Crumar Seven
I promised to funnel back my experience with the Crumar Seven and while I am awaiting a replacement unit, I did have some time to play with it and report back on the pros and cons of this board. But let me first tell you that I am not an E-Piano fan per se, never owned one of the classics Fender, Wurlizer, or Clavinets. I am a synth guy that was taught Piano and switched in the teenage years. So, to ask me if something is faithful to all above would be wrong. Regarding Piano, I obviously learned on a real piano but adapted to the Korg line just fine. I like my keys a little bit more firm to give better dynamics. That also tells you about my reception of a good board, I like a pleasant sound, e- or acoustic piano. I just tell you that you can put my sentiment about the Seven into perspective.
Let me start with my research about the Crumar Seven. This piano seems to polarize, some people think the sound or keybed are inferior and don;t live up to what is presented here and others love the sound and how well it plays. I went through almost all sound examples on YT and I thought it does sound great. I was pleasantly surprised that most of the sounds are modeled, some sampled though and when I played it in the store it left a very positive feeling. That positive, that I ordered one when they became available for a decent price.
The outside is imitating a Fender piano obviously and is practical in the sense that it has place for another keyboard on top of it. I haven’t tried that yet, but the surface is metal and it seems stable enough. Others show a Nord on top, so here you go. Like I said, the form factor was not important to me, since I have no connection with the originals. Now, the form factor, however, dictates that the knobs and buttons are in almost 90 degree position to the key bed, which is not the optical ergonomic position, to be honest. It is not the worst either and after all, it protects the knobs from being sheered off as well. In dim lighting the LEDs can be awfully bright. Too bright to read the words of the metal plate, showing the functions of the buttons. Also, taking the angle of the user sitting upright, the selection LEDs (e.g. banks, effects, etc) are not easy to see since the LEDs are shining through the one opening above the intended one. But I have to say, that there are only a few functions accessible from the front and that I remediate the shiny LED by holding my finger above them and used the reflective light to use the function. After a few hours you know what is what, and it becomes less of a problem.
The keybed is a Fatar TP100LT, which I read negative comments about in the reviews. But when I played the unit in the store, I found the keys pleasant to play and they translated the dynamics quite well. They are not as heavy as I like them, neither they have the escapement like the newer, piano style keys you get from Roland and Yamaha, but they play just fine and go very well with all the sounds in the Seven, even the acoustic pianos. I believe that you get used to the keys over time anyway. Doesn’t have to be Steinway for me, and it certainly isn’t. But it fits the overall scheme of the piano very well.
Like I said, there are 10 sound engines in the unit, the pads including. Some are modeled, some are samples. The board itself has some knobs for Volume, Reverb, EQ, 2 EFX, Amp simulation, and a Pad sound that can be mixed to your main sound. Most of the illuminated knobs have two functions, which can be accessed by a short push on them. A longer push switches the function on or off. The timing is critical since it doesn’t leave much room for errors, but after a while you get the hang on it and it works actually very well. The settings you can adjust are fairly small, compared to the vast amount of settings available via the browser. But they get you going and are helpful for live adjustment. Especially the EQ I used a lot for fine tuning. But for example, to change an Amp simulation, you will need to dig into your browser, while you can adjust the volume and drive at the unit itself.
There are 8 sounds in bank 1 that are presets. They give you a good starting point. The other 3 banks can be overwritten by your own creations. But the presets are all very direct and powerful sounding and can be used out of the box. I personally started with them and build up my own bank with less direct sounds, just using the Sevens functions directly. I like the take the edge off the sound and gave it more warmth using EQ and effects. You can reach quite some spectrum of sounds this way. But one you log into the Seven network and set your browser it opens up a sheer amount of functions and setting for each, the sounds as well as the effects. Far beyond what you can do on the board itself and it would take me a long time to go through all of the functions. But let me say, there is a Reverb, EFX1 (tremolo and Wahs), EFX2 (Chorus, Flanger, Phaser), Amp simulation with approx 5 different models, and a 3 band EQ. All effects do sound good and add to the overall sound. The Pad synth, is another thing that makes the sound warm and gives it sustain. Not for everyone but in very little doses it does wonders. BTW, the encoders are multiple turns and can be used for very fine adjustments. The change the color according to their setting and working really well, once you understand them better.
So finally, the sounds: The sounds of the E-Pianos are great, at least from my perspective. The sound like what I am used to on the older records. All of them are modeled, while there are samples for each piano as well. But for my taste, I liked the models better and they give you much more dynamic response than the samples. Before turning on the acoustic piano, I would like to address the additional sounds, like the MKS piano, which sounds a little outdated (I guess it is) and the DX piano. Actually, the DX section has multiple instruments, like Brass, wurlizers, tines, etc. Some very cheesy sounds that by themselves are rather bad. Surprisingly, these sounds work great with the effect and pad section and give you some great sounds as shown in bank 4. Actually, I made my own ones and the cheese Wurlizer was melted into the pad sound with heavy chorus in something else. So, what I thought was sub par at the beginning, turned out to be a feature of much sonic pleasures.
The acoustic piano was much of hate in these reviews I watched/read and I think it had its merit. But let me explain a little deeper. The model of the acoustic piano sounds like an upright at best. You can adjust all kind of things, but I think that all of these sounds have too much cabinet sounds incorporated. Yes, you hear that when you sit directly at the piano itself, but when you mic your piano or grand these sounds become faint. So, dial them back and it gets better. You will need the web-browser to do that, as for most of the other functions. The model has some other artifacts that I would not consider as great. Stretch-Tuning can give you certain keys with a very noticeable ring, especially at sustain. While certain amount of ring is in every piano, this ring was only to be heard on a single note and way to dominant. Ok, you can get rid of it, but sometimes it also just moves to a different key/pitch. Also, there are some break points in the sound, as if you switch from one to the other sample when getting up or down the keys (we are talking the model there though). Overall, I was not very impressed with the acoustic piano model. I got some sounds that I liked, but it is missing the body and then some. So, I can see what people in the review are saying.
Now, the Seven has multiple different sampled pianos (also all the e-pianos are here in a sampled form), and again, the SGI Grand is so la la, mediocre at best. But what Curmar has done was the addition of the Venice Grand, in open and closed form and that sampled piano is up to the standard I was expecting from one of the big players. Reviews stated that these pianos are on par or even better than the Nord ones. I can see that. So, all is good in the acoustic piano world for me. Love the open Venice just right of the box. Just a little EQ and you have what you would expect. The closed one is nice too, just different horses for different courses. Since this was a recent addition, I can totally understand the sentiment of early reviews. On the other hand, the electric piano model is great. Not sure if it sounds like the CP, but it sound good by itself.
So, the web browser, set on the Seven;s network works great. Sometimes I got a static noise sound when adjusting parameters on my iPad of phone and play the keys but without the browser connected I never had any problems. The browser though opens up the piano. You can switch everything right there from your iPad, choose the model/sample, edit the piano with tens of functions, and do the same to all effects and pad. It is done very nicely and gives you all kind of control over the sound. Once you are happy, save the sound by pressing down the button for 3 seconds and voila,. Very intuitive to use. In general, while I read through the manual before receiving the unit, I found myself just fine with the piano and browser itself. Maybe I should mention that effect parameters can be assigned to Midi CC. I have to checked that out though.
So, to wrap it up here, the Crumar Seven is maybe not for everyone. Some probably find the keybed to light or not enough piano like (wile it matches the e-pianos probably very well), some find the sound not close enough to the original, and some don’t like the design. But playing just the instruments offered, the samples provided, the models implemented doesn’t do this board justice. It goes far beyond a normal rompler. It gives you lots of controls over the model used, which makes it perfect to dial in to your own, personal taste, in both, the playability and the sound. But like I said above with the example of DX sounds, the unit goes far beyond just playing the model/sample, it gives you lots of options to create your own thing. I will have to record some of these examples once I have my replacement, but it has the capability to turn mediocre into something beautiful and fully controllable. Something new, something warm and wide sounding. You don’t care anymore if there was a break point or if the model didn’t sound exactly the same.
Most importantly for me, though, is that it is fun to play. How often we heard that the Korg SV is fun to play even the sounds couldn’t fully compete with the competitors. Now, I would question the last comment with all what Crumar has added recently. It is a very capable board but it certainly remains to be a very fun board as well. I am really looking forward just sitting down with the Seven, coming up with ideas and also incorporate the results in my music. These will be hours of fun...
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