I’ve just installed Etude Elements. It has a very dark and mellow sound through all presets. The only way, I can achieve the bright Yamaha-sound as heard in the presentation video with Dom Sigalas is by selecting Squared Inverse in the Dynamic control.
What am I doing wrong?
I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong. I have the same response to the “Elements” version as you. I’m a huge “The Grand” fan and found it incredibly user friendly. But with Etude Elements I’m struggling to get a sound I really like. I was just about ready to make a post about how dark I though the Etude sounds were. I have been able to create a couple of presets that are more to my liking, but it did take a fair amount of tweaking.
I’ve found myself going back to The Grand more often than experimenting with Etude Elements.
It’s just the way the instrument responds to keyboard dynamics … if that curve works for you, then there’s no problem leaving it set at that. You could also check your MIDI keyboard to see if it actually ever reaches the full dynamic range (127), or it may have inbuilt dynamic response curves.