the thing for me for now.

 

 

The above article was my review for Keyboard. The reference to Music China was to "set the scene" and keep the review from being too boring.

 

I did do a report on Music China for EQ (with the cool picture of Shanghai - click on the Attachment, IT'S WORTH IT!) but there was only a brief mention of the CME.

 

So let us know when you think!! See what I mean about waiting until I had a space for it before they shipped it?!?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Oh yeah... big.

 

UF8_angle2_2005.jpg

 

I'd kind of forgot how big 88 keys are... (I kinda wish they stuck the pitch and mod wheels up above the bass keys. )

 

My only other kvetch is that I would kind of like to have a continuously variable velocity curve. But the 'hard' curve seems to be working pretty well for a couple of my fave piano sample sets. [uPDATE: That was last night. Today, the linear curve seems to work best for me. I must have been tired. But it highlights how handy a continuously adjustable curve would be. Just dial up the right touch. Better yet draw it. Better one with biosensors.] And, though it's an area of computer MIDI I'm a bit hazy on, I'm figuring there may be some way of dealing with the velocity curves on the computer side.

 

 

 

But, back to what really counts... I love the feel.

 

As much as the plastic feel had always bugged me -- it's really surprising to me how much difference the action makes for me.

 

It's funny but now I can prove it to myself -- I can actually play faster with relative precision (or what passes for precision from me) with this hammer action board. I was doing some trills on my plastic 'board the other day and thinking how sloppy I sounded. It's actually much easier on this board. (Easier in fact than on my acoustic piano with its very live, very loose 110 year old action.) I knew damping was important but it was never so obvious before. It's kind of like when you realize it's possible for a guitar to have action that's buzzfree but still too low, anyhow. (It's the taoistic balance inherent all things, I guess.)

 

 

And I have to say that, a bit of stilted translation in the manual notwithstanding, the whole deal does not feel like a surprisingly cheap package. At all. The keyboard may be heavy, but it feels great, like it'll be around for years. It even came with one of those piano style sustain pedals. (Although the 'board apparently defaults to the opposite mode. I'll hash that out in the morning. I'm used to my little flat throwaway pedal, anyhow, by now.)

 

As Grant Nicholas was quoted as saying (more or less) in the ad I saw this morning: I can't keep my hands off this thing.

 

Really, I can't.

 

:);):)

 

Thanks for the tip, Craig!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I'm curious about the Firewire/mLan expansion board for the CME UF8... has anyone seen that yet in the stores? Will it power the CME UF8 via Firewire? I understand the controller can be powered by AC adapter or USB. It seems like a good buy featurewise for about $200 street. Beats the mLan expansion board for the Motif ES in price and features seemingly.

 

I recently bought an Acer Ferrari 4000 laptop, a most excellent computer which happens to be black with red ends much like a certain Chinese midi controller. So I'm thinking UF8, matching laptop, a Firewire cable and shazaam... one sexy stage rig. Adding a second 49-note CME controller would look hip too.

 

My van is red/black too... too much fun...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

That's too funny, Pro! And, actually, depending on the act, I think that might look pretty cool. Get a little matching headset mic. (You could probably get it with just a few splashes of the right color nail polish.) And pick up the color scheme with your outfit, of course... charcoal torso, dark red arms... maybe a similar red stripe down the otherwise dark pants. I think we've got it figured out, here...

 

I've been hearing some pretty good thing about Acer laptops. I go way back and the company (or the nameplate, can't remember their company history off hand) had some shaky issue a while back. But a few people have forcefully made the case to me that it's a whole new ballgame. I was looking at one of their ads and it looks like you could shave your laptop bill by quite a lot (over some of the larger laptop makers) not to mention get a quite fast machine.

 

 

______________

 

 

UPDATE:

 

Damn, I'm really, really liking this. I actually find myself forgetting I'm not playing a real piano.

 

When I played one of those intervals not favored by the equal temperament system the little part of my brain devoted to thinking about the out of tune strings on my old acoustic piano fired up briefly, to be laughed at by the front part of my brain. Cognitive dissonance, I guess they call it. I prefer to see it as little cartoon guys inside my skull arguing.

 

[EDIT: Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think it was actually some of the notes less favored by the mapping of the sample set in question. I think the new 'board is just focusing my attention -- and part of that manifests as a heightened awareness of formant distortion, etc. Or something. I've been playing with this thing for almost 6 hours now and it's pushing 3 am.]

 

It's eery how much the physical feel of the 'board feels like it changes the sound coming out the speakers. (Of course, there really could be some differences in the MIDI streams generated by different controllers.)

 

 

But, hey, this must be one of those music gear biz scams -- 'cause now I want to find a really nice grand piano set or two...

 

And maybe some better rhodes... I need a rhodes sample set with built in funky or broken keys, you know what I mean? One note distorts a little, another is a trifle dull. And 60 cycle hum. That's important for a good Fender sound...

 

Then again, that might seem kind of weird on this nice new, very uniform keyboard.

 

 

 

Anyhow. Digging it. A lot.

 

 

 

[And lest anyone get the wrong idea: I'm in no way an accomplished or disciplined keyboardist. But pounding on pianos has been something I've done my whole life -- but before 15 years ago it always had to be OP's pianos. I was, undoubtedly, a real nuisance. People were amazingly tolerant. Owning a piano with a volume control [okay a virtual piano at that, but bear with me, here, it's 3 am and I'm working something] as I was saying, owning a piano with a volume control is my way of giving back... :D ]

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

And not only is it omnipotent -- it's almost unique.

UF keyboard provides 8 knobs, 9 sliders, pitchbend wheel and modulation wheel, and this configuration is almost not available in other Japanese or American product.

 

 

But it's got a pretty potent manual, too, apparently. Perhaps even volatile. Hence this warning on the front of the 24 page (and actually quite useful) manual:

 

 

Please ready this manual carefully before use.

 

 

 

Well... happily the unit itself seems plenty solid.

 

Now, it has to be said that so far I've only been using this thing for its basic function: playing.

 

I haven't tried to use any of its extended features.

 

At one point about 2:40 AM last night I considered trying to map the volume faders to the drawbars in Z3, the free B3 vsynth... a quick flip through the manual indicated I'd have to pop in the CDROM and find the big manual on disk. And that didn't seem like something I wanted to do then. But I have never dealt with any piece of MIDI music hardware that didn't have puhlenty of quirks in that department -- so I'm braced.

 

 

 

And I hope folks will forgive my coffee and new toy generated enthusiasm. It probably should't be considered a comparative review, since, aside from a quick flip around the Korg digital pianos in the store (and one really amazing looking Casio -- obviously designed for the home music enthusiast who wants as many lights and buttons as possible) I really haven't made any recent tests of other units. (I did like the UF8's action better than those. But it wasn't much of a test. I was waiting for them to bring my UF8 from the back.) But, anyhow, none of the other major makers has anything close to this in price, I don't think, save, perhaps, one of the M-Audios.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

Originally posted by blue2blue


A buddy was trying to get me to also look at the latest 88 hammer from M-Audio but... I dunno. I'm just not an M-Audio guy, I don't think.

 

 

You're probably better off. Reports of the M-Audio "weighted" boards haven't been favorable. Broken keys, crummy action, units that suddenly lose power...

 

The CME stuff on the other hand, seems to be very well built. Time will tell if there are any reliability problems, but barring anything serious, I've definitely got my eye on one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Jeebus, thanks for the info!

 

I almost emailed my pal with that... but I'm already in enough trouble with him for dissing the company that made his Delta 1010's (which seem to work very well for him... he did live tracking for his ex-band's second album with that dual-D1010 rig [on an 800 MHz P3!] and he says they worked brilliantly.

 

Anyhow, I didn't even consider the M-Audio for a minute, fair or not.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

It's eery how much the physical feel of the 'board feels like it changes the sound coming out the speakers.

 

 

I have a theory about that. I feel the velocity response is exceptionally uniform, so "what you play is what you get." I've found it harder to get equally consistent results out of other keyboards.

 

Y'know, Blue2blue, I think you've just about written a pro review! Maybe we should turn it into one, I can make it "sticky," go back and add some links and pix to your posts...and you can continue letting us know what you think of the controllers and such (FYI they worked fine for me).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I think of it more as a salon than a review... tell a little story, digress, philosophize a little, digress some more...

 

:D

 

 

Craig... I'm completely out of the loop on the master controller front.

 

I just DL'd the full manual. But, after the paper manual -- and CME's unintentionally droll and amazingly slow loading website [i'm on a 3mbps cable; I can't imagine what their designers think people are running... it might as well be a full rez video of a website...] I'm feeling like putting off plumbing its depths, particularly when I'm having so much fun just playing the dang thing.

 

Are the master controller functions all MIDI -- or is it some proprietary protocol that requires the USB (and driver on the computer)?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Ah, yes, it's just a controller... but the action is so good you can just close your eyes and hear a real piano...

 

concertpianist.jpg

 

 

Okay, now I'm totally kidding.

 

 

But, yes, it has no onboard sound module at all. I've been using it with some soundfont sample sets, some of which are pretty good. But I can tell this is the start of a whole new grail hunt... the ultimate GP sound set... er, ultimate free (legit) GP sound set.

 

Now, if I was playing live, in addition to a good hardshell case and a big handtruck I might just be thinking about a dedicated sound module. I'd also be hoping that a dedicated module might slice a silly little millisecond or two off my latency, as well.

 

Latency isn't something we've talked about here, since this is only a MIDI controller, but it is something of an issue for me. I'm extremely sensitive to latency issues when I'm playing guitar, which is my primary instrument -- but, happily, after 25 years of playing various synths, my keyboard playing [such as it is] has adapted to sliding latencies. (And, of course, there is a certain amount of mechanical "latency" in a conventional piano.) Anyow, latency is my b

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I hear ya there... This concept is totally hooked me in. I run gigastudio and have the PMI sampled pianos. Man they sound good, with impluse's etc. I play live piano like 8-10 a year(would like that to increase). Wonder if I should lug my AMD system around and spend that extra $$$ that a RD700sx would cost, on some of the newer sampled piano's. As you say the latencies are subject to "piano playing" as well! Thoughts....

Whish I could afford a decent laptop for giga. Sometimes the choices are plentiful!

Later

Brian

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

Originally posted by blue2blue

Now, if I was playing live, in addition to a good hardshell case and a big handtruck I might just be thinking about a dedicated sound module. I'd also be
hoping
that a dedicated module might slice a silly little millisecond or two off my latency, as well.

 

Latency isn't something we've talked about here, since this is only a MIDI controller, but it is something of an issue for me. I'm extremely sensitive to latency issues when I'm playing guitar, which is my primary instrument -- but, happily, after 25 years of playing various synths, my keyboard playing [such as it is] has adapted to sliding latencies. (And, of course, there is a certain amount of mechanical "latency" in a conventional piano.) Anyow, latency is my b

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Hmmm... I was thinking that maybe since a dedicated module wouldn't need the i/o buffers that add about 2.9 ms in and out of my MOTU outboard interface, I might slice off a little latency. (Of course, in the case of a softsynth, there would only be the the one D/A layer. But there would be whatever wavetable soft synth overhead you have.)

 

Right now I'm using a straight MIDI hookup to the 828 mkII, so we're talking about a fairly long, multi-device path:

 

UF8 via MIDI to the MOTU,

MOTU via FW MIDI transport protocol to the CPU,

v-synth magic in the CPU,

CPU back to the MOTU via FW audio transport protocol to the MOTU and then out to the world via the MOTU D/A audio outs.

 

I was thinking a straight shot via MIDI to a wavetable synth module would shave that quite a bit. (UF8 via MIDI to the module and then out. Since a standalone module doesn't need digital i/o buffering like a FW or USB soundcard, I'm thinking the main lags would be MIDI processing and then the D/A. (I'm also thinking a dedicated module would possibly-to-probably shave a little processing time, too. No chance of having to go to disk for a sample -- then again, they might use a relatively slow ROM instead of faster RAM.)

 

Anyhow, all academic, since I'm not buying any more outboard synth hardware, by decision.

 

Thanks for the additional info!

 

 

BTW, I'm almost completely ignorant about issues like USB as it would apply to something like the UF8.

 

Do you think it would be faster than a MIDI connection to the MOTU FW box? Now that I come to think of it, I could see how that could be.

 

(OTOH, I already have my two USB2 ports overloaded substantially. There's typically a USB computer keyboard with a USB mouse and USB IR remote piggybacked off the keyboard's USB -- and then a USB2 outboard hard drive (where my BFD samples sit) on the other dedicated port.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...