Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Pianoteq 4 released

but can't you see at all?
because we know you cannot hear

The problem I have with it is that it sounds like a piano that's been put into a large metal drum, with sound coming out one end of the drum. But that end of the drum is covered with a blanket. That's what I'm hearing.

Note: That applies to the middle octaves, say F3 through F5. Up higher it doesn't have that bad quality. Down lower it doesn't have that problem either, though it's a bit bass heavy.Yes, it's a bit metallic at the high end, but that's scarcely its main fault.

Here is a little comparison I did between PianoTeq 4.0 and a Baldwin Concert Grand I recorded back in 1981 by myself. I attempted to re-create the tune using PT4. It's slightly different because I play by ear and there is no chart. The Baldwin was recorded on a TEAC A3440 with dbx and Nakamichi CM100/300 mics. All live, no editing or FX. The PT4 was recorded yesterday, Classical BA preset, no editing (thus the mistakes!). These are NOT my best performances at all, but I think the two sound very similar. Judge for yourself.

I love PT4, but I am biased

http://soundcloud.com/stevenolaughlin/i-cannot-hide

http://soundcloud.com/stevenolaughlin/i-cannot-hide-pt4-d4-classical

SteveO42, that sounded just fine, both recordings and I didn't hear much difference between the acoustic and PT4. Nicely played, might I add.

I was thinking if the PT4 sounded more metallic, but maybe I just think that because I knew beforehand that I was not listening to the real piano. When you posted the recordings, maybe you should have left it for us to guess which was which?

How powerful does one's computer have to be to run Pianoteq or any of those virtual piano sounds? Do I need a good sound card/graphic card and speakers?

Thank you for the kind words.
For *me* previous versions of PT *did* sound metallic. This version is far different and I don't hear that at all.

As for computing power, I have an i7 Intel with 16G memory and 4 7200 WD drives with 64MB buffers and even on MY system, it sometimes struggles with some sample based programs.
This is mostly due to the fact that I am not trained, my fingering is awful so I tend to pedal a lot to "smear" the runs etc together. I also tend to do a lot of runs, glisses and so forth and this uses HUGE amounts of resources.

With PT, it just cruises along.
Never a problem with cut off notes and so forth.

For DAW work, a high end graphics card is NOT needed.
A basic Nvidia card will be fine.
PT is one of the lowest resource hogging programs you will find.

Just my 2 cents.

All that computing power and it struggles with piano libraries? Something is not right.

I have a paltry 1.7 GHz Duo with 2 GB RAM, and it cruises through piano libraries. I can even run a Pianoteq alongside of Galaxy/Kontakt without problems.

To elaborate, PT does NOT struggle. Ivory 2 and some of the Kontakt based pianos sometimes do struggle. Understand I run these balls out. Every option turned on, most notes etc.
I also tend to play a lot of notes.

It all depends upon what you are playing.

nice work steve042.

i thought the pianoteq version sounded very clean.

you know that baldwin would make a helluva sampled piano!

Thanks for the kind words!

I agree, even though I am a Steinway fan, Baldwin offers a very sweet sound....Maybe the fine folks at Modartt will listen to us

The late Roger Williams started out with Baldwin. I bought my girlfriend a double LP album for her and the cover had a picture of him with his Baldwin piano - and as I recall, he endorsed them.

Glenn

Beautiful play, great sound Baldwin (I tried this once grand piano on the show and I liked its sound - a soft, home, very helpful).
Pianoteq sounds more metallic (like metal strings of the guitar than nylon), but it adds an interesting new character, and it sounds very natural - it seemed to me harder.

Nice song,played well, and an interesting comparison, Baldwin sound was unknown to me ...
If it does not bother you, would it be possible for you to send me this song in "Midi" via Pianoteq, I think I can "recreate" the sound of your Baldwin.
Yours sincerely

about that metallic sound comments - maybe you guys have amalgam tooth fillings and great dynamics of pianoteq resonate in your heads?

You might be surprised, but the acoustic piano strings is metal!

bingo, was his name

Based on how Pianoteq sounds, one can be sure that acoustic pianos are also made of tin foil, with folded sheet iron keys.

no, one can be sure only you have broken ears.

Yep. And do my broken ears cost me a fortune! If only I had ears like yours and was happy with non-expensive software emulations... But my damn broken ears keep asking me to buy a real Steinway.

Piano_Shark, if you are unwilling to hear the metallicness of PT beyond that of an acoustic piano, you really have lost your objectivity, and in a serious way. While the strings of an acoustic are metal, the soundboard is not, and good acoustic pianos are never described as sounding metallic.

It's one thing to like PT while recognizing it's flaws. It's quite another to deny that they exist.

I think it's interesting that a complaint about both Pianoteq and Roland SuperNatural is that they can sound "metallic" -- that's not a common criticism of DPs in general, and the attribute that these two DPs in particular share is that they are both modeled implementations.