Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Software playability and Pianoteq

People want the imperfections from the 70's because it was ANALOG. Even an expensive tape cassette sounds more real to me than cd. There's a depth to the tone that is absent in digital recordings, and that goes for digital pianos and VST's as well.

Lets think about this for a sec. Theren is NO digital guitar, mandolin, violin, cello, and piano that sounds just like its real analog counterpart. Why is that? Despite having frequency response curves at 99k hz that they can analyze, dissect, and reproduce perfectly, there's something missing. Something more that isn't present in the digital waveform.

People don't want tape hiss, crackly LP sounds, they want analog. And they feel adding these imperfections make it sound more analog.

And when you listen to comparisons of a sampled piano and the real thing, you are still handicapped by the digital median. So Soundcloud and/or youtube, youre missing a huge piece of the real sound.

We are a looooong way from recreating the tone of acoustic instruments.

You really need a new computer, Peter.
You earlier mentioned a 1.8 GHz processor with 2 GB memory. That's a mid-2000s unit. Not good enough.
Get a better computer! You'll be able to leave the tech behind and focus instead on the music.

No digital piano can replace an acoustic piano.
My VPC1 setup is a nice simulation, I enjoy to practice on it with headphones when I must play silent.
But I will always prefer to play on a second hand 500$ upright acoustic piano, than on the best high end digital piano, if possible.

Having that said, digital keyboards have their place in the music world, and one can use them for things you can't and not suppose to do on an acoustic piano.
Digital can't replace acoustic and vice versa.

There have been several times when opening my Pianoteq Standard that I'm shocked by the horrible sound quality. In every case it was my error by opening a wrong instrument preset. Examples being instruments that defaulted to no custom velocity profile, too high PT volume, too wide dynamic range setting, etc. Most definately this can result in what I read here such a "metalic" sound and bad velocity changes across the octaves.

When I read about those with latency issues I can say that I have had none when playing direct. I have a high end Cardbus Echo Indigo IO sound card and midi to usb interface feeding a mixer, 100w amp JBL passive sub woofer and JBL satallite speakers. The sound card had its own asio driver but since Windows 10 I have had to use ASIO4ALL which works as well.

Latency can become a significant issue when using DAW software. Playing Pianoteq whilst the computer is playing back recorded tracks or adding effects can make live playing like playing a pneumatically controlled pipe organ which can have a 500ms latency. (I used to play one)

I own a very expensive Blüthner acoustic piano and I have a friend who owns a Steinway B he is also a director of a music Conservatoire. So we both are well aware of the sound quality and nuances of acoustic pianos. I let him play the Pianoteq modelled instruments I have which is the Blüthner Model One and Steinway B add-ons. His immediate reply on playing the Steinway sound was "amazing that sounds exactly like my Piano"

I doubt that those who only download the Pianoteq demo have spent enought time evaluating anything other than its stock settings or invested some time asking other PT users for assistance to improve their sound experience. Also are they using a suitable keybed for playing the piano sounds, i.e. has it fully weighted keys like the Kawai VPC-1 or similar?

The Pianoteq website has many recordings of their different pianos. I have listened to them all and none sound metalic or otherwise less enjoyable than I experience with my own setup.

Ian

Earlier in this thread lizzard said
I cannot get a good sound from pianoteq yet many people really like it ... there is a plasticy kind of sound that I just cannot adjust out

He's right.

EssBrace said
You are not alone. It seems to be a characteristic of almost all modelled piano sounds. There is just not enough sonic detail contained in the algorithms.

He's right.

My take is ... I've tried every version of Pianoteq since around 2010. I've been disappointed every time. The sound stinks.

The main benefit of Pianoteq is that the free demo allowed me to avoid paying money for a stinker. (I've paid full price for several stinkers over the past half-dozen years.)

You're wrong.

And here is the center of something.

I really want to learn about the creative process and piano playing specifically as it is a common reference point here.

It is all good that some like this and some like that . There is no right or wrong just choices that we are fortunate to have .

I wonder if playing styles come into it as I have always been about getting a good sound, even in my young lead guitar days with valve amps over driven by transistor distortion pedals . (early seventies)
I always got good audience response because I had a sound that reminded people of all the stuff about at that time ..I was never really a good musician but lets face it early heavy rock was hardly difficult. There were times that I actually did a good performance but they were not often enough to fly high on the life style in my case.

So is it just those who are less interested in formal music reading (like myself) that don't like pianoteq?
My version of a successful session is not consciously playing anything and just listening to whatever my fingers seem to do at the time .
I usually kick of with a minor of some type and often transpose my keyboard just to remove monotony.
This is all for my own enjoyment I have no interest in playing for money or doing covers of any kind ...If i hear something I like I will learn it and immediately branch of into something that was inspired by the original but often will have different timing .

This forums diversity may help with answers to some of the nuances that exist in the creative realm .

I do know that creativity comes thru a person and is not built like a house ...but then there is modern rap !

I guess i would like to know ,and hope that others would share this curiosity about what make us like one sound and not another .

digital pianos are the very best example I know and pianoteq is right there and is a good test case .

The example I use is Pianoteq (any of the pianos) vs truepianos Diamond as chalk and cheese . Not right and wrong ....yet you could replace the true pianos with alicis keys or vintage d or piano in blue etc . but then we get int a modeled vs sampled debate. but the latter are examples of where there is no "raspiness"

I think we can all learn something from this ,At least am fascinated by this .


So specifically I wonder if there are those who have a similar style and attitude to what I describe as my own that really like Pianoteq.?
I know it is difficult question and i hope to have put it in context well enough to not be judgemental

I think it's mostly a matter of how a piano behaves versus how a piano sounds.

If you play classical music -- especially from the Romantic Era, you use the pedal a lot and incorrect/incomplete pedalling/resonance implementations are glaring. This is why a lot of people say they over-pedal when switching from a digital to an acoustic.

And if you play classical, you probably have to practice on acoustics often and you end up with the first hand knowledge of the wide range of acoustic pianos. Many acoustics if you made a recording of, people here would say it's from some cheap/fake digital. So if Pianoteq sounds like "a piano" but not your perfect ideal of a $250K grand, well how much different is that from the broken-down clunker you had to use because it was the last piano room available at your school? (Pianoteq is most likely better the majority of shared/abused pianos.)

If you play pop/jazz/rock, you probably won't notice the difference in what Pianoteq provides. Instead, you want clear sharp sound to cut through to your audience.

While I appreciate the responses, I feel the thread has veered off topic.

I was specifically trying to focus on the subjective claims of "playability". I've often heard Pianoteq described as very "playable", regardless of how one feels about its overall quality. I realize this is a nebulous notion, but that's why I'm interested in people elaborating on their thoughts.

Does anyone find any other piano software to be particularly "playable"? That is, if, unlike me, you understand what that's supposed to imply!

To me, all the problems I have with playing an acoustic are here in Pianoteq. . . . . how's that? I'm learning slowly to adapt. And don't want to rely, or indeed play the native Roland much either although it still sounds pleasant enough . .

You're not sure what "playable" means?Well, I don't know either!
Perhaps the question should be revised?

Playable means difficult. I find acoustic pianos difficult because they are so sensitive. Digital pianos, you can just hit them hard, or soft, and they have this very balanced even response. Acoustic pianos will sound like crap if your playing is crap. Pianoteq is the only thing that makes you sound like crap if your technique is crap.

I recall playing a grand for the first time, a Yamaha, and thought wow, this is waaaay too sensitive for all the things I do on a digitial piano. It felt like it was out of control. You really have to be mindful of your touch when playing acoustic. And again, Pianoteq recreates that requirement.

It also means response and functioning, is it really working (action response and pedal) or just imitating with half functional digital software where 95% of sample pianos in the market have some kind of problems (bad recording, natural hardware and software limitations in the process with dead recorded sound by default) bad scripting for samples with mostly velocity problems without full functional pedal despite some of them have a very good sound. Yes, on acoustic it is hard to hide, its so loud with more power, direct control, overtones, bad technique bad sound. Maybe for pop, rock, scoring, problems in a sample pianos as a backup in the band or movies are not so visible nor important too much, but for classical music and practicing is crucial.

First, if you want to sound competent, don't confuse "analog" with "acoustic". Acoustic musical instruments are a complete different thing than analog electronics.


Digital sampling is just a (perfect) snapshot of an analog signal. Whatever got recorded, gets reproduced - with all imperfections.


No problem. You have have all that LP crackling and tape hiss you want, then record it digitally and reproduce it perfectly. If you like the distortions of tube pre-amplifiers, just chain it into the signal path and let the ADC pick the signal up behind it. If you like tube PAs more than transistors, just feed the DAC output to one and it will distort the signal for you. The tube doesn't care from where it comes from.

I have digital recordings of cassette tapes I bought and recorded decades ago: Unedited - as they came out of the tape deck (because I see no point in trying to "digitally remaster" the sound, just made one proper recording). These files are more convenient to access and it saves from wearing down tapes and decks (which are both not made anymore). On proper equipment these digital analog recordings are indistinguishable from playing back the analog original medium.

I certainly find Pianoteq highly playable; I think it's actually TOO playable. By that, I mean there is a linearity across the dynamic range that you really don't get on any acoustic, and which means (a) moulding the sound becomes a bit too easy, i.e. not ideal practice for transfer to an acoustic; and (b) the sound becomes too bright at higher amplitude (harder key press), and too muffled at lower amplitude (softer key press). I was playing the Steinway D4 on Classical BA settings earlier, and in quiet passages it really did sound as though the soft pedal was on. This is not at all what a Steinway D actually sounds like in quieter passages, but it's the problem with extrapolating a model that works well in the midrange. I don't know what the Pianoteq development plans are, but I think modelling dynamic nonlinearity, ideally on a per-instrument basis, has to be on the shortlist somewhere.

I have mixed feelings about Pianoteq more generally. On the one hand, the playability really is nice; if your touch curve is set up correctly, all of the acoustic pianos that I've tried on there are very playable (possibly except the popular Bluthner, strangely enough, but I probably haven't set that up properly), and quite enjoyable from a sound shaping perspective. On the other hand, they are all acoustically disappointing.

To me, the soundscape seems to be set up for multiple, undamped sounds in a reverberating environment. They generally sounds good, both pleasant and fairly realistic. It's probably not accident that most of the classical demos at least are of exactly that type of music. Where it falls down, oddly enough, is in a single tone. I haven't heard any single tone on any of the acoustic piano sounds on there that I've tried, that sounds like an a real acoustic piano. Some of them (e.g. the K4) are laughably poor; that reminds more of an 80s synth in the middle registers.

I want to like Pianoteq, I really do. It's very easy to get going, and on my setup at least, I've never had any problems with compatibility or latency, it really was plug and play. It's not excessively expensive considering what you get, although I think the instrument prices could do with being cut somewhat. But at the moment, the physical modelling is still not quite good enough to capture the essential acoustic sound in a way that sampling does.

It would be nice to see the two approaches somehow combined. Sampling obviously suffers from a problem of excessive non-linearity, i.e. terracing effects, and while individual tones can sound great, they don't always work well in combination. Pianoteq's physical modelling suffers from the opposite problem - it all works well in combination, but it's excessively linear and individual tones sound artificial. Something that takes the best elements of both would be great.

"

There is nothing 'missing' in digital recordings vs analogue, in fact there's far more missing in a cassette or vinyl recording. They might be analogue but there are physical limits that mean they cannot compete with a CD in dynamic range etc. What hasn't helped CDs is that tracks released for cd are often mastered appallingly but that's not a limitation of the medium.

What likely is missing from digital pianos is simply the method of sound production, some cone speakers, or even a soundboard is unlikely to ever be able to replicate a 300+kg acoustic piano where the whole thing is vibrating. It would be no different using analogue internals and samples (were that to actually be practically possible).

One of my friend which is an advanced piano player was really convinced by the Yamaha Transacoustic. The only thing which puzzle him was the Grand piano sound coming from un upright ! I suppose this means we can have good results with the digital way... We just have to use an adequate type of speaker to send the digital signal to the room.

Using a whole upright piano as a speaker for a digital grand seems to work well.

I completely disagree. I have analog equipment fully restored. Perhaps you are correct in cd's not being remastered well, but comparing an original LP with the CD counterpart is light and day. Digital is 2d, and analog is 3d. With the proper equipment, analog allows you to be in the room with the musicians. I can hear it well, as can many others. It's certainly a healthy debate.

I believe the example of digital instruments (such as guitars, mandolins, cellos, violins, pianos) is a glaring example of the boundaries of digitalness. Why is it that a digital acoustic guitar sounds nothing like the real thing? Because there's more to the story than a perfectly modeled waveform at 99.2khz.

I don't know if when having an LP and its CD counterpart, they are mastered the same. You may also have some coloration from you LP player.

A good experience would be to record the LP with a good audio interface in a WAV file and compare the direct signal from LP with its digital copy. Then, you will be certain to have the same mastering and judge only the medium. It would be interesting to try 44.1kHz and 88.2kHz.

(You may also listen directly with a software monitoring, no recording is needed)