jerryjackson.net

This really reveals some of the dynamic range of this most excellent Yamaha S700 Grand Piano sample I’ve loaded into my XS8. It really is reason enough, by itself, to get one of these Yamaha keyboards! I’ve embedded it here for the sake of the higher quality audio and video as opposed to what you see and hear on my Youtube.com page.

Being a previous owner of the S90es qualifed me to participate in a “Loyalty Program” which entitled me to receive the same awesome S700 samples I had in the S90es (although I think there’s other ways to get it).

I can’t seem to find any good information on the history of the Yamaha S700 Grand Piano, but I did find one reference suggesting it was a 7′ 6″ model they sold in 1991.

In my last post about Youtube, I was exploring various ways to create and upload the best quality files to the Youtube service, however, I was still embedding the lousy low-quality video with monophonic sound into my web pages.

Now that I’ve discovered an easier way to embed the better quality versions of Youtube content using the Smart Youtube plug-in for WordPress, check these out:

This one is me goofing around with my Yamaha XS8 on a slow-n-easy jazz/funk beat (complete with mistakes!). Compare the video and stereo audio on this page to what you see and hear on the Youtube page.

Here’s another comparison with just a classic 12-string guitar sound you can compare to the one on the Youtube page.

Yes, it can sound like a piano too (this is the S700 Piano Sample) – compare to the Youtube page version:

Ok – enough of my feeble attempts at making a keyboard sound like a guitar – watch this (high quality with stereo whereas the Youtube page itself is nowhere near as good) to see how a true master does it – Steve Vai playing Tender Surrender:

I have been experimenting lately with how to get the best quality video and audio uploaded to youtube.com. Turns out there’s a bit of voodoo involved in order to achieve the best results.

Here’s my latest attempt (a video of me goofing around with my Yamaha XS8 keyboard):

My other feeble attempts are here: http://www.youtube.com/user/jerry4260

Thus far I’ve found plenty of good info on how to do much better than what I’ve done thus far:

• Hi-Res YouTube Hacks
• YouTube HD
• How To Make YouTube Videos Look Great
• An interesting forum thread at videohelp.com

There’s also a bunch of good free or low-cost utilities out there such as the ones listed at videohelp.com

While I usually use Linux for nearly everything and I believe I could get by with only Linux-based software for this video stuff, I am still experimenting with the Windows-based software to find something that’s easy to use.